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Wordpress.com closed my blog

by marthalm
10 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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'm a newbie to creating my blog. I had a blog on wordpress.com and was seeking to follow the instructions that I learned in a seminar in order to create real backlinks to my postings to improve my rankings in the search engines. Wordpress deactivated my blog yesterday telling me that I was promoting affiliate marketing. I honestly had no idea what I was doing and would not do that intentionally. Wordpress recommended that I switch the blog over to wordpress.org and do the self hosting. I'm not a techie so I'm wondering if this is a good option or should I just switch to Blogger.com. I don't want to have problems with them as I certainly didn't do this intentionally. Any help you could provide would be appreciated as I'm a newbie struggling to move forward. Thanks for your feedback.
#blog #closed #wordpresscom
  • Profile picture of the author TheCopyGirl
    As you can see here:

    Blogs that violate our advertising policy or fall into one of the following categories are not allowed on WordPress.com:

    Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs and get-rich-quick schemes ("Make six figures from home!!", "20 easy steps to top profits!!", etc). This includes multi-level marketing (MLM) blogs and pyramid schemes. To be clear, people writing their own original book, movie or game reviews and linking them to Amazon, or people linking to their own products on Etsy do NOT fall into this category. Here is a thread in the support forums that talks more about which affiliate links are OK or not OK.
    So well, at least that clears up why WP.com closed your blog... I am biased towards WP, and I believe it is the better long-term solution. You could, however, use blogger to sink your teeth into blogging, especially if you are starting out.

    If you want to stick it out with WP from the word go, you need to find a web host, and a domain.

    While you might find webhosts that are capable of hosting your WP blog for free, you would want to register a domain for about $10/year. Check at godaddy or namecheap (google these names to find them). And if you can afford it, you would want to use a paid host (shared hosts are best to begin with), and remember to chose a webhost that supports MySQL and PHP. Hostgator and bluehost are frequently recommended (google them) for such a thing. WP installations are quite standard by now, so even if you can't see it through yourself, you should be able to easily get help.

    Remember that your domain needs to point to your website for this thing to work, but customer support at either the hosting provider or the domain registrar would be happy to help you through this process.

    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author jabs83
    were you linking from the wordpress blog directly to the affiliate page - or were you linking to your own site?
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    • Profile picture of the author marthalm
      Originally Posted by jabs83 View Post

      were you linking from the wordpress blog directly to the affiliate page - or were you linking to your own site?
      My hosting company is godaddy and the domain name is registered with them. I forwarded and masked it to the wordpress.com blog. Do you know how to move the blog over to wordpress.org from wordpress.com? Do you have any recommendations for someone like me who is not completely computer savy such as with code in order to create a blog that looks professional or is it just hit or miss and you learn over time.

      Thanks.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kysersoze
        Originally Posted by marthalm View Post

        My hosting company is godaddy and the domain name is registered with them. I forwarded and masked it to the wordpress.com blog. Do you know how to move the blog over to wordpress.org from wordpress.com? Do you have any recommendations for someone like me who is not completely computer savy such as with code in order to create a blog that looks professional or is it just hit or miss and you learn over time.

        Thanks.
        Instead of worrying about transferring your free WP blog to a paid version consider just starting over. Getting a nice theme and learning the basics. WordPress is fun and easy to work with, the problem now a days is that everyone is in such a hurry to do everything they don't take the time to learn. If you want a company that can do inexpensive and quality WP work maybe try HugeDomains.com - MediaNiche.com is for Sale (Media Niche). Good luck to you!
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      • Profile picture of the author Susan Hope
        Originally Posted by marthalm View Post

        My hosting company is godaddy and the domain name is registered with them. I forwarded and masked it to the wordpress.com blog. Do you know how to move the blog over to wordpress.org from wordpress.com? Do you have any recommendations for someone like me who is not completely computer savy such as with code in order to create a blog that looks professional or is it just hit or miss and you learn over time.

        Thanks.
        If you go the route of self hosting then you can easily import your content - just look for IMPORT/EXPORT in your WordPress.com dashboard and follow the instructions - you will be exporting from there and once your new site is installed and running you will be importing (the file you now have on your computer) into the new site again using IMPORT/EXPORT in your dashboard.

        Cheers
        Sue
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        One-to-One WordPress Coaching Service Available at Low Hourly Rate - Let the frustration end now! WordPress Installs, Theme Design, Site Tweaks & other WordPress services available
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Oxby
    No question, go over to Wordpress.org. While you do require a domain and hosting it is easy to use and build a business on. Blogger is not a long term solution.
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  • Profile picture of the author haymanpl
    Wordpress.com control your blog. They do NOT want you making money from it.

    Don't worry, this is not personal as they do this all the time

    If you want to make money you need your own wordpress.org self hosted site which you totally control.

    They do not have any power over your own wordpress blog whatsoever which means you can build ass many links as you like and sell any products you wish
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  • Profile picture of the author samuelarnold
    The wordpress team delete the irrelevant content and bulk of posting. make sure your blog content is relevant before you posting it.
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  • Profile picture of the author rain21
    dude, you can't promote any ads with wordpress hosted sites, so if you need to promote ads don't go for blogger, buy a domain + hosting and then develop a self hosted blog. if you don't wanna buy, you can go for free domains like co.cc,cz.cc , for free hosting go to byethost.
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    Dried Fruits & Condiments
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  • Profile picture of the author haymanpl
    I've just written an entire blog post on

    How To Move Your Blog From Wordpress.com to Wordpress.org

    No limitations or worry about having your blog deleted when you own your own WordPress.org site
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