wordpress - the two types of hosting options - pros and cons?
October 17, 2009 3:26 AM Subscribe
wordpress pros and cons of self-hosting versus using wordpress hosting?
So i started a wordpress blog. I bought my own domain name and am redirecting the the servers at wordpress.
I would like to move my blog to my own server so i can have more controll over it (especially the ability to edite css without paying). That said i have a few questions:
1) I would like to install feedburner into my rss feed. I cannot figure out if i can do that without having my own server, but i have not found a source that says exactly that. Do all plugins basically require you to have your own server? .
2) Are there any disadvantages to moving to my own server? What i am primarily thinking is if i move my wordpress blog to my own server, will my posts and blog be affected in how it shows up in searches done through wordpress.com? (does it show at all?) Could moving my page become less popular in ranking if you move it to my own host? Is it perhaps a good idea to keep a blog on wordpress hosting so that it grows faster, then move it later?
3) If i wait a while to switch to my own hoster, will there be any problems with how old links might point to my site? Does wordpress keep the old links active and redirect to my new host?
Thanks for you time!
So i started a wordpress blog. I bought my own domain name and am redirecting the the servers at wordpress.
I would like to move my blog to my own server so i can have more controll over it (especially the ability to edite css without paying). That said i have a few questions:
1) I would like to install feedburner into my rss feed. I cannot figure out if i can do that without having my own server, but i have not found a source that says exactly that. Do all plugins basically require you to have your own server? .
2) Are there any disadvantages to moving to my own server? What i am primarily thinking is if i move my wordpress blog to my own server, will my posts and blog be affected in how it shows up in searches done through wordpress.com? (does it show at all?) Could moving my page become less popular in ranking if you move it to my own host? Is it perhaps a good idea to keep a blog on wordpress hosting so that it grows faster, then move it later?
3) If i wait a while to switch to my own hoster, will there be any problems with how old links might point to my site? Does wordpress keep the old links active and redirect to my new host?
Thanks for you time!
1] You don't install Feedburner. What you do is sign up for an account at Feedburner.com and get Feedburner to locate your site feed. When people subscribe via your feedburner feed, it goes through their servers. There is still the option to subscribe via Wordpress.com (I think), so this isn't foolproof. If you self-host, there's a plugin you can use that will direct all of your feed based traffic to Feedburner, irrespective of where someone subscribes to.
2] It's not so much the server that you're on, as the link used to get there. If you're advertising your blog as something.wordpress.com, and then you move onto your new server and add the domain name, Google will think it's two different sites. If you use the domain name to direct to your Wordpress.com blog, and have links around the web pointing to domainname.com (which is pointing to something.wordpress.com at a DNS level), then you'll be better off. It sounds like you're using the latter option already, so you should be fine.
3] The new DNS settings can take a few hours to propagate through the internet, but it's usually much faster in my experience. Just make sure that your blog software is up and running on your new server before you change the DNS settings. And put a post up on your old blog directing people to the new site. Something like, "if you arrived here via something.wordpress.com, please go to domainname.com to view the blog".
The main problem you might have is links pointing to a blog post on your old hosting. For example, a link to something.wordpress.com/2009/08/whatever won't redirect to domainname.com/2009/08/whatever. If all the links you've made point to the second, you'll be all set.
Good luck.
posted by Solomon at 4:10 AM on October 17, 2009
2] It's not so much the server that you're on, as the link used to get there. If you're advertising your blog as something.wordpress.com, and then you move onto your new server and add the domain name, Google will think it's two different sites. If you use the domain name to direct to your Wordpress.com blog, and have links around the web pointing to domainname.com (which is pointing to something.wordpress.com at a DNS level), then you'll be better off. It sounds like you're using the latter option already, so you should be fine.
3] The new DNS settings can take a few hours to propagate through the internet, but it's usually much faster in my experience. Just make sure that your blog software is up and running on your new server before you change the DNS settings. And put a post up on your old blog directing people to the new site. Something like, "if you arrived here via something.wordpress.com, please go to domainname.com to view the blog".
The main problem you might have is links pointing to a blog post on your old hosting. For example, a link to something.wordpress.com/2009/08/whatever won't redirect to domainname.com/2009/08/whatever. If all the links you've made point to the second, you'll be all set.
Good luck.
posted by Solomon at 4:10 AM on October 17, 2009
Best answer: There are two settings for a custom domain on a Wordpress.com hosted blog. One setting redirects any incoming requests for customdomain.com to customdomain.wordpress.com. The other redirects any incoming requests for customdomain.wordpress.com to customdomain.com. You'll want the latter if you are planning to move to self-hosted wordpress. Actually, I'm not sure there is ever a reason to want the former, unless you want to give up your custom domain eventually.
The advantages of being hosted on wordpress.com: Lack of hassle. Also, in both theory, and my limited experience, you'll get a traffic boost if you participate in the wordpress.com tag-space (in exchange for having your tags link out to a site-wide listing of pages with the same tag, you'll be linked back to from those same pages), and you might also get a PageRank boost in having links from wordpress.com pages.
The downsides are lack of control, including the ability to put ads on your site (wordpress puts their own ads, but hides them from you), customize your templates beyond what wordpress allows (for an extra fee), choose plugins, etc.
I think that when you are just starting out, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, unless a particular plugin or template customization is essential to what you are trying to do with your blog.
You can certainly set feedburner up to handle a feed from a hosted wordpress.com blog, and you can publicize that feed, but it doesn't look like there is a way to make sure that the feedburner URL is the one that gets automatically detected, but perhaps this is enough.
In any case, if you make sure that your custom domain is set up so all your content shows up on customdomain.com, then you should have no problem when you migrate customdomain.com to your own server, as long as you make sure you use the same permalink structure. A few caveats: 1) you may have to make alternate arrangements to copy all the images and other files you've uploaded to wordpress over to your new server if wordpress doesn't automatically fetch them when you import your blog content. 2) The PHP upload and attachment size settings on your new server may be set too low to handle entire file you exported from wordpress.com. I think the option is to find a way to chop the export file up into appropriate sized chunks (taking care to open and close the required XML tags), or, if you have enough control over your server, you can increase the limits appropriately.
posted by Good Brain at 2:59 PM on October 17, 2009
The advantages of being hosted on wordpress.com: Lack of hassle. Also, in both theory, and my limited experience, you'll get a traffic boost if you participate in the wordpress.com tag-space (in exchange for having your tags link out to a site-wide listing of pages with the same tag, you'll be linked back to from those same pages), and you might also get a PageRank boost in having links from wordpress.com pages.
The downsides are lack of control, including the ability to put ads on your site (wordpress puts their own ads, but hides them from you), customize your templates beyond what wordpress allows (for an extra fee), choose plugins, etc.
I think that when you are just starting out, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, unless a particular plugin or template customization is essential to what you are trying to do with your blog.
You can certainly set feedburner up to handle a feed from a hosted wordpress.com blog, and you can publicize that feed, but it doesn't look like there is a way to make sure that the feedburner URL is the one that gets automatically detected, but perhaps this is enough.
In any case, if you make sure that your custom domain is set up so all your content shows up on customdomain.com, then you should have no problem when you migrate customdomain.com to your own server, as long as you make sure you use the same permalink structure. A few caveats: 1) you may have to make alternate arrangements to copy all the images and other files you've uploaded to wordpress over to your new server if wordpress doesn't automatically fetch them when you import your blog content. 2) The PHP upload and attachment size settings on your new server may be set too low to handle entire file you exported from wordpress.com. I think the option is to find a way to chop the export file up into appropriate sized chunks (taking care to open and close the required XML tags), or, if you have enough control over your server, you can increase the limits appropriately.
posted by Good Brain at 2:59 PM on October 17, 2009
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2) The advantages of becoming solely responsible for you weblog are huge. However, the major disadvantage is that you become solely responsible for updating Wordpress and its plugins as well. Though that is not as much a burden as it used to be, since Wordpress and the plugins warn you to upgrade, and that simply can be done with a couple of mouse clicks, without even leaving the backoffice.
Apart from that, even though I kept my Wordpress installation up to date, it still was hacked, only because it was hosted on a shared server. Someone else's security problems, on which I had no influence at all, meant many sites on that server where compromised. So, not only do you become for keeping Wordpress up to date, it is probably best to have clean backups of your Wordpress-theme, as that is often compromised, and the MySQL-database as well. There is a plugin for that.
Since you say you have a domain name the Google rankings will not be effected. Don't know if Wordpress.com makes sitemaps of the weblogs. You can simply install a plugin to make XML-sitemaps of your weblog automatically; so that the major search engine are informed you have updated.
3) Since you say you have a domain name there may be a short transition problem, in the sense that DNS records take a couple of hours to refresh. When you switch hosts some visitors may land on your old site, and some on your new, for a short while. After that, all the traffic goes to your new site directly.
posted by ijsbrand at 3:41 AM on October 17, 2009 [1 favorite]