Accessing WordPress without a domain

This month we’re eager to announce the launch of a relatively small product improvement, but one we think will change everyone’s lives for the better, especially new users. Available now on all our WordPress Hosting accounts is a new preview link. The new link takes the form of:

DOMAIN.temp.link

If, for example, your domain name is 34SP.com, then your preview address would be:

34SP.com.temp.link

You’ll find that new link active on your WordPress account right now, whether you just signed up or have been with us for a while. The preview link is something we’ve been asked to provide for a long time, and most immediately helps new users get to grips with their WordPress site. Don’t have a domain name registered yet? Not a problem – you can access all areas of your site using this link. From www to FTP to the WP dashboard, everything should work happily whilst you’re setting up your website. No need to mess around with DNS or hosts files during a tricky migration, just use this new temp.link feature.

For existing users the link might also come in handy should you run into domain name troubles or perhaps need to troubleshoot where an issue lies. As a side note, don’t worry about SEO; we mark the temp.link domains as non-indexable for search as standard. A few more technical items about the temp.link feature:

1) It’s only intended to be a temporary link, it’s advisable to transition to a real domain name as quickly as possible.

2) temp.link sites are cached just like regular websites.

3) SSL isn’t available on these temp.link domains and we don’t plan to add this. Again, a real domain should be a priority for your site ASAP.

4) We’re confident this will work for most users, most of the time. That said, there are some fairly exotic setups out there (oh hey there multisite!) and it might not work perfectly in every instance. Do let us know if you see any strange issues.