Switching from wordpress.com to wordpress.org

  • Runandsmile

    (@runandsmile)


    10 years ago

    Hi and thank goodness for forums! I am definitely a newbie at blogging. As a matter of fact I only have my intro page and about page up. After reading a few books and tons of forum answers, I would like to switch to wordpress.org from wordpress.com. I have Bluehost as my host and purchased my domain through wp.com. I figure it would be easier to do before I really start posting. My questions are:

    Do I need to download wordpress.org first before switching over?
    Can I use Bluehost to do switch over from the .com to .org??? (Bluehost is very confusing to me)
    Will I lose my paid theme and domain name when I do switch?

    Please don’t laugh at me, at how new I am with all of this. 🙂 I look forward to any help.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • pinokio

    (@lapanwebsite)

    10 years ago

    You have to export posts or export database from wordpress.com first.
    If you can’t do that, than sorry, you’ll have to start all over again with posting.

    bemdesign

    (@bemdesign)

    10 years ago

    1) Bluehost has a one-click WordPress installer I believe. But I’ll be honest and say you’ll learn more (and have more control) if you do a manual installation of WordPress. This would require downloading the latest version of WordPress from here, unzipping it, and uploading the files to the server. You will also need to get a database set up on the server. Then you’ll need to create a wp-config.php file with the proper information and upload that to your server. This will start the WordPress installation process. See http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress for more information and actually I highly recommend reading through it to get a general idea of what you’ll need to do to install WordPress.

    If this seems a bit too overwhelming, consider installing a local server instance using WAMP/MAMP (local web server “stacks” that you can run locally) to play around with installing WordPress. If stuff breaks, delete the database and star over. As it’s not on a live, internet accessible site, you can feel free to mess around and figure out how WordPress does stuff.

    2) You will need to coordinate with Bluehost and WordPress.com on the switch-over.

    3) Domain name – no. That’s yours as long as you keep paying for it when it comes up for renewal. Paid theme – likely you’ll lose that as that paid theme was specifically designed and for use on WordPress.com.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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