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Jennifer Crawshaw
17,878 PointsIs it required to purchase a new domain to take the Wordpress course?
Hi, I already have my own wordpress blog with its own domain, is it required to purchase a new one to use as a "student account" to go through this course? I do not mind fiddling here and there on my current page, but may not want to completely overhaul it.
5 Answers
Stone Preston
42,016 PointsYou could develop locally and not have to worry about messing with your current working site. Check out Local Wordpress Development for more info on how to get set up
Matt Campbell
9,767 PointsWith all wordpress.com sites, the domain will be something.wordpress.com. It's a sub-domain of wordpress.com that wordpress.com users have.
If you go to a domain that is yours that you've purchased, then you don't use wordpress.com, you use wordpress.org which is what the courses here will help you with.
To set up a sub-domain, go to your hosting account and add a sub-domain. You may be able to create a new database to go with that sub-domain as well. Then you can use it just like it was another domain altogether but, you go to subdomain.maindomain.com instead of just www.domain.com.
There is a lesson here on Treehouse somewhere that will help you out with this, can't for the life of me find where though.
Jennifer Crawshaw
17,878 PointsOk, my current site has it's own domain, but it is a wordpress blog. I went ahead and started a new domain anyway, though, so I can use one to experiment with!
Kurt Archer
5,139 Pointsare you on wordpress.com? that won't work. but if you have your own domain and wordpress installation, you could install a new wordpress installation in a sub-directory and use the same database, just be sure to change the prefix in wp-config.php from wp_ to something else
Jennifer Crawshaw
17,878 PointsI'm very new, so that was already above my head :-O
I think it is wordpress.com but I don't know for sure.
Kurt Archer
5,139 PointsActually, with wordpress.com you can buy your own domain so it is not necessarily something.wordpress.com. Which can add to some confusion. The tutorials will take you through a self-hosted wordpress site which is wordpress.org - this means in addition to a domain name, you are also paying for someone to host your content. Something like 1and1.com or MediaTemple or Bluehost.. etc etc To your original question, as Matthew pointed out, you don't need another domain name, your host will be able to setup a subdomain for you or just put it into another folder like: www.domain.com/mynewwpsite
Kurt Archer
5,139 Pointsthe easiest way to tell is if you are administrator for your site goto appearance and if you have editor enabled then its wordpress.org if you can't edit the CSS or PHP files from within wordpress, then it is a wordpress.com site. Wordpress.com is restrictive in that you won't be able to apply your own changes to themes or plugins to the site, so the wordpress modules won't be much help as it is geared towards you having full control over your site design and content.
Jennifer Crawshaw
17,878 PointsJennifer Crawshaw
17,878 PointsOkay I will look into that! Thanks!