#domains seem to be sold by Automattic which owns Tumblr and Wordpress

[ladyjmontilyet]

tumblr is selling domain names now which is cool

reasonable price too - $19 for a .com (at least for the first year)

sale on .blog urls so they're even cheaper

[willenator]

Tumblr Domains Challenges

I decided to move my domain name from Google Domains to Tumblr Domains. Google Domains sold off their business to SquareTrade, but they still manage it for the time being. Since Tumblr Domains is the same price as Google Domains, and I used Tumblr for my blog, I figured it would be a good fit for me. Transfer my domain and then have my blog and domain hosted by the same company. Seems pretty simple, right?

Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case for me. I know that Tumblr Domains is new, and I'm sure there are some bugs they need to work out. However, Tumblr is owned by Automattic, who also owns Wordpress, and Wordpress has been selling domains for years now. I figured they were using their experience from that, but maybe it is handled by a different team. Either way, it has been an interesting start.

The first challenge I had was actually triggering the start of the domain transfer. I had grabbed the auth code from Google Domains to approve the transfer, and I kept getting an error code when I would click submit on Tumblr's end. After trying for a couple of days, it finally worked. I had actually submitted a support ticket about it on day two, but on day three it worked.

Like most domain transfers, I figured it would take a few days for everything to move over. I was able to start configuring the basic settings the very next day which was nice. After four days, I noticed I could still not access my domain by typing it into my web browser, so I reached out to Tumblr support again. A few days later it started working just one hour before they reached out to me. I only know this because I had connected my domain to a third-party email provider and it couldn't verify because they couldn't see the domain. All of a sudden, I got an automated email saying it was now connected and then I got the email from Tumblr support that they weren't seeing any issues on their end. I actually chuckled at that. Either it was pretty impressive timing that they checked on it right after it worked itself out, or they did fix something first and then reached out to me.

Okay, so now I have my domain working, but in the most recent response from Tumblr support, they told me that I had yet to verify my contact information, and my domain would be suspended after 10 days of registering it. So, I checked my emails, and I never received an email stating anything about verifying. The Tumblr support help site even lists what the subject line would read, and I tried searching for that in my email. Nothing. So, I am now waiting for another couple of days until someone with Tumblr support responds to me about this.

I have one other issue to report to Tumblr support, but I'm holding off on that one until I know I can keep using my domain with my Tumblr blog. That additional issue is DNS records. I need to add a handful of of records to get my email working with Tumblr Domains. However, it only lets me add three records after the initial one, and won't let me add anymore, which doesn't let me add all the additional records I need to fully make my provider work with it.

While it is a little frustrating, I would really like to make this work, and I'm willing to keep giving it a try. We shall see how this goes. I'm curious if others have had similar issues trying to use Tumblr Domains so far. I'm rooting for Tumblr and Automattic, and I'm only sharing this in case someone else is struggling as well. I think sharing information like this might help someone else. I'll post some updates to my blog as things continue to be worked out.