The LinkedIn WordPress application picking up old content from the wrong place.
We had an interesting one today. The LinkedIn WordPress application is a widget that allows you to have your latest WordPress posts on your site. The references within it all relate to WordPress.com – however, I knew it worked full well with self-hosted WordPress.org sites as well as I use the application.
So I was a bit bemused when a client called today to say that they were only getting old posts in LinkedIn. My initial reaction is to consider this a LinkedIn/Automattic problem because they’re the ones that supply the application, not us. However, a support contract is a support contract.
Looking a bit more deeply I could confirm what was happening. If you put http://janbritton.org into the field it got changed to http://janbritton.wordpress.com – how peculiar.
Domain Mapping
So as is my usual approach to this, I wondered what it could be that could relate the domain janbritton.org to the old blog they had on WordPress.com – and I could think of only one possibility.
When we migrate a WordPress.com site to WordPress.org the first stage is to get the domain and map it on the original blog. We then take leave the site running like that for a month before then pointing the domain at the site’s new server. It’s a simple way to maintain your link juice, and is very effective.
But what happens when you use the LinkedIn WordPress app is that for some reason it looks up the domain on WordPress.com and uses the WordPress.com URL rather than the mapped domain. I guess there are reasons for this, but if you’ve migrated your blog from WordPress.com this could be mighty confusing.
The answer is to delete the WordPress.com domain mapping extra. You can’t just change your primary domain – you have to delete the domain you’re using for the live site. Otherwise the application won’t work correctly. This may well cause us some future migration headaches for heavy LinkedIn users of WordPress.com going self-hosted.
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Hi David, your post describes my problem exactly. Yes, I migrated from .com to .org. Yes, I purchased an extra for mapping my domain on WordPress.com. Yes, Linkedin erroneously points back to the old .com blog.
But I can somehow not figure out how to delete the .com domain mapping extra …..
What are the exact steps I need to take ? Any help extremely appreciated – I am going nuts here.
If I remember rightly you have to sign into the back-end of that domain and delete or stop the addon for the domain. Sadly it’s been a while, so I can’t memorise the route and I’m a bit stretched just right now so can’t help further. Good luck! You can always ask in the wordpress.com forums – they may be able to help.
David. Thanks for your post. I have been searching high and low for a definitive answer to this issue. I have found lots of posts from people experiencing this problem but no-one seems to have got a straight answer.
I recently moved my WordPress.com blog to a self-hosted .org domain and everything seems to be working fine, except the LinkedIn application which, despite me having edited for the new URL, deleted, reinstalled etc several times, is clearly still “talking to”/pulling from the old .com blog.
I am not a coder. I am feeling quite pleased with myself for having registered a personal domain, set up hosting, managed the DNS transfer unaided and without any obvious hitches.
So, whilst I understand the gist of your post in identifying the root of the LinkedIn problem, I’m not entirely sure how to fix it. How does one delete the .com domain mapping extra? What are the implications of doing so for SEO juice etc?
If you were to close the loop by explaining in lay terms how to solve the problem you’ve identified, you would be doing a significant number of people a significant service. I for one would give said loop-closing post as much link and social love as possible to help get it ranked and easier to find for other people looking for an answer.
Kind regards.
Phil Adams
Hi Phil – you will have purchased an extra for mapping your domain on WordPress.com – in there you will have defined your domain. You must delete that definition and then the LinkedIn Application won’t think that your blog is on WordPress.com any more and will look further afield.
Why the app does that, I don’t know, but it does.
Good luck – I hope this fixes your problem.
Thanks for the swift reply David. The purchased extra is a redirect from the .com domain to my new self-hosted URL. The delete options in the .com settings are either to delete the new URL as primary domain or to delete the new URL as the designated site redirect. Are you suggesting that I delete either or both of these? Either option feels like I will lose the benefit of redirected traffic and the SEO legacy of 2 years or so of .com blogging. I’m not sure the LinkedIn gain is worth that kind of pain.
If the redirects have been in place for a while then the search engines will already have the new urls. But yes, if you’re doing it quickly then you do have a problem. We faced a similar issue with a client moving from .com to us. No simple solutions to that one, I’m afraid.
I’m going to delete the LinkedIn app for a while. I get lots of long tail search traffic from the .com posts, way more than I get from LinkedIn. Will give it a couple of months then try (risk?) the redirect deletion. Will retrospectively blog my experiences at that time, and credit you accordingly. Thanks for your time. Much appreciated.