Transferring the blog to Wordpress.org

I also want to transfer my domain as I have already purchased the domain from wordpress. 

You can find the details here

it actually leads to another page. That's why I don't read their support article. 

Which host should I prefer ? I was think about hostgator but it is not in their list ?

There is no need to read that another page. 

Here is the article for transferring to Hostgator. 

In short these are the steps you need to follow :

Login to your wordpress.com account. 

1. Go to Store → My Domains in your dashboard. 
2. Click on Edit Domain and then click on Transfer Domain.
3. Select both 'Disable domain lock' and 'Disable private registration'.
4. Click Email transfer code button.
5. The transfer code will be mailed to your email.

On Hostgator

1. Login to hostgator domain management at http://www.hostgator.com/domains 
2. Click Transfer Domain, enter your domain name and click ok.
3. Follow on screen instructions. (I never transferred a domin. So, I don't know what exactly you need to do :| )

• You will be asked to enter the transfer code. 
• You will also be asked to verify your administrator email. (the email with which you have registered on wp.com) A link will be sent to that email which you need to click to verify.

I have VPS hosting on Hostgator and I never had any problems. 

You can also try digitalocean.com ( I don't have an account over there but Hunky has. HG has been sending him warnings about resource usage. He shifted to DO and he is happy now for getting a faster server for 1/3rd of the price he was paying on HG. ) But it is an unmanaged VPS. It doesn't have a cPanel and you have to install everything manually through command line. (but it is a one time work)

(but it is a one time work)

Only if you manage to set it up, properly.

Yes 

WordPress doesn't have DNS services for the domain registered there ??

Rather transferring the domain, just update the DNS for new host you are about to get..

For Domain transfer, Godaddy / BigRock.. But they are full of ads 

I found Yahoo having the most simple and ads free domain control panel.. PDR is also good but their re sellers complicates the process..

For Domain transfer, Godaddy / BigRock.. But they are full of ads

Why bother about those ads? They exist only for 1-2 days till you set up your website, right? 

I bother because why would I see ads when I have paid for a service..

Give Yahoo Domains (yahoo small business) a try.. They respect that and their panel is very clean, fast and totally ads free..

They have the option to change nameservers. 

But they charge 18$ for domain. 

USD 18 for NS update 

In that case, no option apart from moving from those dacoits ..

No, it is not for ns update. They charge 18$ per year for domain+mapping. Normally, a domain costs around 10$. (with HG being an exception which charges 15$ ) 

What ever it is, every where, domain comes with DNS manager.. Most of the time its included in the price..

I think I will go with the Hostgator only because I spent a lot of time comparing it's plans with bluehost, godaddy etc.

Secondly, I don't want to take risk of using the command prompt and setting up the thing. 

@Hunky - Ranjith is right they charge for everything. Right now just for domain I'm paying around $26.

As they charge $5 for registration and $13 for mapping then $8 for hiding the info etc. 

Even after that they continue to show ads in the blog and don't pay anything. 

To remove the ads I would have to pay additional $30. 

Have you compared it with ASmallOrange ??

Do read more about this hosting.. I have been hosting with Hostgator and found they are not as good as they advertise..

Servers are always over loaded, in status page, everything seemed to be in yellow or red 

Check this one -> http://asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/

Highly recomended from my side , Check their no hidden charged USD 5 per month plan.. Really good hardware and fast network..

@Hunky - Ranjith is right they charge for everything.

They rob users like you so that users like us can get the WordPress CMS free 

@Hunky - Please don't mind but right now my priority is taking my blog out of that sh*t hole. So, I will go with hostgator for now. For the next change when I will be at little peace I will definitely consider "thesmallorange"...that a bit awkward name for a host, isn't it ? LOL 

Yes, they rob helpless users like me. In the forum I have found people who have purchased plan of $200-300 and have hardly used their site and neither have any traffic. 

Servers are always over loaded, in status page, everything seemed to be in yellow or red 

Hunky, that is because you are a poor. hungry Indian who gets only 50k visitors per day. 

We are talking about Hostgator as hosting, not individual blog 

cPanel website has a ranking system for users to vote for their favourite hostings which cPanel recomends, and there, I see KVCHosting.com is having really satisfactory user base..

Url -> http://partnernoc.cpanel.net/partner_search?sort=rating

Innitial idea before Digital Ocean was to shift to KVCHosting.com but later I went ahead with DO only because load factor of the website..

Its still long way for a new blog before one needs a VPS, unless you plan to run specific aps which are depended on certain server side stuff which shared hosting does have. Case in point Rajni..

For general shift, better to chose shared hosting 

Hosgator / KVCHosting.com and another having really high user vote (i dreamed of their services for 5 years) is "a small orange"

Try any of them, my vote, try a small orange or KVCHosting.com. Last would be Hostgator or DreamHost or Blue host type giants !!

Its still long way for a new blog before one needs a VPS, unless you plan to run specific aps which are depended on certain server side stuff which shared hosting does have. Case in point Ranjith..

Typos , I meant (shared hosting) doesn't have 

I didn't notice the typo 

But finally, one blogging related question from TS 

I am curious, is he moving from WP hosted, because that ghost made a appearance in his blog there too 

Gaurab.. Please ignore my comment, I confused you with Gaurang.. My appology..

Funny 

I think I should save the data before transferring my domain isn't it ?  B'coz after transfer the domain name will revert back to the sub-domain which it was earlier. Or it doesn't matter when I export the data ?

Take backup.. Backup is always welcome.. Take backup of everything then proceed..

Don't worry, the process which you are about to take is very well documented and hundreds of bloggers performs every day.. So FAQ should cover everything..

But consider ASmallOrange over Hostgator 

Thanks I will definitely take the back up now.  Then I will update how is everything going. 

I will check the "asmallorange" later 

No issues, go ahead with Hostgator, me was desatisfied with them so pointed out towards A Small Orange

You have written it in bold now, the name is just making me laugh.  I will surely check it out the next time.

I made it bold so that you get the name right at-least 

I have gone ahead with the transfer and I think everything has happened properly on both the ends. 

What is the amount of time it takes for the transfer to be complete ? Any ideas.

Usually it should take not more than 6 hours for the DNS reports to get updated.. You can see changes here in Indian or other countries which are having good ISP but complete process wont take more than 72 hours.. That is max..

What is your TTL value offered from Hostgator ??

What's that ?  

I read the articles at both places...they are saying it takes around 5-7 days for the transfer. 

Domain transfer you mean ??

In that case you still yet to receive email authoentication, and it takes 3 days after email auth for transfer 

Pardon me, I thought about DNS 

Gaurab it take 3 days if the domain provider is big ticket one like Godaddy.

@Vijay - I shifted to hostgator, they actually gave me a call and told me it will take around 5-7 days. 

How is the progress so far ?? 

Which website were you moving ?? Mention the URL Please..

You asked so mny questions nd went to sleep? 

hmm..

@Hunky - Nowhere. It has still not been transferred. 

The website is processingthelife.com (If ppl find it ssp they are free to delete it)

WHO IS your domain shows,

   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Updated Date: 29-aug-2014

So either you have also the domain is now renewed till 2015, so unless you have purchased the domain for two years term, it seems the domain trannsfer is succesful !!

Thanks for the heads up on this Hunky. I checked it personally and then raised a ticket on both the sides, hope to get a reply soon. 

Just got the mail, the domain has been transferred.   Now, I just have to change the nameservers. 

I have already saved a backup of the blog. Anything instruction or anything I'm missing.  

Have you installed WordPress and connected the DB there in Hostgator ??

They have the cpanel, so it's like one step installation. What's DB you are referring to ?

The previous data base needs to be imported from WP and restored in your present WP installation in Hostgator !!

Beware

WP 4.0 is released so make sure you install the latest version since exporting a different version DB into another version may cause problem..

Yes, I checked that update thing also. After all the non-sense the site is again live but now it is self-hosted. 

There are some more things that has to be done but happy that transfer is done. 

Congrats.. Enjoy the new self hosted blog 

After the transfer this new blog is taking a lot of time to load...anyone knows why is it ?

Make sure you have W3TC running.. Secondly, in WP you get their own CDN service, here you just have one server serving data..

Beside I warned you, check hostgator does feel slow with their hosting 

Yes, it is actually slow 

Told you so.. 

Thanks Hunky and Ranjith for all the help. The blog is running well now and most of the problems have been sorted out, published a new post as well and have mentioned both of you there.  

published a new post as well and have mentioned both of you there

Thanks..

Link please 

Never mind found it..

But bro, things are running really slow..

Please consider optimizing the images before upload, if already uploaded, use FTP, like FileZilla to download then and reduce their size (in bytes without touching the px size)..

Secondly, I wonder whether you are running any cache plugin of wordpress or not.. pages are loading really slow..

@Hunky - will see what can I do about the images. 

As far as cache plugin is concerned I used it but then it wasn't showing the recent changes that I used to make in my blog. It showed the same theme.

Which one did you use ?? 

I am using a 512kbps connection and website loads extremely slow.. I am sorry but a normal visitor may not find that much patience, worst if his bandwidth is less or used by other apps..

You seriously needs to look into the loading issue.. As at times things feel really slow..

You dont have a WWW and non WWW merging apache mod running..

http://www.processingcreativity.com/blog/ -> Leads to error 404

http://processingcreativity.com/blog/ -> Leads to your blog..

Consider rewriting the apache mod to use either of them !! or use your DNS manger to direct www trafic to your IP also..