An alternative to having a self-hosted WordPress Blog is to host on WordPress.com with a domain redirect (or domain mapping). It’s less expensive, and it’ll only cost you $9.97 instead of $60+ on a hosted server. Now, with WordPress.com “Upgrades” (or ‘credits), it will add up. But not nearly as expensive as a self-hosted WordPress blog. For instance, to get the look and basic function of a WordPress blog – here’s the Recipe:
- Create account with WordPress.com
- Purchase CSS ‘Upgrade’ to enable custom style to your blog (you can use their templates, but if you want a unique style {recommended} you’ll want to purchase this upgrade for $15)
- Purchase Domain Mapping (important to stand out to the visitor as a professional site, for only $9.97).
All in all, it’ll cost you $25 for a 1 year subscription. NOT BAD. But, also consider – you will have limitations, such as:
- No Plugins
- No Google Ads*
- You’re limited in customizing the style of your blog – to only CSS reconstruction.
Bright side:
- Free of server hassle and downtime (not to say WordPress.com doesn’t have downtime, but its far less than most self-hosted servers I’ve worked with)
*You can have ads, but they can only be HTML linked. No javascript/iframe/flash. You still CAN use Google Ads, but only in your RSS Feed using a custom feed with Feedburner.
You just need to ask yourself, what do you need. Contemplating your need and future plans will enable better judgment in cost effectiveness. Why spend more when you won’t use the added functions to your benefit. The nice thing about starting here at WordPress.com is that you can always export and then import to your self-hosted server later, while keeping bookmarks and RSS feed in tact with no followers lost. Google Search results will remain intact and you won’t lose any of those rankings either if you choose to go self-hosted in the future.
My 2 cents: Start here, get some followers from the fantastic WordPress community search results, wait roughly 3-6 months and then migrate if you need the added features that come with self-hosted WordPress blog.
Now, to answer : How do I create a CNAME for domain mapping on WordPress.com using GoDaddy?
- Login to your GoDaddy domain account.
- Click on Domains >> My Domain Manager
- Click on your domain you want to create a CNAME under
- Now, go down to Total DNS and click on ‘Total DNS Central’
- Then find where you set up CNAME ‘s (second section down) and click on ‘Add New CNAME Record’
- Make sure you have NO A(Host) names set up. Typically you would have set this up for a redirect to your wordpress.com address, by creating a CNAME record you are doing the opposite (having WordPress point to your subdomain). If your A(Host) record is still intact it will be the dominate and your domain mapping will not work. So make sure that is deleted before you take this next step. You’ll find that A(Host) record in the top section.
- In creating your CNAME the window will pop up, in the ‘Alias‘ section put the name of your subdomain. For example purposes I will use ‘Blog’. In the ‘Host‘ section place your wordpress.com address, for example purposes I will put ‘Blog.Wordpress.com’.
- With that set up, now return back to your WordPress.com Dashboard >> Upgrades >> Domains
- In the url section provided, type in your desired subdomain address, for example purposes I am using ‘blog.mydomain.com’ then click ‘Add domain to blog’
- The next step should take you to purchase credits using Paypal or their Merchant System to use a CC (if you don’t have a PayPal account, which I recommend PayPal as a safer route) . You will then have to back track on your Dashboard to Upgrades >> Domains and input your desired subdomain address again. Hassle, I know – but this is how it’s done.
- Now, it should take you to a similar screen like Step #10 but instead of ‘purchase credits’ it should say ‘Buy’ using your 9.97 credits. Click ‘Buy’.
- Now back to Upgrades >> Domains, last step is to select your newly added subdomain address and click ‘Update primary domain’.
That’s it! WordPress.com says it’ll take up to 72 hours to update itself. For me it took all of 7 min. Pretty darn fast. 
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Incredibly helpful!
Real world instructions that are easy to understand.
That was so helpful, thanks a million!
Godaddy is an unbelievable nightmare for this. I had more fun and results wading around the Windows Registry in my PC days. Between eight Godaddy reps, none of them knew much about what a cname record was.
Eating humble pie – strike that earlier comment – I’d been trying for almost a week to get the mapping to work, at all was for naught because I’d half-started the process of self-hosting a WordPress last year, never finished it, but what I had done was keeping the server from properly resolving the address.. After the last and most patient, intuitive Godaddy rep started work on it, the process was completed perfectly.
I tried this and received the following error message in the WP.com dashboard:
Possible problem with mydomain.org
We were unable to verify that sub.mydomain.org is pointing to WordPress.com. If you own this domain, follow the directions below to get it ready for your blog. If you don’t own it, try a different name to see if something else is available. If the domain is available, you may be able to register it with another registrar and then map it to your blog.
How to fix it
You must make some changes to your domain before we can continue. (Sorry about the technical jargon!) The preferred method is to use the tools provided by your registrar to add a CNAME record. It should look like this:
main 14400 IN CNAME account.wordpress.com.
Each registrar has its own method of adding CNAME records. The important parts of this record are your subdomain (“main”) and your original blog domain (“account.wordpress.com”).
Note: The WP.com instructions specifically say NOT to change any CNAME information if all one is trying to do is map a subdomain.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-subdomain/
Therefore I am sort of lost as to what happened and how to fix it.
Separately, could you clarify: is a user supposed to delete the existing A (Host) record before changing/adding the appropriate CNAME record to map to WP.com? Or is the user simply not supposed to change that A (Host) record?
Thanks in advance for any response. These instructions are much better than what is available from the WP.com site; we just were unable to get this to work thus far. Any help is appreciated.
Great Post! Love your blog! Btw I stumble onto this site that provides a Rss tool that converts any partial rss to full rss! Just wanna share with you guys: Full rss Have fun with it!
But isn’t the redirect for blogspot.com absolutely free?
You’re right, but when you weigh the features, sleek design, clean code, and “Google Juice” that WordPress provides – there’s no beating it. That’s my opinion anyways.
I apologize to everyone for my absence – I took on a full time job and have been extremely busy there. I hope to pick up the pace of responding to comments. I’m sure those of you who commented months back have found your answer by now. If you still have questions – please let me know. I’d be happy to do what I can to reply as quickly as possible. I appreciate you commenting and sharing your thoughts.
OMG, this worked like a charm!!! So EASY. no problems, domain was up and running in 10 minutes.
Thanks!
Hello
I have done a wordpress upgrade for mapping my wordpress blog to my newly purchased domain e.g.; mydomain.com. I have done all suggested changes in nameserver at hosting site and I can access my blog directly using address mydomain.com. But now I am thinking to use a sub-domain for hosting the blog say blog.mydomain.com and wish to use the default home page provided by my domain provider GoDaddy.com.
As I have already mapped mydomain to my blog.. My question is:
Can I map my blog to sub-domain blog.mydomain.com address without buying a new sub-domain..Do you think it is possible?
Thanks in advance.
regards
Pradeep
Anyone has a clue about what would be considered a reasonable charge for creating a subdomain at the registrars? My current one is charging me a little fortune … and I cannot find anywhere a sort of price comparison.
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