Wordpress have announced a new Offsite Redirect upgrade that will make it easier for people to move away from having their site hosted on Wordpress.com. You will now be able to easily create a redirect from yourblogname.wordpress.com (as well as all of your permalinks) to your new domain name on another host.

You can purchase the upgrade from the Wordpress Upgrades screen for $12. Then simply enter the new domain where you want your wordpress.com traffic to be redirected. Type the URL of the destination site into the blank field, and click the blue button that says Redirect to this URL.You can change the destination URL or suspend the forwarding whenever you wish.

Wordpress has enjoyed phenomenal success which does not appear to be abating anytime in the near future. Still with Windows Live Spaces transfering their clientbase to Wordpress in the coming year, this will make it easier for a less satisfied site owner to transfer their hosting to another webhost.