Recycling blog names
An unused blog has a name I want. Can I have it?
Sorry, you can’t.
Can you delete an unused blog so I can have it?
That’s a sorry too ….
Will unused blogs be deleted so they can be recycled and used by others?
I’m afraid not.
Why?
A WordPress.com blog owner can choose to permanently delete their blog. There are any number of reasons someone might want to do this, and we respect their wishes.
Blogs that have been deleted by the owner stay deleted. We cannot under any circumstances allow someone to take over a blog name that was previously owned and deleted by someone else. Please do not ask support staff to do this – they will say “no” and direct you to this FAQ.
Here’s why: imagine you have a blog for a while then decide to delete it for personal reasons. We let someone else take over the name. A year later you get an angry phone call from a friend or relative who has clicked on an old bookmark, reads something offensive, and thinks it was written by you. Deleted blogs stay deleted precisely to prevent that from happening.
The names of blogs currently used does not represent a hindrance to getting a new blog. If you were lucky enough to get an account here early then part of that action is the blog name of your choice. If not, there are an infinite variety of unused names you can invent.
But are names ever reused or reclaimed?
A handful of times we have reclaimed names that conflict with our trademarks or products, and a few times for Automattic employees. As it says in our Terms of Service we can delete or reclaim any account for any reason. We call these “eminent domains.” Historically we have never done this to an active blog.
It is possible that in future we will consider reclaiming blog names that have been stockpiled by spammers and squatters and never used (though we make no promises that this will happen). But we will not recycle blog names that have previously had content and were deleted by the owner. Absolutely not, no exceptions.
Update: This is not a new policy, just a clarification of the two-year-old Terms of Service since people were asking about it in light of this FAQ.
