Installing WordPress.org site on existing .com domain

  • Resolved keithyd6699

    (@keithyd6699)


    8 months, 3 weeks ago

    I’ve just taken my website off hosting by Bluehost/Justhost because the site was hacked twice in 5 months, the last time making it completely inaccessible. In mistaken haste, I signed up for a WordPress.com account, forgetting the difference between .org and .com. I’ve spent 2 days recreating a very small site, just to have a presence, on my original domain, which I transferred from Justhost to WordPress.com, paying for the hosting and, I think re-registering the domain. Of course I’ve since discovered that .com is useless – no plug-ins, no back-ups, no Elementor etc, unless you pay extra for them.
    My question is, having created this small site and moved my domain to WordPress.com, along with the new site, could I create a better site in .org and have it hosted on .com, seeing as I’ve already paid for the hosting? I’ve used some plug-ins in the past and I’d like to use them again – e.g. Elementor – so if I created a site in .org and somehow migrated it to .com, would these work, or would I have to pay for them to work?
    Any help appreciated!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator threadi

    (@threadi)

    8 months, 3 weeks ago

    Even if you are wrong here in the forum, I would say: no, you can’t do that. You can ask wordpress.COM support for details: https://wordpress.com/support/

    I would rather recommend you to look for a hoster for your web. I don’t think Bluehost is to blame for hacked websites. Maybe you should give them a 2nd chance. Also contact their support to clarify your domain issue.

    Thread Starter keithyd6699

    (@keithyd6699)

    8 months, 3 weeks ago

    Thanks for the quick reply. I realise I’m being optimistic but I thought I’d ask the question. As I mentioned, my website was hacked twice in 5 months, and while their Live Chat tried to be helpful all I got, at least initially, was ‘We’ll run a scan of the files and you can find the list of infected files [here:] and then disinfect them. ‘ The list turned out to be several hundred files, and they gave me no idea how to disinfect the files anyway – at least until a day later, when they sent an email explaining the process AFTER I’d transferred my domain to WordPress.com. I didn’t want to take the chance again, so I started afresh. Having new DNS addresses on WordPress.com ensured that the site didn’t point to infected files again.

    Moderator threadi

    (@threadi)

    8 months, 3 weeks ago

    In my experience, a scan and cleanup almost never solve a hack. My recommendation: first read this article:

    FAQ My site was hacked

    After that I would recommend checking whether you still have a clean backup. If necessary, ask the support of your hoster. If so, delete all files and the database and restore the backup. Then change all access data in the hosting. This should solve the problem.

    So if you still have a clean backup of your website, use that.

    If you don’t have that, you can also hire someone to clean and secure it for you. However, this usually costs quite a bit of money. You can find offers for this online.

    Finally, you should secure your project. This is described in more detail in the article here: https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/hardening-wordpress/

    If you need personal help at any point and your host can’t help you, you may also find someone here: https://jobs.wordpress.net/

    Thread Starter keithyd6699

    (@keithyd6699)

    8 months, 3 weeks ago

    Thanks to the link from threadi, I found info about my question. It seems I could migrate a site from WordPress.org to .com, but I would have to have a more expensive hosting plan to do it, which I’m trying to avoid. Also, any plug-ins I used in building the .org site would have to be disabled, which rather goes against my wishes. So I’ll stick with .com for a while – it’s only a small, 3 page site anyway, and I doubt many people would visit it (it’s an author site, with links to my books and an About page, nothing exciting). Here’s what WordPress.com say about the process of migrating:

    Prerequisites

    To follow the steps in this guide, you will need:

    • Your source site: a WordPress site with any hosting provider. Multisite installations are not supported.
    • Your destination site: a WordPress.com website with our Business or Commerce plan. This site will be erased and replaced with the site that you import.
    • All incompatible plugins must be deactivated on the source site.

    If any WordPress core files (such as wp-config.php and functions.php) on the source site were modified, those changes won’t be migrated to the destination site. The migrated site on WordPress.com will run the most recent version of WordPress core and the latest compatible versions of PHP.

    George Appiah

    (@gappiah)

    8 months, 3 weeks ago

    Also, any plug-ins I used in building the .org site would have to be disabled,

    That’s not what the WordPress.com statement you posted says (with respect to their Business or E-commerce plans), unless all the plugins you used are on their “incompatible plugins” list.

    Every managed WordPress hosting provider has a few plugins they consider “incompatible” with their platform, and that’s what WordPress.com’s statement is talking about here… not “any plugin”.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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