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AaronConway
12-31-2010, 09:24 AM
Previously, I've only worked on self-hosted Wordpress blogs but recently started a couple personal blogs using the free version. One of the first things I with the free option is no option for plug-ins and a lot fewer themes to choose from. What other differences are there?

Also, any recommendations on low cost hosting for WP?

Thanks,
Aaron

Harold Mansfield
12-31-2010, 10:13 AM
If you are just messing around, there is nothing wrong with free hosted WP. If you are serious and want more control , you have to self host.
The other differences are easy,

With free hosted WP:
*You can't monetize.
*No control over design, or function. Just what they give you.
*You don't own it. They are just letting you use it.
*If you are using it for business, it's not as professional as your own blog on your own domain.
*You can't edit or change any functions, plug ins, or templates.

Most of the plug ins available on free hosted Wordpress are plug ins that people would use for personal blogs. Professional or Business blogs/websites, tend to use professional grade plug ins, special functions, and premium or custom designs.

You can get cheap hosting pretty much anywhere. Even though I'm not fond of Go Daddy for multiple sites ( I just hate the way they have it set up), for a singe site, you can get something for as little as $7.99 a month that will be plenty for a start up site. And they have phone support if you need someone to help you through any issues. And (I hate to say it), it's not bad. I've never talked to a rude or unknowledgeable person...at least for basic issues.
There is also Blue Host which I have had good experiences with.

Spider
12-31-2010, 11:52 AM
*If you are using it for business, it's not as professional as your own blog on your own domain....FYI - you can use your own domain with a hosted WP blog. My blog "Making Business Fun" is on my own domain of makingbusinessfun .com and is a free hosted WP account. I don't see anything that is unprofessional about it, and I'm sure most readers wouldn't either. You nerds might notice something, though.

Patrysha
12-31-2010, 11:59 AM
I love my hosting at MomWebs/Reliable Web. I just recently had to move up to the $15/month plan, but was on the $10 plan for about six years or so...most of my clients start with and stick with the $5 plan because they only have one site.

Harold Mansfield
12-31-2010, 12:03 PM
FYI - you can use your own domain with a hosted WP blog. My blog "Making Business Fun" is on my own domain of makingbusinessfun .com and is a free hosted WP account. I don't see anything that is unprofessional about it, and I'm sure most readers wouldn't either. You nerds might notice something, though.

No, you are correct and if you are going to utilize the free version for anything business related, that is the way to do it. With your own domain. I forgot about that option.
It should also be said that not everyone needs everything.
If the free hosted offers you all that you need and the limitations such as monetization are not an issue, then do what Frederick does and drop your own domain on it and rock on.

People move to self hosted ( or start with it) when they find the Wordpress.com version doesn't have everything that they want to do.
Out of all of the free hosted blog sites out there, I would definitely use WP over any of the others.

mattbeck
12-31-2010, 01:42 PM
The tricky thing is that it's not really a free vs self-hosted thing.

It's a WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com thing.

WordPress.com offers a free account, but then they sell upgrades to get the functionality you need.

with all the bells and whistles it can actually be kind of expensive, but they have a great network.

There are well-known commercial sites hosted on it as well (lots of the Cheezburger network sites for example).

But for most people, you are going to get a LOT more functionality for a lot less $ by self hosting.

Spider
01-03-2011, 12:37 AM
A couple more things I noticed above...

...*No control over design, or function. Just what they give you.
*You can't edit or change any functions, plug ins, or templates...

...WordPress.com offers a free account, but then they sell upgrades to get the functionality you need...There is an upgrade to the hosted WP that allows you to modify the css, so you can have control over the design and can change the templates, it seems. It is true to say you can buy upgrades, but I question, "to get the functionality you need." It depends on what you need. I haven't found anything I need that requires an upgrade and believe thousands of other people haven't either. There appears to be a considerable difference between the hosted version and the self-hosted version and I think it would serve visitors to this forum better if the experts could be a little more unbiased in their comments.

It's a very subtle bias, like Matt's, "get the functionality you need," and Harold's, "If you are serious and want more control." As if someone cannot be serious if they don't want more control or more functionality! Frankly, I don't like the constant attempts to make me feel like second-class citizen because I don't embrace Wordpress, or Firefox, or whatever is today's hot item.

Having said that, I hope someone can answer this question that probably applies to the hosted and self-hosted versions of Wordpress. -- Wait! Bad idea to annoy people then ask them for help. Best to ask for the help first then tick them off after. Oh, well, ignore me if you must :-)

Question: My WP posts are archived by the month. Click the archive link and get only those posts for the month selected. Good idea! But all the posts ever posted appear on the home page. That page is going to get awful long, eventually. Can I delete the older posts? I want to delete them from the Home page but not delete them from the archives. Is that possible?

AaronConway
01-03-2011, 09:20 AM
Frederick,

You should be able to set the maximum number of posts to show on your blog home page. I think it's in your "reading settings" admin page.

Aaron

Harold Mansfield
01-03-2011, 09:40 AM
A couple more things I noticed above...

There is an upgrade to the hosted WP that allows you to modify the css, so you can have control over the design and can change the templates, it seems. It is true to say you can buy upgrades, but I question, "to get the functionality you need." It depends on what you need. I haven't found anything I need that requires an upgrade and believe thousands of other people haven't either. There appears to be a considerable difference between the hosted version and the self-hosted version and I think it would serve visitors to this forum better if the experts could be a little more unbiased in their comments.

It's a very subtle bias, like Matt's, "get the functionality you need," and Harold's, "If you are serious and want more control." As if someone cannot be serious if they don't want more control or more functionality! Frankly, I don't like the constant attempts to make me feel like second-class citizen because I don't embrace Wordpress, or Firefox, or whatever is today's hot item.

Having said that, I hope someone can answer this question that probably applies to the hosted and self-hosted versions of Wordpress. -- Wait! Bad idea to annoy people then ask them for help. Best to ask for the help first then tick them off after. Oh, well, ignore me if you must :-)

Question: My WP posts are archived by the month. Click the archive link and get only those posts for the month selected. Good idea! But all the posts ever posted appear on the home page. That page is going to get awful long, eventually. Can I delete the older posts? I want to delete them from the Home page but not delete them from the archives. Is that possible?

Well....this thread isn't meant to make you feel like second class citizen because it was addressing Aarons issues and questions about free hosted vs self hosted. There are major differences between the two versions. mainly how much control you have and how much of the software you can use fully. It depends on what you need. I'm here to voice my opinion and to help based on my experience and knowledge...not be a cheerleader for Wordpress.com just so that I don't hurt someone's feelings. Frankly I have a lot of love for it. As a platform I will shouts it's abilities to the high heavens because that's how great I think it is. Without it, I couldn't do what I do to make a living and without Wordpress.com, self hosted Wordpress would have a lot more bugs. One probably wouldn't exist as stable as it is, without the other.

But if there is a question of which one to use, I am always going to recommend that people self host and run their own website/blog. I don't care what software they use. That's my opinion to the person specifically asking and it's not meant as a dig or to make anyone else feel bad.

Of course I am going to recommend self hosted Wordpress. That 's what I do. That same as you would recommend having a Business Coach, over not having one.
Of course the question is easier to answer when you know what the person needs to do. Rarely when asking does anyone ever say, "I need to do this...", so just on the basics of the questions "Which one?", I'm think in terms of a business website that needs/wants full control ( since this is a business forum) and my opinions are based on that. I also don't recommend ( to my clients at least) that they spread their brand around. IMO, website and blog should be in the same place. Not on different domains. Together they are a lot stronger than separate with one linking to the other.

Second, let me clarify what I mean by "get serious" since you think it is a bias....

Maybe I shouldn't say "get serious". It's just that if you keep your Wordpress.com blog long enough or it starts to become successful...almost everyone I know that has done it eventually says to themselves "Crap now I need to grow, monetize, or redesign and have to start all over again with a new domain and hosting"...so I recommend that people who are building a company website, or something that is intrinsic to their business, not do that.
But maybe I can put that a little better.

"If you want to take advantage of the more premium designs and plug ins, it's multi site or community ability (Buddypress) and not have to abide by the T.O.S. of Wordpress.com, then you need to use the self hosted version."
I think I also said that if Wordpress.com offers you all that you need, that it is a great platform which I recommend over all others. There are some very nice blogs on Wordpress.com and it is the industry leader. But given a choice, knowing what I know now, my opinion when asked is always going to be for self hosting.

To answer your question:

Go to your Dashboard, and then go to Settings->Reading and there s a setting that say's "Blog pages show at most____" with an option for a number.
Setting that to the number of posts that you want displayed should be what you are looking for. I think it's set to "10" by default.

You also may want to utilize the <--more---> function or excerpts box (depending on how the theme you use displays them) to show only a portion of each post when multiple posts are listed, rather than showing the entire post for each entry.

vangogh
01-03-2011, 10:59 AM
Aaron I think Harold pretty much summed up the differences. The basic difference is the level of control you have. With a self hosted WordPress.org site you have complete control since everything is on your domain, on your hosting account, etc. With WordPress.com you're limited to whatever they offer and as you've seen that means less themes and plugins among other things.

The benefit of WordPress.com is the ease of setting it all up and the price since the basic setup is free.

I'm with Harold in that if you're planning a business site you really should go the self hosted option. Some of those things you can't control by signing up for WordPress.com are important. I also think in general that you're better off owning your site than letting someone else make decisions about it. While I don't expect WordPress.com to close up tomorrow, there's no reason why they couldn't. If that happened your site could end up being gone before you'd have a chance to move it somewhere else. Again I don't expect that to happen, but it's not un reasonable to think WordPress.com will make some rules you don't want to follow that could adversely affect your business.

Paper Shredder Clay
01-03-2011, 12:45 PM
Also, with the free version, aren't all the links non-SEO friendly? I had sat up a free WP blog and quickly discovered the links were masked, and thus was not SEO friendly; so I switched to Tumblr to keep the links value.

Harold Mansfield
01-03-2011, 01:00 PM
I'm not sure if they are "Do Follow" or not. I do know that they keep a watchful eye on using a Wordpress.com blog for SEO purposes. I've had them disable my blog for 2 reasons in the past:

1. Writing about SEO
2. Blogging about a business that was on another website and linking frequently that website.

This was over 4 years ago, but for each "infraction" they gave the same reason. "Using your blog for SEO purposes".
So they are a little protective on the whole linking thing and are very aware that people try and use the stability and "authority" of the network as an attempt to gain backlinks to other websites.

Spider
01-03-2011, 01:13 PM
Yes~ Settings/Reading is exactly where it is. Many thanks.

dojo
01-11-2011, 07:33 AM
I have 9 years of running web sites. Have used free hosts back in 2002 and until 2004. It's a waste of time. Never have control, never can really develop a site. Now, if I want to create a site, I just pay for a domain, set up a hosting account (I own a hostgator reseller plan), install the script and have a blast. I don't take into account free hosted sites most of the time. if they are not serious enough to pay for a domain/hosting, I don't want to have anything to do with them. I am a snob, but the main reason is that most of the times they don't last. So, it's not really worth it to spend time on them, when I know most won't make the 1 year mark.

Spider
01-11-2011, 09:25 AM
I don't think the attraction of free accounts is that they are free. For me, the attraction is that they are easy to use. Once you get past the learning hurdle (which - let's face it - will be a lot less on the simple free application than the more extensive paid application) using them is very easy. If all one wants is a simple blog, without frills - a place to post a series of articles and comments - then all the paraphernalia that comes with the full application is a waste. Some people love the mechanics of technology, some people revel in the magic of what technology can do, while others are only interested in using the technology for a specific purpose.

To call someone who is only interested in using an application at a basic level as "not serious" is belittling and elitist. I have no time for elitism.


Also, regarding hosted version SEO - my WP posts are getting indexed in Google pretty quickly.

Patrysha
01-11-2011, 09:55 AM
It has nothing to do with elitism and everything to do with perception. The viewer has no idea if you are using free because it is easy to learn or because you are too damn cheap to spring for the domain name and hosting and they aren't going to hang around long enough to find out. And it's one thing to use hosted WP for a personal blog, but as soon as you start promoting your business you risk crossing the line on their TOS. And while it may be no skin off your teeth to have your site removed and potential income lost because you have already earned your millions and are primarily a hobbyist, the fact is that going free is a horrible choice for someone motivated to keep food on the table with the business website.

Harold Mansfield
01-11-2011, 10:29 AM
It has nothing to do with elitism and everything to do with perception. The viewer has no idea if you are using free because it is easy to learn or because you are too damn cheap to spring for the domain name and hosting and they aren't going to hang around long enough to find out. And it's one thing to use hosted WP for a personal blog, but as soon as you start promoting your business you risk crossing the line on their TOS.


but the main reason is that most of the times they don't last. So, it's not really worth it to spend time on them, when I know most won't make the 1 year mark.

and that's the point. Perception.
The general perception of anything other than a personal journal on one of the free services is not good. People don't take your existence (based on the millions that have come before you) seriously because the track record of such blogs is a short existence. People "just trying it out", or "want to see if it will be successful first, before I invest in my own hosting and domain".

Given the insanely cheap cost to register a domain and hosting, it really comes of as a person who wouldn't spend $20 for their own website, and is a common stomping ground for 3rd world webmaster scams, splogs and other web trash.... so why would anyone else take it seriously and trust that it's going to be around for a while when the owner hasn't given it that much of an investment?

It may be "web snobby', but it is a largely held perception.

See you are thinking about you. And how easy it is for you to use. We ( those of use that need to make money and grow our business) are thinking about them..the reader, advertiser, client, surfer, search engine, and so on. We can't afford to do what is easiest, and ignore things like that. We need the respect of people passing by. We need to do what is going to position our company in the best light and most of the time that doesn't coincide with what is easiest. or else I'd just drop my contact information on a Squidoo page and leave it at that because that's all I needed...but that's not all that I need. No, I need people to take me seriously becasue I actually need the money to pay the bills.

That stage of free blog hosting was set well before you stepped onto it. Not too much you can do to change it back at this point.
It's not about you, I'm just telling you what other webmasters and business people say about the neighborhood that you've built it in. It's a long held perception. Common knowledge even. Has been for years.

So yes, many.many people will look at a "business" blog or website on Blogger, Wordpress or any of the others and say immediately "They are not serious". It may be unfair, but this is the way it is today. It does no good for you to get angry at us about it. We are just the messenger of what pretty much everyone else already knows.


And while it may be no skin off your teeth to have your site removed and potential income lost because you have already earned your millions and are primarily a hobbyist, the fact is that going free is a horrible choice for someone motivated to keep food on the table with the business website.

Pretty much sums it up.

Harold Mansfield
01-11-2011, 12:07 PM
Frederick, you may or may not remember this..but long ago ( about 5-6 years ago) in a land far away ( the old SBF), I was working for a web guy selling domains and other web products. I didn't have my own website, and basically had no presence online. I didn't know anything about anything.

I stumbled on Wordpress.com and put up a "business " page. It was a big flop. No one took it seriously and I looked like an amateur. I didn't get any business contacts from it and barely any traffic.Some people even told me flat out to give them a call "when I get serious".

Around the same time I also started a personal blog on Wordpress.com about Dance Music. It did get some traffic and started getting popular. It was the first page rank update when it went to PR4 (back when everyone was chasing Page Rank), that I realized that I had made a huge mistake because I couldn't monetize it or do any of the things that I now needed to do to grow it into a real Dance Music website, with videos, clips, ads, and so on.

So I got the guy that I worked with to give so me free hosting and I dived into self hosting with Wordpress. After some struggles, I finally got it going on it's new home and actually started making some money ( not much). But, it was when I moved it to self hosting that companies and labels in the industry started taking it seriously and wanted to be a part of the site...sending me free stuff, CD's to review, running contest and all of the press that I could post.

I also threw up a business site ( it was horrible. I had no skills), but kept my "business" blogs on Wordpress and Blogger and just linked to them from the main site. Still not good enough. Even though the main site was self hosted, having the blog part on a free hosted site still threw a monkey wrench in the credibility of the whole thing. And what gave it away, was having the website in one place, and related information ( the blog) someplace else...instead of all together on the same domain. I ended up scrapping it and selling the domain.

So I don't say things on this subject from any kind of "elitist" position. I already traveled the road. Made the mistakes, and wasted the time on this exact subject. I'm not voicing opinion as much as I'm relaying what business people have said to me to my face.
This isn't just me wanting the whole world to use Wordpress, This is me telling you ( not specifically you...others) the best way to do it yourself and look professional and credible.
You can jump up and down and scream how unfair it is, but it is what it is and is not personal to just you. I thought it was unfair at the time too and couldn't figure out what difference it made. But it did. and it does and I learned fast that if I wanted to be successful then I needed to get with the program.

You can't argue perception. It's not an entity that can be reasoned with.

The best advice I can give to anyone is to keep your brand and all of it's related content as close together as possible. Make it easy for people to find as much information as you can in the same place. Linking all over the web to different URLS looks unorganized, and unprofessional. It screams of "Do-it-yourself" and not in a good way.

If they are not related, then, they are not related. No problem.
Just know that anyone who has ever used a free blog host, knows what they look like. And that's a lot of people.

vangogh
01-11-2011, 12:25 PM
It really comes down to ease of use vs the control you have over the site. Even self hosted sites are only going to cost a few dollars a month given how little hosting costs.

The perception thing is more when you use free hosting that comes with advertising or when the domain shows the domain of the services hosting your site. If you click through to Frederick's site you'd have no way to know he was using the free WordPress.com vs the self hosted WordPress.org. In fact for all we know Frederick could be paying WordPress.com for extras and not have free hosting at all.

It's mainly ease of use in the free hosted solution vs the greater control you have in the self hosted solution. When you first launch a site you may not realize how much less control you have with the free hosted solution. In time though you will probably want to do something to improve your site and business that you simply can't do with the free hosted sites. On WordPress an easy example is they limit the themes and plugins you can add. Depending on your site and reasons for blogging that may or may not be an issue.

However you're generally going to be better off self hosting because that gives you the ability to run your site the way you want to run your site. The free hosted solution always puts you at the mercy of the business offering the free hosting. You have to operate under a their rules and work within whatever limits they set for you. With some free solutions you may also find it difficult to later move from the free hosted to self hosted. Others like WordPress make it much easier to move later if you choose.

Harold Mansfield
01-11-2011, 12:37 PM
No, you are correct and I have already agreed that if you are going to do it, your own domain is the best way to do it.
I'm merely speaking in general terms of free hosted vs self hosted and mainly about having your site on a subdomain of someone else's company.

Also, Patrysha already said it..Wordpress.com is not for commercial websites. They will catch you and lock you out if you are using it as a promotion tool for a commercial entity or to sell something. And they will tell you point blank, "If that's what you want to do, this is not the platform for you. Try our self hosted version". Exact words. They said it to me on about 5 blogs that I had there before I knew anything else.

Can you get away with it? Sometimes, but it's a fine line that you have to walk very carefully and I couldn't tell you where the line is. It's worth the $20 not to have to worry about it.

vangogh
01-11-2011, 03:37 PM
Oh I wasn't trying to disagree with you at all. I think you and I agree agree completely on this topic.

Are you sure about WordPress.com not being for commercial sites? Here's what's WordPress.com says under the heading You're in good company


You’d be surprised who’s blogging on WordPress.com. We host CNN’s Political Ticker; Dow Jones’ AllThingsD; NFL; Time Inc’s The Page; People Magazine’s Style Watch; famous bloggers like Mark Cuban, John Scalzi, and Joy Behar; corporate blogs for Flickr and KROQ; and many more.

Seems like a bunch of commercial entities though maybe not specifically commercial sites on WordPress.com. I would think more that their advice is to self host if your site is for commercial purposes, but they do offer a stats plugin on .com, which has little use if your site doesn't have some commercial component to it.

Harold Mansfield
01-11-2011, 03:46 PM
Oh I know you are of the same opinion.
Optimum word being that they "host" those sites. Meaning that they pay for additional services. They aren't using just the free version and are paying for more than just use of a private domain which is obvious by the custom designs.

They are using Wordpress (Automatic, the parent company of Wordpress) hosting:
WordPress.com VIP (http://vip.wordpress.com/).


Pricing is based on a flat rate starting at $2500/month for up to 5 blogs and then $500/month per additional blog (with a one-time setup fee of $1,500 per blog) — but is flexible depending on your circumstances and number of blogs. We also require that you signup your developer(s) to our VIP Support program.

We only want to do a select number of these, so we can’t accept everyone who applies. That said, don’t be shy. We’re always interested in meeting new and interesting folks.

And support is even more than that.
Obviously for big installations or heavy traffic sties.

And maybe I didn't say it loud enough, but I think Frederick's new blog, with the way that he is doing it (on it's own domain) is just fine. I don't want the discussion to seem personal. I'm talking mostly in general terms of the OP.

Spider
01-11-2011, 06:46 PM
Wordpress.com does not allow business blogs. On the contrary, WP.com seems to me to encourage business blogs -- "examples of popular blog categories:
"•Business: Professionals ranging from realtors to lawyers and stock brokers are using WordPress to share their expertise, and companies have discovered the power of blogs to personally engage with their customers.
"•Non-profits: Foundations, charities, and human rights groups find our blogs to be great tools to raise awareness and money for their causes."

Clearly, they don't want you to run AdWords, because they run Adwords, but you can promote your own products by way of discussing them. This is a blogging application, not a shopping application.

As Harold has already pointed out, we cannot talk of the "free version" because WP is open source, whether you use .com or .org. We are really discussing the WP-hosted version and the self-hosted version. So, what difference does it make to the blog if the software is hosted at Automattic, GoDaddy, Rackspace, Earthlink, 1 and 1, or any of a million other web hosting services?

The perception to which you refer is *your* perception. I know of no-one who is bothered by a blog that has a url such as 'virtualteambuilders. wordpress. com' other than people here. In any case, it is a mere formality to have a domain associated with a WP-hosted blog. No-one will know then whether it is a "free" account or otherwise.

Furthermore, what is so terrible about 'Free'? Nobody pays for a Facebook account - that's free. Yet I hear people on this forum advocating the use of Facebook for business. That's free. Are we to stop using Facebook for business because it is free? of course not.

Harold Mansfield
01-11-2011, 07:04 PM
Of course not. I'm merely talking from a business point of view. There are all kinds of exceptions and it's going to depend on what kind of blog it is...what your purpose is.
I'm just saying that you shouldn't put your business website on one as the main web presence. It doesn't bother me one way or another what other people do. I can think of 100 ways where it works, and 1000 ways that it doesn't.
If someone gave me a link to their website and it was their-company.blogger.com, I wouldn't consider doing business with them at all.

I wouldn't recommend a Facebook page over a website.
My recommendation is just that you should always have your own. That's all. If I could build my own Facebook and had $100 million to promote it, I absolutely would do it.
But I know I can build my own blog for $20. A little more attainable.

Spider
01-11-2011, 07:41 PM
...My recommendation is just that you should always have your own. That's all. ...If by that you mean your main web presence - or the centerpiece of your web presence - should be your own domain, then I agree. The other stuff - important as it may be, profitable as I hope it is - is not, I believe, diminished because it is hosted on a free service. What lowers the standard of the site is overpowering banner ads. A few pennies to eliminate them is well worth it, I believe.

To come back to the Wordpress debate, I wonder if the disagreement is arising because the capability of the full WP software is such that very complex and exciting websites can be created using it, while the .com WP-hosted application is suitable for blogs and not much more. As long as one is comparing a Boeing Dreamliner with a Cessna Skyhawk, no matter the similarities, they are different beasts for different purposes. If all you want to do is what a Cessna does, buying a Boeing is rather pointless.

And I think suggesting that someone who flies a Cessna is "not being serious" because he didn't buy a Boeing, is not being very helpful to people inquiring about airplanes.

Harold Mansfield
01-11-2011, 09:02 PM
And I think suggesting that someone who flies a Cessna is "not being serious" because he didn't buy a Boeing, is not being very helpful to people inquiring about airplanes.

No, but you can't rent a plane with a big "for rent" sign on it and expect other aviators to believe that you own it.

Spider
01-11-2011, 10:41 PM
Clever! I like that!

vangogh
01-11-2011, 10:50 PM
I've been trying to think of a good analogy for the free vs self hosted debate. I'm not sure this is the best one, but I'll try.

Imagine running a physical store. You don't own the building, but the owner allows you to use it. You're not allowed access to the plumbing, the electric, or any part of the building outside the large showroom the owner lets you use. If one day the lights go out you just have to wait for the owner to get them working again, assuming he feels like getting them working again. You can paint the walls as long as it's one of the few the owner will let you use.

In general the owner is a good guy. You trust him and for the most part he does fix things when they're broken and even makes improvements from time to time. Sometimes though he seems to ignore your pleas to get the lights working or to fix the broken pipe in the bathroom.

You aren't the only person using one of his buildings. He has many, many buildings and lets others use each and every one. His business does best when the majority of the people using his buildings are happy. If what makes them happy doesn't make you happy he's going to side with them because there's more of them.

The owner places a lock on the door. He does give you the key, but no assurance he won't change the lock tomorrow or tear the building down.

That's pretty much what you get when you opt for free hosting. You get something that works most of the time, but only at the mercy of the company that's providing the hosting. A company that only has your interest at heart as long is it also meets their interest as well.

Spider
01-11-2011, 11:13 PM
But, VG, we are at the mercy of the hosting company, whether that is Wordpress(Automattic) or Godaddy, Earthlink, 1 and 1, or any other hosting company - they could all shut down at a moment's notice (and I've had that happen.) Unless I buy heavy duty servers and a T1 connection and be my own hosting company, I am at their mercy, no matter who it is. Trusting WP to stay alive is no different from trusting the others to stay alive, I think. Becasue I have no intention of buying servers and T1s to become an internet host. And I am just as confident in Automattic as I am in Earthlink, my main ISP.

Harold Mansfield
01-11-2011, 11:41 PM
Clever! I like that!

Ha, I have my moments.

As VG alluded to, this obviously isn't the first time anyone has ever debated the free vs. self hosting. The debate rages on in many places. I've never been able to come up with a few words to make the point either because there are so many different scenarios to consider that no point is cut and dry.

And it's hard to keep my own professional or business feelings aside, not so much as a Wordpress guy, but as a person that that likes to own, or customize everything online that has my name ( or company name) on it. Not that it's all fabulous, but I just like having as much control as possible. I have to be able to personalize it, hack it, or restructure it differently than everyone else's or I don't want it. That's just me.

As a Wordpress guy, when I see a way to either simplify things or create something that can cover all of your needs all in one installation with the proper organization and management..it's hard to let go and accept that just because others aren't doing it that way, doesn't mean what they are doing is wrong.

I still hold firm that anything that is company related or represents you professionally, when ever possible, should be on a self hosted website and not be trusted or associated with a default, basic or common presentation. But much of that is a personal feeling.

I still associate Wordpress.com, Blogger, Type Pad and other free blog sites with personal blogs. Not as a serious place for a real business to be. But they are all stable platforms and I guess perfectly fine for a side project or for messing around.

vangogh
01-12-2011, 12:15 AM
But, VG, we are at the mercy of the hosting company

Not true. You enter into a legal agreement when purchasing hosting. They can't lock you out of your site without reason. They also give you access to a lot of the electricity and plumbing. Perhaps not all of it, but much more of it. I did say it probably wasn't the best analogy, but it was the best I could come up with at the moment.

It's not about trusting WP to stay alive. I suspect they will. It's that they they have a right to do whatever they want with your site. At the moment you're using the Coraline theme. If tomorrow WP.com decided to drop support for that theme your site breaks. I do think Automattic is an honorable company. The more I listen to Matt Mullenweg the more I like him and the more consistent I think he is with what he says. I trust Automattic and WordPress.com more than most companies. And yet a few months ago WordPress.com dropped themes supported by a developer who doesn't support the open source license of WordPress. I understood and agreed with their decision to drop support but still, many WordPress.com users found out after that support was dropped.

Maybe the paint part of the analogy is best. Your free to paint your store any color you want as long as it's one of our 2 approved colors.

Your hosting company doesn't have those same rights simply because you're paying them and there's a contract in place. Granted you have to trust them, but trust is inherent in every human interaction. There are different levels of trust and with free hosting you're having to trust much more than you are when there are protections in place.

However I would agree with you that the best solution would be to own the servers and host things yourself, which is what many large companies ultimately choose to do. The same way if you have the money you buy the building instead of renting the space inside the building. Naturally most of us can't afford that so we don't own the servers and the data center. I do think it makes sense to get as close to that ideal as you can afford.

Spider
01-12-2011, 09:30 AM
There are many more considerations than the money, though. I agree with what you say in principle, but "as close as you can afford," is too simplistic, I feel.

Someone I know owns 20 or so dry cleaner outlets. He could well afford to buy buildings to house each one, but his modus operandi is to let the supermarket chain, Kroger, do the location research and follow them - so wherever there is a Kroger around Houston, you will find this guy's dry cleaners. Because wherever there is a Kroger, there are people who need clothes cleaned.

No matter how much money one has, people have different priorities for spending it. And buying servers and high speed connections is not generally high on most internet users' priority list.

I really do think that cost and security are "also" cconsiderations. The main difference between the hosted and self-hosted version of Wordpress is in what they can do - the hosted version is good for blogging and not much more, the self-hosted is for website creation, CMS and so on. If all one wants to do is have a nice looking blog - for business or anything else - the hosted version is more than adequate.

Harold Mansfield
01-12-2011, 11:19 AM
I really do think that cost and security are "also" cconsiderations. The main difference between the hosted and self-hosted version of Wordpress is in what they can do - the hosted version is good for blogging and not much more, the self-hosted is for website creation, CMS and so on. If all one wants to do is have a nice looking blog - for business or anything else - the hosted version is more than adequate.

I agree that if that's all that you need. However, you should at least take advantage of the option to use your own domain for branding and personalization purposes. I still disagree that you should use an outside service for your business blog, if your company already has a self hosted website. I just don't believe in sending readers to a different site to read the company blog.

vangogh
01-12-2011, 11:38 AM
True. Like I said my analogy isn't the best. Just the best I could come up with at the moment.


And buying servers and high speed connections is not generally high on most internet users' priority list.

I agree for most. However there comes a point in the lifecycle of a company where it's more affordable to own the server than to rent space on someone else's server. I don't think most or even all small businesses are at this point. I'm talking about large corporations. My point is if this is the end point then as our small businesses are growing we should be moving toward this end point.

With the person you know I'd suggest he's missing an opportunity to own the buildings. I understand why he's letting Kroger's do his market research for him. It makes sense. What I'm suggesting is at some point he should try to own the building he's working in. I realize they may not be for sale, but assuming he could purchase them it would be better for his business. Of course we aren't really comparing apples to apples here since for a brick and mortar store the specific location of that store is important to success, hence this person's following Kroger's around. The physical location of the server isn't as meaningful. There's no following other sites around because being on the same server offers some added advantage (outside of perhaps getting better service, which isn't what we're talking about here)


If all one wants to do is have a nice looking blog - for business or anything else - the hosted version is more than adequate.

Not really. You're losing out on some of the good things a blog can do for your business. Blogs because of their informational nature attract links. Those links aren't directly helping your main site and it's your main site that's doing the selling. The links are building up your blog and creating a stronger link from the blog to your main site, but overall you lose some of the value of the links. Your main site would likely rank much better were the blog on the same domain instead of a different one.

And since you have less control over the hosted version you won't be able to maximize your efforts in attracting links to the blog or maximize the value of what you can do with the links that do come into the blog. WordPress.com is always going to limit what you can do with your blog. That's fine for a personal blog, but it reduces the effectiveness of what that blog can do for your business.

Also when people click from your blog to the main site their presented with different visuals. You run the risk of them thinking the two aren't connected. By using an image of you on both you do make the connection, but when I click on the Discovering link on your blog I'm taken to a page that doesn't have that image of you on it. It's possible people clicking that link won't make the connection and think they're on 2 different sites. People who read your blog regularly will figure it out, but people who find one of your posts in a search engine or through a link, probably won't make the connection.

It's more than just wanting to blog vs having a site that generates leads or sales. When you put both together on the same domain the whole is more than the sum of the parts. By placing things on different domains your whole doesn't become more than the sum of the parts.

Spider
01-12-2011, 11:51 AM
I agree that if that's all that you need. However, you should at least take advantage of the option to use your own domain for branding and personalization purposes. I still disagree that you should use an outside service for your business blog, if your company already has a self hosted website. I just don't believe in sending readers to a different site to read the company blog.Another tangent on this theme - So, what's the difference? It seems to me that few people look at the address bar after the initial logon. If a link from the site takes you to the off-site blog, but the blog has the same header, same layout,, same font, and the "home" link on the blog takes you back to the homepage on the site, the only way you would notice the disconnect is by watching the address bar. And even that can be disguised (at the attendant loss of SE indexing of the blog, but it's possible.)

At one point, I had a website that was spread over three physical locations, if I remember correctly. Chances are, your website is spread over several different servers anyway within the same host. These servers could be side-by-side in the rack or thousands of miles apart. Makes no difference, as I see it.

Harold Mansfield
01-12-2011, 12:22 PM
Another tangent on this theme - So, what's the difference? It seems to me that few people look at the address bar after the initial logon. If a link from the site takes you to the off-site blog, but the blog has the same header, same layout,, same font, and the "home" link on the blog takes you back to the homepage on the site, the only way you would notice the disconnect is by watching the address bar. And even that can be disguised (at the attendant loss of SE indexing of the blog, but it's possible.)

There is a difference between surfers just looking around, and people looking to do business with you. And I disagree that people don't pay attention to the address bar. People are very conscious of being redirected without knowledge of where they are going and it does make web users uneasy...that's why people use alerts, and pop up blockers.
Unexpected redirects are a very bad thing on the web and you want to avoid them as much as possible.

If you are hosting your company blog on a different website all together, I think it necessary to label it as such to preserve any credibility. I don't think you should just have a link that say's "blog" and then send users to another web address. For lack of a better term, it just looks "janky" and totally confuses your branding.

I'm not saying that it won't work. Tech wise, or course it will work. But is it the best, most efficient or best perception to the business person on the other end that is thinking about hiring you?

My first question when I see people do this is "Why do they have everything spread all over the place?" and that makes me question other things about their credibility, knowledge and attention to detail.
"How can they help me ,when it looks like they need help themselves?" And of course as a service provider I always say to myself, "Why would they do it like when they don't have to?".

and other questions about their stability:
"Don't they have their own hosting?"
"Why are they using free hosting? Are they broke?"
"Why didn't they have a professional help them with this?"
"Who is in charge of this?"
"How can they think this is professional?"
"I wonder what else they shortcut?"
"They don't look like they have been around long."
"They don't look like they will be around long."


My point is, that most of us do business with other business people. If it appears that I don't have a grasp on something as simple as managing and organizing my website, then why would the other skills I claim to have be any different?
You can't use logic when it comes to perception. Different things turn people off different ways, and you should try to minimize the amount of things that can go wrong when ever possible.

Sure, building websites has nothing to do with your field or expertise, however, you are using the web to attract potential clients. So you need to be able to use it efficiently. If you were using newspaper ads, or TV commercials, then you would need to produce those professionally. What ever medium you use, you need to at least have the perception that you know how to use it.
It doesn't stand out when you use it well, but it does stand out when you don't.

You also can't predict what about your presentation will attract people to hire you. I think the phrase "content is king " has been overused to the point of giving people a false sense that nothing else matters and that is very far from the truth. Any marketer will tell you that presentation is everything. On the web, you need to find a balance of both.

Online, you aren't meeting people personally. They are drawing a conclusion about the credibility and reliability of you and your services based on your presentation and the information that you offer. The same as we do.
It needs to be the best it can be, and not just patched together because it works. You can do a ton of things that are easy and just work, but your competitor that goes the extra mile will get your clients.
Online, if you aren't willing to go the extra mile, you are creating an opportunity for someone else.

If people don't think you have a nice website and that it's put together well, they will not call you. I don't care if you are a circus clown. It's your first impression and everything about it matters.
You could go to a job interview in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and hope that your experience and resume' will get you through, but the guy in the suit is likely to get the job.

IOW, I don't want to hire someone that does just enough to get by. I want to hire the guy that appears to go the extra mile.



At one point, I had a website that was spread over three physical locations, if I remember correctly. Chances are, your website is spread over several different servers anyway within the same host. These servers could be side-by-side in the rack or thousands of miles apart. Makes no difference, as I see it.

Well, my sites are all on the same server as are most sites. One website is normally not spread over different servers. Sure there may be back ups in different locations, but the files are generally all together.
However, if you are drawing information from outside sources, then yes, they are coming from where that source is. A good example is Facebook widgets and RSS feeds. Those are coming from where those servers are.
But your website files, are together.

Harold Mansfield
01-12-2011, 02:11 PM
Not really. You're losing out on some of the good things a blog can do for your business. Blogs because of their informational nature attract links. Those links aren't directly helping your main site and it's your main site that's doing the selling. The links are building up your blog and creating a stronger link from the blog to your main site, but overall you lose some of the value of the links. Your main site would likely rank much better were the blog on the same domain instead of a different one.

This is probably one of the most important points. Setting up a blog on a separate domain is doing nothing to help your website with links or any other SEO. You are spreading your resources. Instead of building an SEO powerhouse, you now have multiple properties to promote to try and get traffic and links.
Not the best or most efficient move.

vangogh
01-12-2011, 11:24 PM
Another analogy about having your site and blog on two different domains. Again maybe not the best analogy, but it's all I have at the moment.

It would be like having two physical stores, but giving each different names. Both stores can do well and might look similar and carry similar as well as different products, but most people won't make the connection that they're the same business. Where there are different products some people who would be happy to buy both from the one business don't because they don't realize it's the same store.

The analogy probably fits better when the site and blog have different looks than the domains themselves.

Where domains are concerned I agree most people aren't going to be consciously aware right away (assuming the visuals haven't changed), but I do think they will notice at some point or they'll pick up on it subconsciously. That doesn't mean they'll leave the site instantly, but it will probably mean they carry feelings of mistrust that could keep them from buying when the time comes. Trust is possibly the biggest factor in closing a sale online. Why you would knowingly do anything that could erode trust…

Spider
01-13-2011, 09:52 AM
You make good points, all worth considering. Let me toss this one in, also. If you have your entire site on one server with one host and that server goes on the blink, your site is down. Okay, they have backups and will get you back up fairly quickly, one would hope. If that location loses electrical power, your site goes down. Okay, they have backup generators. If your host company goes broke, gets into a fight with the telephone/wireless company, is raided by the FBI (!), your site goes down. Can't see any backup for any of that. If the host is located in Californnia and there is a huge earthquake, your site goes down. If your host is in New York and power and telephone lines are torn down by heavy snow storms, your site goes down. If your host is in Florida and everyone has to evacuate because of a hurricane, your site goes down. Or whatever - you get the idea.

But if I have my site spread over several hosts, one in California, one in New York, one in Florida, one in Hong Kong - it's highly unlikely that we'd be having an earhtquake in California, a snow storm in New York, a hurricane in Florida and a communist uprising in Hong Kong, all at the same time. With any one of these, only part of my site goes down and I stay in business. And steal all your customers because you are temporarily out of business!


On a more mundane level - if your blog is hosted by a different company and something happens to your main website, at least your blog continues to function while the site problems are resolved.

Harold Mansfield
01-13-2011, 10:15 AM
You make good points, all worth considering. Let me toss this one in, also. If you have your entire site on one server with one host and that server goes on the blink, your site is down. Okay, they have backups and will get you back up fairly quickly, one would hope. If that location loses electrical power, your site goes down. Okay, they have backup generators. If your host company goes broke, gets into a fight with the telephone/wireless company, is raided by the FBI (!), your site goes down. Can't see any backup for any of that. If the host is located in Californnia and there is a huge earthquake, your site goes down. If your host is in New York and power and telephone lines are torn down by heavy snow storms, your site goes down. If your host is in Florida and everyone has to evacuate because of a hurricane, your site goes down. Or whatever - you get the idea.

But if I have my site spread over several hosts, one in California, one in New York, one in Florida, one in Hong Kong - it's highly unlikely that we'd be having an earhtquake in California, a snow storm in New York, a hurricane in Florida and a communist uprising in Hong Kong, all at the same time. With any one of these, only part of my site goes down and I stay in business. And steal all your customers because you are temporarily out of business!


On a more mundane level - if your blog is hosted by a different company and something happens to your main website, at least your blog continues to function while the site problems are resolved.

First of all, you should have a back up of the files that make up your site.
Second, you should use a reputable host and know what their back up procedures are. For instance my host company has back ups in New York, California, Amsterdam, Montreal, and somewhere else.
Lastly, just because your hosting company's address is in one location, doesn't mean that their servers are in the same location. Most smaller hosting companies are just affiliates of larger ones or have purchased rack space somewhere.

Sure, anything is possible. We could also have a catastrophic power outage that takes down the electrical grid of half of the U.S. But on the likelihood that those things will not happen and I have chosen a capable and reputable hosting company, the SEO benefits of having my blog and website together today, far outweigh any future doomsday scenarios where my blog is miraculously the only business still online.

To flip the switch on that reasoning:
The odds of the free hosting company where you have your blog, changing the rules, or T.O.S. in a way that affects keeping your blog online, after you have spent time and energy building traffic and back-links to that blog, are more probable than a doomsday scenario or FBI raid at your paid hosting company.

Spider
01-13-2011, 11:15 AM
Quite right. As long as you realize that whenever you refer to a "reputable" hosting company (or reputable anything else, for that matter) you are relying on someone else to be and remain reputable. I thought the whole point of all this was to have control.

Harold Mansfield
01-13-2011, 11:22 AM
Quite right. As long as you realize that whenever you refer to a "reputable" hosting company (or reputable anything else, for that matter) you are relying on someone else to be and remain reputable. I thought the whole point of all this was to have control.

You have less control over a free host than anything because they can, and often do change the rules frequently, and hold the switch to shut down your site at will for anything they deem a good reason or violation or even just a misunderstanding, because on a free host, you don't even own the website. You own the content, but they are merely letting you use the website and can end that agreement at will.

Unless you have your own server and are your own portal to the web, you will never be in complete control of every little thing, but when it comes to your website, you should be in as much control as you can.

vangogh
01-13-2011, 11:54 AM
You're really just talking about the quality of your hosting company now. For $5 a month you're not getting a lot. Your site is usually on a single server with hundreds or thousands or other sites and yes there could be problems like the server going down etc. There are companies that will mirror your site on multiple servers in multiple locations so if one goes down the other takes over and there's no effect to your site. You should expect to pay more though for your site to be hosted like that.

The case you mentioned your site is still down. Even if it's only part of the site then you're still having issues. If your site and blog can work so independently of each other then you probably aren't maximizing the whole. You basically have 2 different sites with some cosmetic things to connect them. So yes on that possible day one server has a problem part of your site is still running and you're a little ahead. On every other day you're behind since you aren't taking advantage of everything your site(s) can do for you.

I'd also suggest with free hosting you have a greater chance of your site going down. The following is a generalization, but if you're a hosting company who makes money by having servers running you have more incentive to keep the servers running and fix them when there are issues. If you're giving the hosting away for free, there's probably less incentive to do both. Not that you won't take care of the servers, but rather there's a good chance you have other things to deal with that take precedence.

WordPress.com offers both free and paid hosting so they do have incentive to fix things. And like I said in an earlier post I absolutely trust them as a company. I'm pretty sure they'll provide you a good service for as long as you have your blog there. However you're never going to have the same control over your site as you would by self-hosting.

billbenson
01-13-2011, 02:03 PM
Additionally, most hosts rent space in a computer data center. It is not just being used for host X. Host X may use technicians provided by the data center or use their own. "Even small hosts tend to have multiple locations. I know my host, who is small, has several different locations. An earthquake hits LA and takes out a data center, it wouldn't surprise me if you are down for a day, but the hosts most likely have contingency plans. Additionally the LA quake would likely affect a number of hosts, LANS, and other services that require a secure, backed up facility.

vangogh
01-14-2011, 12:06 AM
Bill have you ever read some of the measures taken by data centers to protect their servers. They're probably some of the most secure buildings in the world. Servers are stored x feet off the ground to protect from flood. They have multiple generators onsite to ensure power. You can't enter the room with the servers without passing through several security checkpoints, some requiring fingerprint and/or retina scans.

It's amazing how much protection data centers provide for servers and it makes sense given how many businesses could be affected by even a few minutes of downtime.

There's a huge difference between $10 and under a month hosting and the high end.