It’s an old question, argued over countless number of times, with everyone having their own opinion. Similarly I have mine, which I will now give you. Let’s take a look at our options here:
Use WordPress.com as your blog host
This is thehe first time bloggers choice, to just open a WordPress.com account and start blogging, but although it may be easy to start with, later on if you decide to move, it can be quite a problem for you.
LINK: http://www.wordpress.com/
Some of the advantages:
- Access to pre-installed themes, plugins, statistics counters that are both checked & working
- Always updated to keep up with any changes in the wordpress software
- Free for all users
- Full time support for the servers & wordpress account
- No coding language skills required, even the most non-tech savvy person can start a blog on wordpress.com
- Quick to setup, within a matter of minutes
Disadvantages:
- Cannot edit CSS, until the recent addition of PAID editing
- Lack of plugin addition to the site
- Limited to what wordpress.com offers you in terms of free services
- The limited choice of themes/layouts
- When moving to a hosted account from wordpress.com, you will take a huge hit in terms of Google ranking & SEO due to the change of domain names.
- You are totally dependant on wordpress.com to keep your account active and hosted, which isn’t such a bad thing, but again, out of your control
- You must use a user.wordpress.com subdomain for your blog address. Domain Mapping may change this, but will be a paid service
Install WordPress on your hosting account
This is the more complicated & costly but ultimately more controllable choice. Advanced users or those who know what they are getting into with a plan and/or a project in mind would be at home here. It’s also recommended over the WordPress.com method as hosting and domain registration are today in the reach of most people with the abundance of offers for the same.
LINK: http://www.wordpress.org/
Here are some of the advantages:
- By being involved in your blog, with the back-end code of php, there is greater opportunity for learning
- Expand beyond just having a blog when you own & operate your own domain, you can add gallerys, forums and other avenues to your site
- Hosting your own blog can be more personalized in terms of choosing a domain name, that can even further enchance your SEO oppurtunities
- Infinite possibilities with the blog in terms of themes, layout, code, plugins, etc
- The chances for SEO & ultimately ad-revenue generation is alot easier when you have 100% control of your blog
- The entire revenue generated is yours to keep
- There are no limits when you have your WordPress blog hosted
- Total control over how your site looks, by way of being able to edit the CSS & PHP files
- You can move hosts if you wish to expand and get more resources
- Your choice of plugins to install & utilize
There are ofcourse disadvantages:
- By having your own domain, you have to pay, for both hosting & domain registration
- By hosting your own account you are faced with the eventuality of having alot of traffic to your site, and being required to move to a higher cost package of hosting. This alternatively can be a good thing as it means the blog can be a very good candidate for ad-hosting via programs like Google Adsense
- Everything about the account, from security to modifying the website, is your responsibility
- If you intend to make money off the blog, you have to take into account the costs of maintaining the website
- Users need some understanding of php and databases in order to get started and progress with their own blog
- You don’t get a highly skilled & dedicated team of people at the back of your blog, ensuring that it’s updated for you and includes fully functional working & valid back-end code
- You need to find quality web hosts so you don’t suffer downtime and eventually put off readers from visiting your blog
- You will occasionally have to deal with unwanted limits, and bad support which can hurt your blog and stunt your blogs growth
There’s a third choice, by way of more flexible & similar WordPress.com hosting sites, one of them being daria.be.
*For the purpose of this article I have taken for granted the user is working with WordPress as the chosen CMS*
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September 15th, 2006 at 4:18 am
By far, the largest issue is the domain name. If you do not own your own domain, then they own your traffic, not you. It’s not simply taking a big hit on SEO, it’s also taking a big hit on lost readers trying to explain to them that you moved your blog.
September 15th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Agreed Doug. I always suggest people hosting their own site and domain for the exact reasons you explain.
Virtual hosting these days is pretty cheap. You can find hosting for around $200.00 a year with all kinds of features (PHP, MySQL, Etc.) that are perfect for WordPress or many other CMS systems.
That works out to be less then $20.00 per month, so for anyone serious about blogging or even web stuff, it’s worth it to spend a little cash upfront to have the security and control of all your content, site and traffic.
September 15th, 2006 at 10:35 am
SeanRox, the 200$/year you’re talking about is for very serious bloggers. Even for half that you can get some very good packages that cater to low-mid range bloggers, and you can upgrade later on.
Basically virtual-hosting, or hosting in general has become affordable for the masses, there is just no reason NOT to pay a bit now and avail the benefits of owning & operating your own blog.
This all might change though, once Domain Mapping hits WordPress.com…largely depending on what price they charge for it.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:57 am
I agree that if you are a serious blogger, you really should have your own domain. It helps with SEO, and it just gives you more control of your blog.
I started off hosting my blog on Wordpress.com, and I just wasn’t happy with the limited set of features (they have since made more features available with their paid services, so it may be better now). Now that I am hosting my own installation of Wordpress, I have full control over it. I can add plugins, edit the CSS, and do whatever customizations that I want.
As far as price goes, I pay around $200/year also. But I also have to consider that this is the price I pay for hosting 3 different sites. Looking at it like that, I’m really paying closer to $65/year for my personal blog. To me, it is well worth that amount to have the kind of control that I do.
October 6th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
[...] difference between WordPress and Wordpress.com — explained [...]
January 30th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Don’t do it on wordpress or you are losing your site to them. You can do it there if you are experimenting or are new to the concept, that’s ok.
February 28th, 2007 at 7:36 am
[...] I’m a techie by day, so I want to go in and tweak things to my heart’s content. I tried to use the wordpress.com free service for a bit, but over time, I just missed having my own hosted server. With my own hosting, I can modify wordpress, add any plugins I want, change any templates or styles, and ADD MONETIZING features that are otherwise not available. For some more pros/cons, check out Hosting your own blog versus wordpress.com. [...]
May 9th, 2007 at 3:11 am
[...] Decide whether you want to host your own blog or go on a blogging site. [...]
August 1st, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Having recently had a blog we were running on wordpress.com get shut down for alleged tos violations - from posting to it from digg - the choice is clear - never host on wordpress.com - instead spend the $8/year for a domain and $10/month or less for hosting.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:37 am
[...] Better yet, make a good choice to begin with
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November 11th, 2007 at 2:49 am
[...] Hosting your own blog versus WordPress.com @ Attackr.com [...]
February 10th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
How I wish I had encountered this blog, and specifically this post last month when I decided to take on blogging!
I learned the lessons the hard way migrating from wordpress.com to my own hosted version.
Thanks for all the valuable information on this site!
Itay.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:35 am
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April 16th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
[...] Wordpress hosting 16 04 2008 Ok, for those experienced bloggers out there… I’m thinking about hosting tigerblog by myself instead of depending on Wordpress. There’s a ton of religious wars out there about what is best, but I think like the article said, hosting it by yourself means more customization and more learning. So… this blog will probably be moving… soon. (Jonny Mo really wants pictures in comments and I want to give it to him) [...]
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 am
Nice article, but … I was looking for a more in-depth explanation of the “third option”. All I see is a list of advantages and disadvantages. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I was under the impression this was a “how-to” article.