Discussions

Moving your blog to a domain

Posted by timethief • 6/27/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: blogging tips, domain mapping, domains, subdomains

Some bloggers start out on free hosted blog platforms like wordpress.com on a test basis. They plan to establish traffic, purchase a domain and then to switch over to paid hosting.

The Technorati Authority and Rank as well as the Google Page Rank belong to the sub-domain url for your blog. If purchase a domain and move your blog on to it those will disappear unless you also purchase domain mapping.

This post of mine contains some blogging tips pertaining to why you should get your own domain and how to go about doing so "How and why to get your own domain"
onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/how-and-why-to-get-your-own-domain/

The post is written so both inexperienced and experienced bloggers can read it with ease and understand the concepts presented. I have also included reference links throughout the article that may be of particular interest to advanced bloggers.

Based on the discussion feedback I receive in this thread I may write a followup article containing links back to BC members who make useful contributions to the discussion.

Invitation to enter discussion
(1) I'm inviting BC members, who have already chosen to move to their blog off free hosting to a domain, to read my blog post and to post discussion comments focused on benefits you have experienced by moving blog to your own domain, that have not been included in my blog post.

(2) I'm inviting BC members, who have made the opposite choice ie. the choice to keep their blog on a free hosted blogging platform, to read my blog post and to post discussion comments focused on benefits you have experienced by not moving your blog to a domain of your own.

User Comments

6/27/08

AmyOops

thanks i need this today

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  I'm glad it's helpful for you Amy. I see that you are just moving to a domain and I wish you well.
6/27/08

latinocool79

umm, I was going to move my main blog but I had a better idea. I just started from 0 a new own domain but I am not duplicating but making it more professional. I was going to move but was going to lose so many things. Now I have my old blog which I still update and my new one which is growing like crazy.

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  @latinocool179
  I think many bloggers have made the same choice that you did and started a new blog on a domain. I'm glad to hear that yours is "growing like crazy".
6/27/08

achuna

timethief
I was waiting for u. But you jump here and there i can't catch you. Thank God I found u here. Can you give me links to wordpress layout customization, tweaks and tips or tricks? Any pls...

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  @achuna
  This thread isn't being posted for the purpose of providing self-hosted wordpress template customization tips but don't despair. You can post your own discussion thread to this forum and when you do you can choose the blogging help category for it. Once it's posted then those who have web design skills will answer you in your new thread.
  Best wishes
2. 6/27/08
  
  achuna
  
  oh! thanks
6/27/08

br3adman

I can move your blog over to a domain for $20.00 per year includes domain,hosting,several email accounts..

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  @br3adman
  Apparently you did not read the original post I made to this thread. For your reading pleasure it clearly states:
  
  Invitation to enter discussion
  (1) I'm inviting BC members, who have already chosen to move to their blog off free hosting to a domain, to read my blog post and to post discussion comments focused on benefits you have experienced by moving blog to your own domain, that have not been included in my blog post.
  
  (2) I'm inviting BC members, who have made the opposite choice ie. the choice to keep their blog on a free hosted blogging platform, to read my blog post and to post discussion comments focused on benefits you have experienced by not moving your blog to a domain of your own.
  
  You have spammed my Shameless Blog Promotion thread.
2. 6/27/08
  
  Teck
  
  @br3adman
  Please refrain from spamming thank you...
6/27/08

RTBjr73

Timethief, youre article is OUTSTANDING!!! I even printed it out so I could read it on my lunch hour. articles like the mentioned are VERY helpful to newbies suvh as myself.

Thanks again

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  @RTBjr73
  As I know that you are looking ahead towards moving your blog onto a domain of your own in the future it's good to hear this feedback from you. Thanks for posting your support. If you have any questions I'll be pleased to try and answer them on my blog.
  
  The best time to do this move to a domain is when your blog is young and there aren’t many posts. If you wait you may find following the export that your XML file is so large that you cannot import it until you go into it and break it down into smaller files. And breaking it down, of course, leaves room for errors to occur.
  
  Also if your blog is image rich then wasting time when it comes to making the move to a domain will be something that you may regret. When you export your posts out of your of your blog all images will be lost. You will have to upload each and every one of them into the posts again.
6/27/08

Teck

Very informative article TT, thanks for sharing....

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  @Teck
  Thank you for saying thanks. Your blog is coming along very nicely and I appreciate the work you have been putting into it.
2. 6/27/08
  
  Teck
  
  @TT, you're welcome...
  Thanks for the complement...
6/27/08

rileycentral

Time thief's article has a lot of the "nitty gritty" reasons why people should switch from free host to self hosted.

If you'd like further illustrations and reasons, I've written a few. None are as detailed as hers I might add, but they concern some other issues:

postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/how-to-install-a-wordpress-blog/

postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/blogging-platform-setup/

postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/blogspot-vs-self-hosted/

More stuff on blogging, inspiration, and psychology at:
postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  @rileycentral
  Thanks so much for posting the links to your articles. If I get enough feedback here to do a followup article, I'll be sure to include them in it.
  
  My intention was to start to roll this topic out in a step-by-step way, as this is what some of my readers, who are preparing for the move away from wordpress[dot]com have requested.
6/27/08

Maureen2

Thank you for the insight. My blog is image heavy and I think it might serve me better to link between them once I make some other choices. My next version needs more of a community feel as I divvy up all the topics that interest me that change at the drop of a hat or a click of the remote. Appreciate the info.

[reply]
6/27/08

booboostrider

Thnaks for posting this! I have been contemplating a domain purchase but im afraid that i will lose my page rank. Is this true? Can someone tell me the answer? Please post your answer on my blog.

www.BoinkedPika.co.nr
www.BoobooStrider.co.nr

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  @booboostrider
  If you have a free hosted blog on a subdomian (examples wordpress.com or blogspot.com) take note that the Technorati Authority and Rank as well as the Google Page Rank belong to the sub-domain url for your blog. If purchase a domain and move your blog on to it those will disappear unless your former web host will do a 301 or you purchase domain mapping.
  
  wordpress.com
  Can I redirect my blog?
  If you, sadly, have elected to move away from wordpress.com it is unfortunately not possible to redirect your blog either to another blog here or to a domain elsewhere. In other words, we cannot return a 301.
  faq.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/can-i-redirect-my-blog/
  
  Domain Mapping
  Q: What is domain mapping?
  A: This is where your blog is here at wordpress.com but it looks like it is somewhere else - on another domain. This is a paid upgrade. It costs $10/year for the domain name. It costs $10/year for domain mapping. If you buy both at the same time the total cost is $15/year. You do not pay until the nameservers have been changed and verified as being correct. ...
  faq.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/domain-mapping/
6/27/08

gmoney

Your post are always very informative, if I was a newbie, I would be in HEAVEN, but thank you for the great post and make sure that you keep up the good work.

[reply]
1. 6/27/08
  
  timethief
  
  @gmoney
  Thanks for the compliment and support. Both are appreciated.
6/27/08

jan4insight

I'm sticking with my free blogspot domain name for now. Why? Because I just printed 1,000 business cards with my blogspot URL!

[reply]
6/27/08

acousticguitarist

TT

I started my guitar blog purely as a test, but when people started visiting I decided to keep it and started another one running in parralel. This for me was an extremely sensible solution. When I started the-guitarplayer.com hosted blog, the version of Wordpress was minus a few features and I felt that these features were essential for search engines. I had originally thought of writing totally different content for both but as time has gone on the content is similar. I may redefine the direction in the future when I work with a few other projects that I am doing. Both blogs give me around 500 visitors a day and it is increasing. I can write content reasonably fast so it's not a real issue in finding material. I haven't even scraped the surface of the material in my head yet.

acousticguitarist.wordpress.com is my non hosted.

I tried Blogger, I used to run classes in it before Google snaffled it but it's messy software and there were too many problems with it.

[reply]
6/27/08

timethief

@acousticguitarist
I just visited the-guitarplayer.com/ and you have a css problem in your sidebar.
Error in parsing value for for property 'width' Declaration dropped.

[reply]
1. 6/28/08
  
  acousticguitarist
  
  interesting...can you SEE a problem?
  
  is it that I should add px to the script???
6/28/08

gingerbeer25

WHen I first started blogging I had a free blog but the more I read about what you loose when you decide to get your own domain name I decided the best thing to do why to do it early. SO I bought www.womanist-musings.com/ after about only six weeks of blogging. From here on in at least I know that everything I do will be attributed to the right place and the cost was so insignificant that it really was not worth a heap of thought. Had it been more money I might not have taken the jump so early.

[reply]
7/04/08

monarch13

I tried twice now to host WordPress on my own domain but it has proved to be a disaster both times.

To keep with your request and not dwell on the negative

Blogger Keeps It Simple for us non-techies, and I actually put my blogs in frames, so my site gets technorati credit without the blog sucking up all my traffic.

www.monarchhp.com

[reply]
1. 7/04/08
  
  rileycentral
  
  @monarch Try my basic tutorial:
  postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/how-to-install-a-wordpress-blog/
  And with regards to failure:
  
  "Unless you try and do something beyond what you have mastered, you will never grow."
  C.R. Lawton
  
  Trust me, Blogger has NOTHING on Wordpress self-hosted. Feel free to email me if you have questions.
7/04/08

latewire

There are a lot of advantages of keeping your blog on blogspot. Spam protection in the comments, free hosting, and everyone has an account (for commenting)... more convenient in a lot of ways.

That said, the amount of control you get with a domain is undeniable... but you have to be very savvy to know how to use it.

latewire.com

[reply]
1. 7/04/08
  
  rileycentral
  
  One lesson a day wouldn't kill you. When you finally get away from that sad old thing they call Blogspot, you will thank me. Nonetheless, if you like it by all means stay. To me it's no contest.
7/04/08

washwords

Wow TT, you seem to read my mind and state of where I'm at. Whenever I'm ready for taking my blog to the next level, you're there posting on how!

So I guess to start I'm not sure if I'm in category 1 or 2 yet. I just purchased hosting and have set up a domain-hosted blog (not wordpress) but for now... I'm not quite "ready" and can't tell yet if I'm just stalling or really enjoying where I am.

I plan to read these comments and your blog post CAREFULLY and will be making some decisions in the next few days and weeks. Like many have posted I may wind up with some hybrid where I launch a NEW site that my blog may or may not be linked to.

Thank you so much!

Washwords

[reply]
1. 7/04/08
  
  timethief
  
  @washwords
  Hi there. I'm glad to hear you are almost ready to take your blog to the next level and that I'm a step ahead of you. Best wishes.
7/04/08

Anniepooh

I'm going to have to read this since I just don't "get it". I've had my own domain for some time, but I can't figure out how to switch my blog there while still using the blogspot platform--does this cover that?

[reply]
1. 7/04/08
  
  timethief
  
  @Annie
  I don't "do" blogspot, sorry. However, the article doesn't only apply to wp. Perhaps some blogspot fans will jump in and give you some advice. If I were you I'd switch to wp. Just sayin ...
7/04/08

Nomadic

Thanks Timethief. I shall sit down with a cup of tea and read this. This is exactly what I am trying to do at the moment with 4nomadic.wordpress.com having just bought 4nomadic.com - benny is kindly helping me through it. To be honest with you - it all scares the pants off me!

[reply]
1. 7/04/08
  
  timethief
  
  @nomadic
  Hi there. I'm glad to here you are ready to move up. Not to worry Ben knows what he is up to. So simply enjoy your tea and read all the background stuff in the post. If you are going to use a blogspot template there are some at this link bloggerblogtemplates.blogspot.com/2008/02/dilectio-blogger-template.html
7/04/08

powerdraw01

I have been on blopspot for a year now and am afraid of moving away from it. I am showing up in the front page on many Google searches, and even in the number one spot on a few. My traffic isn't high, probably because it is such a niche subject, but I would hate to throw away the search results I am getting now.

[reply]
1. 7/04/08
  
  kristilinauer
  
  powerdraw, I just moved mine over to my new domain after using the free blogspot. I have many keywords in the #1 and #2 positions, and I have MANY that are in the top 10.
  
  I was afraid of losing that traffic, also, but I found that after a couple of days, I was right back up at the top. I'm not sure if it's because Blogger is owned by Google, but the switch was seamless, and it didn't have any adverse affect on my keywords.
2. 7/04/08
  
  timethief
  
  @powerdraw01
  There is no reason for your search results to change simply because you move to a domain.
7/04/08

kristilinauer

After months of having www.addicted2decor.blogspot.com, I finally switched to my own domain, blog.addicted2decorating.com, which is part of a bigger website I'm working on. I'm glad I did, because as most people say, it looks more professional. But like you said, I lost my Google page rank (I had a PR 4), and I'm back to an Alexa ranking of over 6 million. I feel like I'm starting over.

The good thing is that it hasn't had any adverse effect on my traffic. In fact, I saw a jump in traffic. I don't know if the domain switch and traffic increase are correlated at all, but that's just how it happened for me.

[reply]
1. 7/04/08
  
  timethief
  
  @kristilinauer
  Thanks for sharing your experiences and happy blogging to you. Do be aware though of "duplicate content". You will have to either make your old blog "private"or Google will detect duplicate contents and penalize you for it.
7/04/08

kristilinauer

timethief, I don't have any idea what that means.

I used the Blogger tool that allows you to post under your own domain. I already had a domain name, so I didn't purchase one through Blogger, but the steps are basically the same. It asks if you want to direct people who try to use your old blogger address to the new URL, and I chose "yes". Am I missing something?

[reply]
1. 7/04/08
  
  timethief
  
  No, provided your blog is redirecting this is not problem. That means any visitor hitting on your old blogger url should be seamlessly ending up on your new site. A situation with two different sites that have duplicate content would be a problem.
2. 7/05/08
  
  Katuluu
  
  Didn't know the duplicate content was an issue for Google. Do you happen to know how it penalizes you for it?
  
  Time for me to go and make sure everything is redirecting properly.
7/08/08

washwords

wow there's a wealth of stuff here. Thanks again timethief. I'm not sure whether I'm excited or frightened by the power of what's out there that I'm not even beginning to use yet.

[reply]
1. 7/08/08
  
  timethief
  
  You're welcome. Granted it's a learning curve but most bloggers agree that having your own domain is worth it in the end. Best wishes.
7/09/08

marydane

Hi, just checked your blog and posted a comment.:D

Looks like we have related posts. You might want to spend a minute or two in my blog and give a feedback...:D

Thanks!

[reply]
7/09/08

app2usadvisor

timethief,
Very informative article.
I started blogging on a paid hosted domain at www.app2us.com
Good experience so far.
-app2usadvisor

[reply]
7/09/08

BusinessViking

Quick question...is this type of post considered spam? My entire blog is business advice so I can write up a new discussion like this everyday - if that's allowed - fantastic...if not...I'd rather error on the side of caution.

Reply to me specifically so I get the email.
Thanks much.

[reply]