Please let us redirect from wordpress.com! Will pay!

  • nobugsonme · Member ·

    I know auto redirects are not possible right now from WordPress.com. I Love WordPress, and am now hosting my own offsite. Not being able to redirect is a real problem, and I’d be more than happy to buy credits in order to do it. Here’s why:

    In April, my blog was mentioned in the SF Chronicle. Even though Google is indexing my new site, it’s optimized, I have a google-friendly sitemap, etc., but WordPress.com blogs (especially ones like mine that were on WordPress.com for 6 months) are really well indexed. That’s a nice function of using WordPress.com, but it also means when you move, it is hard for people to find you until you inch your way back up in the rankings. A month after the move, people are still getting the old site coming up first in google searches.

    So when the Chronicle mentioned my blog, print readers googled the name of the blog and got the WordPress.com site. The online version of the article brought 9000 people in one day to my new site. The same day, over 6000 people reading the print version googled and came to the old site instead.

    Now I’ve just found out we were also mentioned in a national print publication this month, and they printed the old address. (They must have done their research before we moved, but they never told us.)

    I realize people can click the link I’ve left to redirect them, but I am sure some people are lost on the way, and it’s frustrating. A month later, it’s as big a problem as it was.

    I LOVED having my blog hosted here, until I needed to move. WordPress.com is far and away the best blog host EXCEPT when it comes to this issue. I hate telling people that the one reason I won’t wholeheartedly recommend wordpress.com is because when/if you move to your own server, auto redirects are a hassle.

    Please consider letting us buy auto redirects? Surely this can be done somehow without allowing us to add Java willy-nilly, anywhere we like?

    Thanks!

  • drmike · Member ·

    Best bet would be to direct your request directly to staff via feedback or email. We don’t debate policy here in the forums.

    Gotta admit though that I see this as being too see to be abused by spammers.

    What you should have done when you moved was mark your blog here as Not indexable by search engine spiders, replaced your sidebar with a link to your new blog, asked folks to change their links. If you have a domain, all you had to do instead in that case was redirect the nameservers. Take two seconds to do either method.

    You’re the one who moved. You should have followed up and prevented this from occuring.

    Moved to ideas by the way.

  • nobugsonme · Member ·

    Actually Drmike, I appreciate that. I am trying to “follow up” and prevent this from happening.
    How do you mark a wp.com blog as not indexable? Thanks.

  • drmike · Member ·

    It’s Dashboard -> Options -> Privacy and check the box labeled “I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors” That will add in a “noindex,nofollow” to your blog and will slowly have it dropped from the search engines.

    Replacing the sidebar with a single text link will help folks find your new blog and maybe the print media won’t make this mistake again.

    You may want to send in a feedback and explain what is occuring. Since you have a legit request for forwarding, they may go ahead and do this for you in this case. I don’t see as a standard feature. It would be a matter of what occurs with domain squatters when they pick up expired domains.

    Good luck,
    -drmike

  • nobugsonme · Member ·

    Thanks drmike,
    Please delete this post. I get why redirects are a problem for wordpress.com.
    I did send feedback and will also make the adjustment you noted.

  • engtech · Member ·

    I think pay-for-redirects are a good idea. The fact that it’s a pay feature would prevent a lot of spammers.

  • drmike · Member ·

    *chuckle* Gotta say that I doubt it. A lot of the spammers I’m reporting here have their own domains here. They’ve paid for the domain mapping.

  • engtech · Member ·

    oh really?

  • jaroche · Member ·

    WTF! Spammers paid for custom domains, that’s a really surprise

  • timethief · Member ·

    It’s not a surprise to me because I’ve detected some myself.

  • nobugsonme · Member ·

    Support has said they cannot make any exceptions. They suggest I look into domain mapping. I understand what it is and how people can use it to direct traffic from a domain to a wp.com hosted site, but I really don’t understand how this will help since I am moving from bedbugger.wordpress.com to bedbugger.com.
    Can anyone explain? (Sorry if that’s an ignorant question.)
    I am back to being hugely frustrated.

  • drmike · Member ·

    I think staff may be getting it backwards. bedbugger.com was never here at wp.com, correct?

  • drmike · Member ·

    Mark’s talking about moving the blog back here and getting domain mapping for the domain and pointing the domain to your blog here. You would have to import your newer posts to your older blog to get it up to date though. After a time once folks have pointed their feed URLs to the new domain, you could then transfer it back to your offsite blog. If you did that, you should lose anyone unless they’re still pulling at the old bb.wp.com address.

    I feel like an Ombudsman.

  • nobugsonme · Member ·

    LOL thanks drmike. I appreciate it.

    I was using the bedbugger.com domain for 5 months while still at bedbugger.com. SO I did give people time to get used to the domain name (I thought). I followed this procedure:
    https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=4766&page&replies=2

    I thought people had time to adjust, and i physically moved it last month to a server. Google is indexing it, slowly. And I have just told it to stop indexing the wp.com site (which has been free of all posts except the redirecting one since last month).

    I moved because I needed to run ads (partly because the blog was using so much time) and am doing so now, so I’d be violating the TOS if I moved back. Also, today 13% of my traffic came via the old (wp.com) site. But when people read the current magazine article that’s just been released, citing the wp.com address, there will likely be many more.

    I am sorry to be difficult, and I do appreciate your help and suggestions.

  • drmike · Member ·

    Not a problem. I wish I could do something specific to assist but I think you’re stuck with the current setup. The removal of your old sidebar and replacing it with a single text widget to your new site has worked well in the past with other folks.

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