WordPress.com and Google Blogspot are a stepping stones for the new bloggers on low budgets establishing themselves on web. But for me WordPress.com is higher in popularity and attraction as compare to self hosted WordPress.org, There are hundreds of posts and bloggers who are day in and day out recommending movement from Blogger/Wordpress.com to self hosted versions. Even I moved my blog from wordpress.com quiet a while ago but I have to return back to WordPress.com. But anyways I am not leaving my self hosted version but WordPress.com is right as a personal blog. And now with Wordads the wordpress.com sites can also be monetized. I am just going to share in subsequent post my experience with Worads.
Why Back to WordPress.com?
I felt that writing on WordPress.com is more trouble-free as the blog is personal and you have to focus only on content part. The feeling is more carefree while writing on WordPress.com. Plus with the advent of Wordads I want to see how Automattic which is a contemporary company like Google is going to do. WordPress.com is right for personal blogs but as soon as the Wordads has some big numbers rolling for few bloggers I am sure things will change sooner. If you even have a blog on self hosted server and you are planning for a second blog do open it in wordpress.com. Few things I liked about WordPress.com:-
1. No worry of server uptime, backup, plugins configuration and blog management.
2. As it is my second blog I have a limited bandwidth of time and I couldn’t give much focus on management of second blog. Hence choice went to WordPress.com because of factors in point above.
3. The visibility aside to Search Engine is more as compare to self hosted as the WordPress.com is a huge community and they publish freshly pressed on the main screen which attracts many readers to your blog. So it is a fair play several times you publish post more frequent you will be showcased on Freshly pressed.
The best about wordpress.com is charges for domain mapping and your domain hosting is just 18$/Year whereas if you preown a domain, domain mapping is just 13$/Year. Which is quiet cheaper option if you are getting a fair traffic on your blog and earning well from wordads.
Theme I think best for wordpress.com is twenty twelve, twenty thirteen looks nice but I had to struggle my way to configure it for proper display. Twenty thirteen is under developement phase and I think will be fully functional with all bugs fixed by August 2013.
Most Important is through your WordPress.com site you can build lots of backlinks towards your own blog.
You will be lagging in few things in wordpress.com like permalinks, SEO as per your own wish, theme customization but if you are keeping it as a second personal blog. I don’t think you will feel much pain about it. As the investment is low and you have to just focus on content 13-18$ is not a bad bet to have a wordpress.com site. And you never know you can earn even more than what you are getting from your Adsense account.
Despite all these good things about wordpress.com if you are going for a fully commercial site(second, third or whatever number) and you have bandwidth to keep up another site. My only recommendation to you is to go with a self hosted blog site. As customization, SEO and permalinks fixture, Plugins actually will push your blog a bit faster on a top-level of traffic sites.
Do you own a WordPress.com or a custom domain site with Wordads? Do share your experience with us.
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