Where to host a wordpress blog?
What are the benefits of hosting on a server you pay for ( like dreamhost ) versus just posting your blog on the wordpress site?
Public Comments
- You can get free or cheap hosting here: http://wordpress.org/hosting/
- You have a lot more freedom to do what you want if you host your blog yourself. I had a Wordpress.com blog and it's nice if you are a beginner to blogging and don't know much about maintenance, but if you want to do more with your blog (put in your own templates, a forum, upload music, etc.) then you'll have to host it yourself.
- There are many benefits to hosting your own wordpress instance, and the decision should be based on what you need versus how much admin you want to avoid. The easy option is to get wordpress.com [1] to host your content, but assuming that's not good enough... 1. You can develop your own theme, or select from any of the free downloadable themes, so the site will look exactly as you want. If you go with hosting, this may not be possible. 2. You can choose exactly which plugins to install, and you can write your own... this may sound beyond you if you're not technical, but personally, I am, and I've ended up writing about 15 plugins that add all kinds of capabilities to my site [2]. 3. You can put as much, or as little advertising as you want - which can be a problem with some hosts (though not wordpress.com [1]). 4. You get to practice your MySQL administration skills and your PHP... obviously if this is not a benefit for you, then get a free host. 5. You get the logs. Which can be handy if you want to analyse your traffic to the n'th degree. 6. You can move between your basic service provider, so the responsiveness of your site is entirely down to you (and how much you pay). 7. Beyond wordpress... if you want to integrate other features then if you host everything yourself then anything is possible - for example. Photo galleries, forums, etc. 8. Content ownership and licensing. Be sure to read the terms and conditions to understand who owns what when you blog online! Self hosting has none of these problems. Having a hosted blog is good for convenience and lack of admin. Doing the work yourself will take up a lot of time, but you end up with a site that's all yours.
