Is a wordpress*.com* site pretty much worthless?

14 replies
Should I give up with seo on a wordpress .com site and just swich to blogger. Since I cant really afford a wordpress .org site?

Has anyone here ever succeeded with a wordpress .com site?
#pretty #site #wordpresscom #worthless
  • Profile picture of the author Markus Nimocks
    Huh? What's the difference? (Between .com and .org?)

    I think the best thing to do is get hosting and put Wordpress on your own domain. Hostgator is cheap and Wordpress installation is automated and super easy....
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    • Profile picture of the author gpower2
      .com is the version that is hosted by WP (you don't own the domain, e.g., yournamehere.wordpress.com.)

      .org is the one where you own the domain and need hosting.

      Rich Pryor, I second the HostGator recommendation.

      Hililuud, if you can't afford a hosting company that's one thing, but if you can, Wordpress is the platform that wins hands down.

      Google loves WP and if you do your keyword research correctly, you can do SEO with WP blogs and have them be quite successful.

      Gary
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  • Profile picture of the author blase40
    It depends. A hosted (.org) wordpress installation offers you the ability to customize it with plugins, etc. and you dont have to worry about your content going anywhere.

    The hosted version (.com) doesnt have any customization options (other than a few mediocre themes) and you cant use plugins... which is what makes wordpress a powerful platform.

    A hosted version isnt all bad if you are setting up a network of mini sites, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author Odhinn
    Don't give up on paying for a domain, it's by far the best option. It's also probably not as much money as you'd expect. Get a .com, and it's $10. Heck, if you bought a .info, it'd be $3 to register the domain! You can get hosting for really cheap; I've seen $2.50 per month (not hostgator's price, but definitely available).

    If you really can't afford it, then a WP.com as your main site is worthless. They cancel you as soon as they find even a trace of monetization on your blog. However, they are excellent sources for links to other articles you've written and blogs you want to give link juice to. As a main site, you'd have to go with Blogger. Google will let you do anything.
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  • Profile picture of the author SirKhan
    Wp.com has its pros and cons. For SEO purposes it's quite good, but link back to your own blog that you host
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    Actually you can get great rankings at wordpress.com

    Lorelle is probably one of the best examples.

    Lorelle on WordPress

    You search on pretty well anything to do with wordpress and she ranks highly.

    Its all about content so whether you go to blogger etc you will still have the same problem.

    Quentin
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    • Profile picture of the author Mushin
      Originally Posted by Quentin View Post

      Actually you can get great rankings at wordpress.com

      Lorelle is probably one of the best examples.

      You search on pretty well anything to do with wordpress and she ranks highly.

      Its all about content so whether you go to blogger etc you will still have the same problem.

      Quentin
      Lorelle ranks because she gets linked to a lot. And often from Wordpress dot com and Wordpress dot org which are huge authority sites.

      It's not a good example of how wordpress dot com sites can inherently rank, although yes... they are one of those free sites like hubpages, wetpaint etc that are able to rank for longtail phrases.

      But Wordpress is pretty strict with its TOS and many single-serving sites set up to redirect visitors to a squeeze page/sales page can be banned pretty quickly.
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      • Profile picture of the author michellegreen
        I did an experiment a few months back after a fellow warrior posted a strategy which included using Wordpress.com and Blogger.com.

        After a month, only the Wordpress site was listed in Google, although they both had similar content (not exact, but based on the same subject). In fact, I think it was several months before the Blogger blog was anywhere to be found, which really surprised me actually!

        Things may have changed since then, but that's what I experienced.

        I think like others have said, nothing beats having your own website because your blog can be deleted if you're seen to be making money from it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
    Only draw back with the Wordpress free hosted blogs, they are quick to delete your blog if it's promotional or your using it for marketing. All you work and time could be gone in a second.
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    • Profile picture of the author SirKhan
      Originally Posted by Ron Killian View Post

      Only draw back with the Wordpress free hosted blogs, they are quick to delete your blog if it's promotional or your using it for marketing. All you work and time could be gone in a second.
      Good point Ron, but that's true for all moderated free blog / website services. Unfortunately
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    • Profile picture of the author traceye
      Originally Posted by Ron Killian View Post

      Only draw back with the Wordpress free hosted blogs, they are quick to delete your blog if it's promotional or your using it for marketing. All you work and time could be gone in a second.
      While I've heard this before I've never actually heard of someone having their blogger or wordpress hosted blog removed.

      Not a legitimate blog anyway (I'm not talking about blogs full of scraped content, splogs or MFA sites).

      If it's a reasonable blog - even if it is used for marketing or promotional - I've never actually heard of anyone having their blog removed. Has anyone?

      Tracey
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  • Profile picture of the author dmarze
    my few wordpress blogs doing well on wordpress domain. But, I think you have to use both wordpress and blogger.
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  • Profile picture of the author SeanSupplee
    If you really want to work a true blog do not go free spend a little and I am talking $10 upfront and $5 on hosting each month or you might even be able to bargin with someone to host it free. Wordpress.org is sooooo easy to install you toss some files in here and create a user and password and tada its done it really is that easy if your new and really confused will take you at most a sit down of 20 min. Then installed plugins for it like SEO plugins there are so many of them. IT is such a powerful tool if you are serious about it spend a little money. If your not then dont waste your time in my opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark .W. James
    ^^^ months!!??

    I start to get irritated if my site doesnt get indexed in a day or two!

    get your own keyword targetted domain. put in meta tags. digg it, stumbleupon it, add backlinks to it.. and you are in business....

    for advanced seo, and serp boosting, you will need to do more... but this is good enough to get indexed.

    ohh and just goto the google submit form and submit your url...makes things much easier
    add analytics on it too.. that helps in getting spiders on your blog...
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