How to Migrate Your Blog from WordPress.com to a Personal Domain

Last night one of my friends asked me the procedure to shift xyz.wordpress.com blog to my domain name using the self-hosted version of WordPress content management system (wordpress.org)

I thought to share this tutorial with all of you, After following this tutorial, all your old blog links will continue to work and your daily traffic will be redirected to your new site.

Similar to other bloggers, My friend started his first blog on wordpress.com simply because its free of charge and one doesn’t need any technical skills to setup the blog. But, After some months his blog got popular and he was not able to use other plugins, theme’s which he likes and the most important part “limitations of worddpress.com” on Google AdSense. So, he decided to migrate his blog to a personal domain and use wordpress.org.

Here are step by step guide to migrate WordPresss.com Blog to WordPress.org:-

Step #1: Buy a domain name and get a Webhosting account

Unlike wordpress.com you need own domain name & server space to host your new blog.

There are many websites to purchase a web domain name but I prefer Bigrock because they offer some special promotional codes by which you can buy a brand new domain as low as 1$.
Name.com is also good, here you can enjoy private registration without any additional fee (i.e your name & address will be hidden in whois records)

Webhosting: I prefer this web hosting’s for WordPress blog Bigrock, Bluehost, mocha host because they provide a big discount for new customers. Some hosts also provide free hosting for the first month(trial period)

Step #2: Move posts from wordpress.com to wordpress.org

Currently, we have a new domain and hosting space, let’s install wordpress.org now.

Nowadays all major hosting companies provide 1 click WordPress installation using tools like fantastico. You can install it manually as well, you can use any method which you feel comfortable but make sure that you have WordPress installed.

Next, go to the dashboard of old xyz.wordpress.com blog, Click on tools -> Export and save the .XML file to your local hard disk. Now in your new blog(xyz.com) go to the dashboard and click on Tools -> Import and click on WordPress which would be in the last place. upload the XML file which you download earlier from your last blog and click on “Import Attachments.”

Step #3: Redirect readers and search engines to your new blog
Your new xyz.com blog which we installed just now is just a clone of your old xyz.wordpress.com blog, your daily visitors and search engines know nothing of your new blog for that reason we need a system which redirects your old xyz.wordpress.com blog traffic to new xyz.com blog

To begin the above steps first login to your domain name registrar(the site from where you bought domain name). after login click on DNS (domain name server) settings so that your new domain redirects to xyz.wordpress.com servers.

Change the existing DNS name server to
ns1.wordpress.com
ns2.wordpress.com
ns3.wordpress.com

Now, move to xyz.wordpress.com blog’s dashboard, choose Upgrades > Domains. Type in the name of your new domain and click on “Add domain to blog”. Then press “Map Domain” when asked to verify that you wish to add this URL to the blog.

Domain Mapping is a premium service of wordpress.com and it will cost you 10$ p.a.

Once you added the new blog URL, you need to select your xyz.com domain as the primary domain address. To do this go to xyz.wordpress.com blog’s dashboard then Upgrade -> domain and select xyz.com as primary and update primary domain.

Step #4: Setback the DNS Name Server Changes

Now, in the last step, you need to change your domain DNS settings back to the original.

Login to your registrar site again and change the domain name server settings like it was before then save the changes, wait for some time and currently your both domain xyz.wordpress.com & personal domain(xyz.com) will take you to the new site.

All the Traffic, search engines, RSS readers, incoming links get redirected to your new personal domain.

Hope you like and enjoy this tutorial! If you still have any question then please feel free to ask me in the comment section.