Over at another of my blogs, I’m making the switch from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WP setup so I can have an ad or two.  This process is long and arduous, but here’s how I understand it can work.

First, I mapped my domain to the WP.com blog so now all of the addresses in the URL bar no longer have .wordpress.com.  Right now any links to the .wordpress.com address automatically redirect to the post or page they need to.  In about 3 months I’m going to move the blog and the domain to my server, then erase everything from WP.com.  Now, if this goes well, all of the links and such will already be pointing to my domain, so the switch should be smooth and uneventful.  There will probably be a few people still linking to the .wordpress.com address.  Not sure what to do about that.

The question I have is: Does anyone know of a way to get Google to just replace domainname.wordpress.com to domainname.com in their database?

I’m slightly afraid Google will think that the change in address means duplicated content.  I don’t know if WP.com uses 301 redirects or whatever, and they seem reluctant to answer this question.  They certainly don’t do 301 redirects when you move your blog off of WP.com, which is highly annoying, but understandable, given the size of their operation.