Why I moved my blogs from WordPress.org to WordPress.com
I finally got tired of the hassle and hours it took me to update my WordPress.org-powered self-hosted versions of two different blogs–danielgreene.com and smithersgreene.net. Trying to upgrade my blogs to WordPress 3.0 was the last straw.
I’m a guy who started writing his own HTML and CSS in 1996; in fact, I was one of the first handful of brave ones on the Internet to style valid HTML with CSS knowing that most browsers couldn’t handle it. After all, what did I have to lose? Little old me with his personal website.
This was a decade before Flickr and YouTube and Facebook and Twitter allowed you to post content with ease and let them take care of the code, and years before every major website was written in structural HTML and styled with CSS. This was back when you had to either have a self-hosted website or something like AOL Hometown Web pages. This was when “Web Designers” would charge you an arm-and-a-leg for a page and a couple of links. I was okay with the idea that, if I wanted a site that used proper HTML (without proprietary structural markup) and CSS, I had to get an ISP to host my own website. And I had to write all my own HTML & CSS.
Things have changed in the past few years. Even with WordPress.org, I had more freedom to blog without worrying about the coding. When I didn’t have to worry about updating WordPress and editing .htaccess pages and PHP files, it worked great. But I hated it when I would break my site when trying unsuccessfully to upload new versions of the blogging platform software. I thought, “Why can’t it be more like posting content to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, or YouTube? I can’t break those sites. There must be an easier way.”
So I did some searching and found out that I could import my whole site–actually both sites–to WordPress.com, manage both sites from one Dashboard, and port my domain names for only $10 a year per domain. That’s when I decided to move over to the gentler, easier version of WordPress.
Yes, there are limitations. But there are also benefits. And for me, the benefits far outweigh the limitations. I should have moved over a long time ago, because I wasn’t using the advanced options of WordPress.org anyway.
Another reason I moved over is because I’m just enough of a stupid geek to get lost in hours of trying to figure out how to make things work, and I need to stop doing that. The important thing is for me to create content–be it writings, photos, videos, or updates–and publish it easily. So, here’s to my being more creative and less geeky!
Posted on July 3, 2010, in Writing for the Web and tagged blog, blogging, publishing, review, Web, WordPress, wordpress.com, wordpress.org, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
Hey, thanks for posting this and your other post>. My dad’s site needs an overhaul, and WordPress is one possibility. After reading this, I realized that he’s in a similar situation, one where he’d benefit from most of WP.com’s pros and few of WP.org’s. It kind of stings not to be able to use plugins, but then again maybe it’s better to avoid the hassles of bugs/compatibility and abandoned/unsupported plugins. Thanks again.
Wow this was pretty timely for me, I have been considering moving the other way. I have been enticed by the plugins and the SEO capabilities, however, if, with your technical training, you have moved, I think I need to stick with .com. Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome. Glad it was timely for you!
Not having the ability to install plugins would be a deal breaker for me to move over any of my sites. Not having the all in 1 seo or platinum seo plugins means that you don’t get a good title, description or keywords meta tags on your site and I’m sure that they help with search engine optimization.
Thanks for the comment, Bruce. You might be right, but I think a WordPress.com blog can be pretty SEO’d. You can give Posts and Pages categories, tags, an abstract, geotag, etc. As far as the whole site goes, you do have your blog title and description, and you have your user description (“About so-and-so”). There are also the Webmaster Tools which I’m about to set up. Also, from what I’ve read, you’ll get more traffic to your site by writing with pertinent words that act as keywords right within your text.
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