I’ve been giving some serious consideration to moving this blog to a self-hosted platform and saying au revoir to the hosted WordPress.com. There is quite a lot I’d like to upgrade on the page, and the wordpress.com options are not very cost-effective. I am concerned though that I have built up quite a following using wordpress.com, and if and when I move to wordpress.org I will lose you all!
I’m looking at this webhost. If anyone has any experiences of switching over to WordPress self-hosted, I’d love to hear. Also, if anyone knows how I can move all of my subscribers with me, I really need to know!
If you do follow me already and don’t want me to vanish from your life! You can fill in my Mailchimp email signup form that pops up when you load my site, or in the email signup box on the inbuilt email signup!
You could also follow me on Facebook and Twitter!
If you have any experiences of migrating blogs, please get in touch!
Saying au revoir to WordPress.com will be quite a learning curve, but I am hoping it will give me greater control over my site! I will, of course, be sharing updates and what I have learnt from the process as the move from hosted to self-hosted happens.
I think that if you’re just moving the same account name over, people who follow you will still see your posts in their feed
I’m seeing that if I use the jetpack plugin when I migrate then I can ask wordpress.com to migrate my subscribers! (I quite often see information to the contrary!) But yeah, I’d be keeping this name.
Someone I follow went self-hosted a couple months ago and there was no apparent change to me aside from her comments temporarily being turned off.
I’m subscribed so hopefully I wouldn’t miss out on your posts either way 🖤
You might want to take a look at SiteGround, that’s who I use, or talk to Grayson Bell if you need some help…he’s awesome.
Did you go straight in with a wordpress.org site or did you move over from wordpress.com?
I see sitground helps with migration- which would be handy. I was swayed by the fully renewable powered data centres of green hosting- even though it is more expensive than siteground and bluehost etc. So conflicted! My biggest concern is that I have read that getting your followers from .com over to .org is a problem. Unless I am completely barking up the wrong tree.
I did everything wrong the first time and lost my followers. SiteGround will help you with all your questions and Grayson can help with the WordPress side of things. Find him on Facebook and ask your questions.
A very useful and important concern, Peter. I have been trying to get the same answers for some time now but there’s nothing promising on the internet. I hope you get the help you need.
Good luck in what ever you choose to do. WP evolves. They now have this new thing called a home page or some such. But I work out of the Dashboard and am comfortable with how I operate. For a while I also had a Blogger site. Now I only have that connection to post comments on those who visit my WP from Blogspot. The two never did play nicely. I more or less left Blogspot because there was no notification of comments. Well there sort of was but I didn’t like how it operated. I also had several WP sites for different types of writing.
Now I only have one because I had some issues with trolls and followers that I didn’t want. I’m not selling anything …yet – so I’m relatively happy with how my ‘free’ site is functioning. There’s not a whole lot of buying that I do online. And some of the sites that want you to set up money accounts want information I don’t want to share. I don’t follow a whole lot of sites. If you do switch up – maybe you could email me? Or maybe overlap with a link on this site before you completely shut it down.
I also don’t do Faceplant, Twit, Insta or bother with the WP Reader. The main thing is for you to be happy with what you want to do. Cheers, Jules
Hey Jules. I made the switch about three weeks ago! I moved my domain name over and carried all my content with me. The site has been slightly tweaked on the front end, but the major changes are ones that only I can see from the backend. I am having some issues getting my posts seen from WordPress reader- despite upgrading to the paid version of Jetpack (which they assured me would help my wordpress.com followers to see me) However, I have posted a few posts since moving, and some of those have been writing prompts which you have used- so my posts are definitely finding their way though to some of you readers (unless you’re coming looking for them!) Well, anyway, you can still find me at this address, whether or not my posts get through to reader or not, I will endeavour to try and post a couple of times a week on here at least!
I do look for You and your prompts, and occasionally I look at the other titles. But mostly for the prompts 😉 – I don’t use the WP reader. I try and make return visits (at least within the same seven days) – That come through to my email inbox and through the comments section in my WP dashboard.
Continued success. And stay safe. ~ Jules
This might be why you are one of the few people who has managed to see my posts in the last couple of weeks! It’s annoying that I have actually started to pay for Jetpack so that my posts show up in reader again, but its apparently still not doing much!!
I was writing prompts twice a week, but more recently I tend to just do a bigger selection once a week, usually towards the middle of the week!
I just looked for the posts that had the prompts… any particular day I should look for? I meander a tad and mash prompts – I have some I do regularly every week. So I’ve gotten picky about really liking the prompt – I’ve got the potential for five on Sunday… I don’t do them all that day though.
I did notice that instead of three that you had ten to ‘choose’ from. I can be observant… occasionally 😉
All the ones with ten have been posted since I moved the site (the piece with daffs trumpet was definitely from one of my post-move prompts)
Of course, you’re welcome to use all ten if you’re up for a challenge!
Ten sentences is just a tad different from 12 words (some of which are obscure in a wordle) so that’s why I pick the ones that I think will fit best.
Did you have one day that you are posting those prompt lists or do I have to hunt it down?
I aim for a Wednesday, but it really depends on my workload and life commitments if I get chance to post them then.
That said, I’ve had a barrage of messages, phone calls, and emails, so everything apart from work in my life is on COVID19 pause as the world shuts down. (I already work from home, so don’t see much change there)
Maybe I’ll get chance to post more often 🤷♂️
I’ll Pencil you in my prompt Calendar for Wed. But I’ll look before and after.
Yep. Strange new world… my town short of calling the National Guards in has basically shut down and said; Stay calm, stay safe, stay home. Those who haven’t worked from home before and who can now have the advantage of those who can’t or have lost jobs due to closures… Scary times. I’m trying to stay positive.
Stay safe. ~Jules