Feb 16 2009
Self Hosting Your Blog: Bad Advice for Beginners
Conventional wisdom says one of the biggest mistakes made by beginning bloggers is signing up for a free blog.
The reason given is all your hard work may go up in smoke if the service provider decides to delete your blog.
Well, the risk is always there, but then a free blog has its advantages.
Firstly, if you’re on a tight budget and can’t spare cash for hosting and domain registration, a free blog would be an attractive option.
But this is not really why you should sign up for a free blog.
You sign up for a free blog to test the waters. You want to see how far you can go with a blog. You want to see if blogging is your cup of tea. You want to see if you’ll run out of steam after blogging for a while.
If you’ve self hosted your blog, you would have to keep up with the monthly and yearly payments to keep your blog alive over the Internet although you’ve lost interest in blogging.
You’ll certainly do this with a heavy heart especially if you’ve a few self hosted blogs you’ve lost interest in.
I came across a wonderful blog on blogging tips which discussed the technical side of blogging like working with templates, Javascripts and widgets, among others.
It is hosted on the blogger platform.
The blogger has not updated his blog since 2007 but the blog enjoys a PageRank of 6 and I’m sure the blogger is making good money with Adsense and the Amazon affiliate program.
If the blogger had self-hosted his blog, he would be forking out cash to maintain his blog he seems to have lost interest in.
The only advantage of self hosting a blog for the beginner is he has something to call his own.
But blogging should be more than an ego trip. Just put your ego aside and sign up for a free blog to test your blogging stamina. If you can last a whole year, then you should consider self hosting your second blog.
The fear that your blog may be deleted by the provider is actually quite baseless. If you’re blogging on a legitimate subject and adhere to the TOS of the provider, there’s no reason why your blog will be removed.
No provider in his right mind will remove a blog that offers genuine, valuable content.
If you’re new to blogging, don’t take the advice of self hosting your blog. Try out a free blog to see how far you can go before considering the self hosting option.
