Unable to obtain MYSITE.wordpress.com subdomains
-
I recall seeing a solution or workaround to this issue in the forums in the last couple of years, but I’ve been unable to locate it, and haven’t found a solution in my searches of the forum.
The issue is essentially that described in the topic MYSITE.wordpress.com subdomains are no longer available?, in which @228orchard describes how all attempts to create a .wordpress fail, because inevitably
I am taken to the same page that offers many endings, none of which are “wordpress.com”. Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/6qOy6So
There was no solution provided in that topic.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
I should have specified that I’m referring to obtaining a dot wordpress.com subdomain at Create a site (https://wordpress.com/start/about?ref=create-website-lp). Like @228orchard, in each of several attempts I made today the subdomain endings offered were many and dot wordpress.com was not among the options.
On fourth or fifth attempt had success. I think perhaps the key might have been not responding to the questions on the first page of the creation process (titled “Let’s create a site.”), instead leaving the form blank and clicking the “Continue” button at the bottom.
-
You’re right; if you choose to create a blog you’ll currently be offered .blog subdomains.
-
That’s not the issue. The point in both the other topic I cited and in this topic is that it’s not clear how to obtain a WordPress.com subdomain should you want one. In this case the intention was to create another site in a series, with a similar address as the preceding one.
I was finally able to obtain a dot wordpress.com subdomain after several attempts, but I’m still not sure how I did it. As I said above it might have been by leaving the questionnaire blank at Create a Site, and clicking “Continue” at the bottom of the form, although I believe I’d done that also in previous attempts in which the dot wordpress.com option was not available.
It’s amazing to me that there are not frequent and loud complaints about this. All I’m asking is the following:
1. Let us keep creating dot wordpress.com sites if we choose to, and
2. Tell us clearly what steps must be taken in order to avoid the default .home.blog subdomain option. Make it easy to do so, and not a guessing game. -
Hi @musicdoc – Staff have said previously that clicking the Continue button on the first step at https://wordpress.com/start/about without filling out the questionnaire or ticking any of the check boxes should bring up a free .wordpress.com address option. It will appear below the paid domain options and may have a bunch of numbers after the keyword or if the name isn’t available it will offer the .home.blog option.
I don’t know if this is relevant, but I “added” a new site from the “Add New Site” link at the bottom of the My Sites sidebar when it shows all my visible sites and followed the above and was offered a .wordpress.com address.
Hope that helps.
-
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to add another tidbit for others that may come across this post.
Here’s how to change your website to a .wordpress.com address after account creation:
1. Go to My Site → Manage → Domains.
2. After you select a site, click on the domain you want to change. Then, there’s a section called Change Site Address. .wordpress.com should be an available option in the dropdown menu.
I’ve done this and can confirm it works. Although, you’ll need to log out and back in after changing it to access the renamed site.
Cheers!
-
Hi @justjennifer ~
Staff have said previously that clicking the Continue button on the first step at https://wordpress.com/start/about without filling out the questionnaire or ticking any of the check boxes should bring up a free .wordpress.com address option.
Thanks. I think I’d read that about a year ago, and then forgotten about it when I went to create a new site yesterday. But my tests have revealed some odd twists not included in that explanation:
Yesterday,
1. When I filled out the questionnaire and found that the .wordpress.com address option was not available, I decided to start the process over by clicking the back button and deleting my entries in the questionnaire, and then clicking the Continue button. In multiple attempts, this failed to produce the .wordpress.com option.
2. I believe I also tried starting from scratch at Create a site (https://wordpress.com/website-builder-website/), again with failure to produce the .wordpress.com option.
3. I finally had success on about my fourth or fifth attempt. I’m not sure why. I might have closed and reopened the browser. I didn’t switch to another browser or alter my browser settings.Today
1. I filled out the questionnaire at Create a site > Start your website, clicked Continue, and this time had immediate success. The .wordpress.com option was available, instead of the .home.blog option.
2. Success was obtained also when I left the questionnaire blank and went directly to the Continue button. The .wordpress.com option appeared instead of the .home.blog option.I hadn’t changed my browser or the browser settings from yesterday’s tests.
[The .wordpress.com option] will appear below the paid domain options and may have a bunch of numbers after the keyword or if the name isn’t available it will offer the .home.blog option.
In my tests, both yesterday and today, the .home.blog option or the .wordpress.com appeared above, not below, the paid domain options in every test.
Regarding the inconsistency of the subdomain option available when creating a new site — my tests produced different results from one day to the next, and even (yesterday) from one half hour to the next — I note that in the relevant topic that I cited yesterday, MYSITE.wordpress.com subdomains are no longer available?, staff member @gemmacevans said:
Thanks for trying those steps. I think I’ve worked out what is happening here. Under certain conditions, we are offering free .blog subdomains as an alternative to the standard .wordpress.com subdomains — this is why you aren’t seeing the option to select an address containing
.wordpress.com.No explanation follows as to what those “certain conditions” might be.
-
I don’t know if this is relevant, but I “added” a new site from the “Add New Site” link at the bottom of the My Sites sidebar when it shows all my visible sites and followed the above and was offered a .wordpress.com address.
Thanks. : -) The link you provided leads (if you choose the “Start Now” button on the left) to this page: https://wordpress.com/start/about?ref=calypso-selector, which is essentially the same as the page that I’ve been using in all respects, except that the URL’s ref tag is different. I would expect it produce the same results.
-
will appear below the paid domain options
On that point, never mind my previous comment. I see what you mean now.
-
No explanation follows as to what those “certain conditions” might be.
My thought is that this relates to the questionnaire and/or availability of the .wordpress.com subdomain. Only my thought.
FWIW-There’s at least 2 dozen new dotblog subdomains available, including .music.blog
-
Thanks for the link to the page about the new subdomains. I’d seen that a couple of days ago while searching for forum topics on this issue, but haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
Under certain conditions, we are offering free .blog subdomains as an alternative to the standard .wordpress.com subdomains
The reason why not explaining what the “certain conditions” are is disappointing, is that this is a response to a member who was trying, like myself, to avoid the .home.blog option and to obtain the .wordpress.com subdomain. What the conditions are for avoiding that and for obtaining the subdomain of our choice is precisely what we are trying to determine.
What are the “conditions” for obtaining the more than two dozen new dotblog subdomains you refer to? I’ve only seen two free subdomains offered in my recent visits to Create a site: 1. .home.blog, and 2. wordpress.com, which never appear at the same time. Also, the same steps produce either .home.blog or .wordpress.com inconsistently.
-
I might have closed and reopened the browser.
Yup. Likely stored data for that session.
What are the “conditions” for obtaining the more than two dozen new dotblog subdomains you refer to?
Noting some of the exposure to these is experimental stuff and A/B tests; I get that can be frustrating. But if you want to choose from any of the subdomains, the most surefire way to find that is to go to that site, and register from there.
You can test here if you’d like :) https://music.blog/
-
Yup. Likely stored data for that session.
That doesn’t explain why I’ve obtained different results on different days, after closing and clearing the browser, and rebooting the PC, when doing the exact same steps, as I explained here: reply #3307414.
Why this topic is still marked unresolved:
1. Still no explanation regarding how to consistently obtain a .wordpress.com address and not a .home.blog subdomain. That’s has been and remain the main purpose of this topic.2. A corollary to #1 is, why have I never seen these two options appear at the same time? Why must it be one or the other, seemingly arbitrarily, and not both?
3. Another corollary: No explanation has yet been provided about what the “certain conditions” are that sometimes produce a .blog subdomain rather than the desired .wordpress.com subdomain.
Regarding, the dozens of new dotblog subdomains:
You can test here if you’d like :) https://music.blog/
Thanks, that’s helpful to know, but registering for any of these new dotblog subdomains wasn’t even a small part of the focus of this topic until my most recent post when I mentioned it as another example of supposedly offered options that I haven’t been seeing during the process of creating a new site. I haven’t really considered the new dotblog options yet, but their availability elsewhere (not via create a site) doesn’t resolve the above questions.
If in the future I decide that I prefer the new dotblog subdomains, then my above questions might all be extended to include those. So in a nutshell the main question might become, in the future, why are not all of the options simultaneously available Create a site. including .wordpress.com and the dozens of dotblog options?
-
Correction:
“So in a nutshell the main question might become, in the future, why are not all of the options simultaneously available at Create a site.”
-
Regarding the .home.blog and other dotblog options. I’ve created hundreds of WordPress.com sites in the past 10 years. Have never once considered including the word “home” or the word “blog” in the address of a site.
-
Staff have said previously that clicking the Continue button on the first step at https://wordpress.com/start/about without filling out the questionnaire or ticking any of the check boxes should bring up a free .wordpress.com address option.
I’ve tried this repeatedly and it always works for me. If I skip to page 2 I get offered a free .wordpress.com address. Saying my site is about food or video and I always get offered a .food.blog or .video.blog address consistently. -
-
@magicrobot,
Staff have said previously that clicking the Continue button on the first step at https://wordpress.com/start/about without filling out the questionnaire or ticking any of the check boxes should bring up a free .wordpress.com address option.
I did not fail to read that information from @justjennifer above, nor to understand. However, as I’ve painstakingly explained above, my tests have not produced these results consistently.
Saying my site is about food or video and I always get offered a .food.blog or .video.blog address consistently.
That’s new information to me. Thanks! If somebody said that previously I missed it.
-
I did not fail to read that information from @justjennifer above, nor to understand. However, as I’ve painstakingly explained above, my tests have not produced these results consistently.
I’m not trying to get into an argument. I’m just describing what always happens for me. WordPress.com has always moved in mysterious ways.
- The topic ‘Unable to obtain MYSITE.wordpress.com subdomains’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 