WordPress.com Vs WordPress.org

Despite many millions of bloggers being on the net every day, thousands more enter the Internet every day. Those folks are still confused about the difference between the Free WordPress.com version and the WordPress.org version.

WordPress.com Vs WordPress.org - Which version should you choose?

So in this post I’ll try to explain the difference in both and what can and can’t be done. Let’s get started with WordPress.com. It is a free open source software that allows us to start a blog for free without hosting. The benefits of this is that anybody can start a blog within minutes and start posting instantly after verification has been completed.

But what many bloggers don’t realize is that they cannot use WordPress.com to blog about anything related to making money. This includes writing reviews for sites such as Pay Per Post, Review Me, affiliate programs, Google ads and more. If they catch you doing this (and they will eventually) they will shut you down in an instant. If you are lucky they will let you download the blog to your hard drive before they shut you down so you can reuse your posts for another blog.

The free WordPress platform also doesn’t allow us to integrate WordPress plugins. You can read some more about this on Lorelle’s Blog.WordPress.com is simply a great platform to blog about our everyday life without monetary intent.

Alternatively, if we want to make money from our blog (and most people do) we need to hop over to WordPress.org and download their software. Don’t worry, it is free too.

If you are considering this, then you will need a domain name and a host. If you are totally lost now, then help is at hand with my new series of Self Hosted WordPress Tutorials.

You will learn step by step on setting up your self hosted blog and be on your way within days from reading.

WordPress.org will give you the freedom and flexibility to do whatever you wish with your site. Since you will be paying for a domain name and hosting, you will be the master of your own destiny.

WordPress, whether free or self hosted is certainly not the only way to go, but for me it is the number one choice when it comes to blogging because of the versatility.

So, Wordpress.com Vs Wordpress.org - which one do you choose?

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Comments »

Comment by ALEX NEWELL

2007-10-26 14:43:28

Very clear welcome post.

I know someone who got an email from wordpress saying “Dear xxxxxx, we have just closed 103 of your blogs”

103!

xxxxx is of course an Internet marketer who was creating huge numbers of blogs under different names and using them to promote his sites

I’m not sure why someone would download WP rather than just login to their cpanel, unless you are concerned with having the very latest version?

All The Best

alex

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Comment by Monika Mundell

2007-10-27 00:51:02

Thank you Alex,

I understand that newcomers get sidetracked by the free WP version. I did too in the beginning of my online ventures and I never even realized what WP.org is. So I stuck with the free version at WP.com and built a blog that got me a PR 3. Imagine that I wasn’t a happy camper when they suddenly shut me down.
….Lesson learned!

Monika

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Pingback by A Typical Example of Why You Need Self Hosting | Blogging Tips

2008-01-30 02:19:11

[...] these ideals have one thing in common. That one thing is the fact that you CANNOT use your free WordPress.com blog to sell anything from it. If you have, it only means that you got away with it so far - but [...]

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Comment by Barry Newton

2008-04-28 13:43:05

I have been using Blogspot for just uner a year but with no success at all in the sales field. I have just published my first Worpress.com blog and read your article just in time. I was wondering why I could not add adverts to it. Thanks for the information.

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Pingback by Essential Wordpress Plugins That You Should Consider | NetBizSimplified

2008-06-25 19:03:34

[...] dashboard and email. You have to register yourself at Wordpress.com to get one. Yeah, it’s Wordpress.com and not Wordpress.org at which you downloaded the Wordpress [...]

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