WordPress.org

1. hcoxas2
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   What are the pros and cons of using own domain and hosting compared to just a site.wordpress.com subdomain

   Will I be able to FTP the freebie hosted website? can add widgets etc?

   any other points of view?

2. Otto
   Tech Ninja
   Posted 4 years ago #

   Hosting it yourself:
   Pros:
   - You can select your own domain name.
   - You can add plugins and customize it however you like
   - You can run advertising
   Cons:
   - Hosting and domains costs money.
   - You need to have some level of technical understanding to modify things to your liking.
   - You have to maintain it, upgrade it, back it up, etc.
   - Cheapo hosting can't usually handle high levels of traffic easily.

   WordPress.com
   Pros:
   - Free.
   - No worries about upgrading or backing up or what have you.
   - No need for any technical knowledge.
   - Can handle damn near any amount of traffic, although if it's more than a short term spike in traffic, they'll want you to pay for it.
   Cons:
   - No ads.
   - Can't add plugins.
   - Not much customization of the theme possible. You can pick from a wide selection of themes, but not customize the HTML/code in them.
   - You are something.wordpress.com for your domain name.
   - Customizing your domain name to your own (instead of wordpress.com) or adding custom CSS functionality to make it look different costs money for the upgraded functionality (albeit not much).

   Suggestion: Make a WordPress.com blog. It's free. Use it a while. If you later decide you want to switch, you can export all your posts/comments and such out of WordPress.com and import it into your own self-hosted WordPress blog.

3. hcoxas2
   Member
   Posted 4 years ago #

   Hey Ott, thanks for the recommendations, that last suggestion, I might try, what about privacy issues? does every public wp.com blog get in the spiders web for google dataminers etc?

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