And The Blog Went POOF...! Gone Into Thin Air

I had read about several WordPress blogs that are not self-hosted vanishing  in thin air. I thought that won't happen to mine. I have made several free WordPress blogs over the past year. I was so afraid of going with self-hosted because I heard some of those ended up offline or with other hosting issues. I was afraid of the time commitment and learning curve. How could I handle it all?

How Can I Do It?

Well last weekend I had decided to get over my fears and move one WordPress site to a self-hosted site so I could learn about it. I heard they were better for SEO and that the plug-ins offered so much more for your blog. So I transferred one to a self-hosted site. I had some great advice from Vanita over at After Bed Time Blog and went with Selby self-hosting through Val there who was great at helping me after setting it up for just $19 for 6 months. When it was complete I thought what was I so afraid of? And only $19 for 6 months. No big dollar commitment. I still have a lot of work to do to make the blog better but it is so easy with plug-ins and I hope over the weekend to have more time work on it and learn a lot about the WordPress.org versions.

I then went to look for another WordPress blog of mine and to my amazement found it was GONE into thin air with a message that said "This blog is no longer available. This blog has been archived or suspended due to the violation of our terms and services."  I was in shock. The blog just VANISHED into thin air!

The Blog Went POOF Gone- Into Thin Air!

After I collected myself  I went on to email WordPress about it and they responded that I had too many links to an eCommerce site. Thankfully it was the least important of all my blogs and that I had transferred the other in the nick of time! Here are the several lessons I learned from this entire experience:

• Back up your blogs - Any WordPress or Blogger blogs - always do a backup, weekly or daily
• Read the fine print of the terms and conditions
• Don't be afraid of self-hosted blogs and websites
• Don't be afraid of your abilities - you can do more than you think if you put your mind to it and seek advice from those who have been through it
• Learn as much as you can by reading other's mistakes and successes

Are you using a self-hosted site or still the free versions? 

I will be moving this blog over to WordPress.org in the near future as soon as I learn more from my first self-hosted site.