domain name and hosting

[rhbee]

In the email newsletter I get, you recommended either dreamhost or hostgator but the video only showed how to sign up at hostgator so I thought I would check dreamhost out anyway. They offer a free domain name registration if you sign up for the hosting and the price is the same. So my question is why register a domain at namecheap and then explain only hostgator if dreamhost seems to be a better deal? What am I missing here?

[Blaine Moore]

Personally, I don't like dreamhost. It's too easy to outgrow what they offer.

[rhbee]

By outgrow you mean? As I am new to this self-hosting I am learning as we go how it works. Your reply makes it seem as though we will be using the host services more than I thought. Don't we do all of our blog work through wordpress.org? Where would I go to learn more about the way these two or three (add namecheap in too) work together?

[Blaine Moore]

Wordpress.org: Where you download the wordpress software if you are going to install it yourself and where you can get plugins, themes, and documentation about wordpress. (Most hosts have 1-click installs for wordpress so you may not actually need to go to wordpress.org.)

Wordpress.com: A hosted blog solution similar to Blogger except that you use a wordpress multiuser platform. Not recommended; host it yourself to maintain control.

Domain Name Registrars: Namecheap, godaddy, network solutions and other companies that register your domain name for you. They may offer hosting as well, but I recommend getting your own host and just using the registrars for getting a domain name. Expect to pay between $8-$12 per year for each domain name.

Hosting Companies: Dreamhost, BlueHost, Media Temple, MidPhase/ANHosting, HostGator, 1&1 etc etc - there are a million hosting companies, and some are better than others. You may be able to register a domain through them when you sign up, but I recommend seperating them out and just using your free domain for a throwaway or ancillary domain - that's up to you though and is more of an advanced topic. The purpose of a hosting company is to provide somewhere to put your actual webpages (or in this case, your wordpress installation) and they are the ones who serve up the pages to your visitors after the domain name registrar points those visitors in the direction of where you are hosted. Expect to pay between $8-$20 per month for cheap hosting and upwards of hundreds or thousands of dollars per month for increasingly good hosting options. Note that most people can get away with cheap hosting and it is easy to upgrade as you need to. Even popular sites can usually get by on $20-$50/month, and anything that requires $100+ per month should be making you plenty of money to cover the expense.

The reason that I think that you can outgrow Dreamhost quickly is that their service isn't very good. Even w/zero visitors, your site will be slow to load. If you start getting around 100 visitors per day, then you may or may not begin to have problems. If you start getting more than that, you will definitely have problems and will have to upgrade or move to a new hosting company. I wouldn't do business with them anymore.

For various reasons, I no longer use BlueHost, 2mHost, 1&1 or DreamHost anymore, although I know people that love all of them. I currently use MidPhase and Media temple and have been happy with both (as a cheap solution in the $8-$20/month range) and I use a dedicated server at Rackspace for an expensive solution (~$800/month and hosts a half dozen ecommerce websites.)

Hope that's helpful.

[rhbee]

Okay, so now I get it. Wordpress.org is not my host so they no longer deliver my blog. Hostgator the one Gideon recommended is the one I chose. So when people go to my blog they are actually going to hostgator and it is up to them to provide access and reliable service. How does this affect adsense and other advertising on my blog?

[Blaine Moore]

It doesn't affect adsense and advertising at all. If you want it there you need to put it there. If you were using a hosted solution, you may or may not be allowed to do that, but if you are hosting it yourself (through HostGator) then you can do whatever you want that doesn't conflict with their terms of service. (I don't know host gator's TOS but it probably precludes anything involving pornography, hate speech or illegal activities. Then again, it may not.)

[rhbee]

Blaine,

The following is the text of new information I discovered and passed onto Gideon shawlick: I watched video #10 as soon as I realized that all of the widgets on the new template at wordpress.org 2.5.1 are dedicated. There are no text boxes, etc. So then I went to feedburner and selected my blog feed, the publicize tab and clicked on feedflares, then chickletize and discovered that the code provided is only for blogger, typepad, and not wordpress. So then I double checked my other blog which is still at wordpress.com and the feedburner options for wordpress are still the same. Your video #10, just like the one we discussed before, #4, no longer matches wordpress.org and, as I pointed out, if you go to the forum at wordpress.org you will find there are now seven pages of complaints from bloggers about the new admin page and the fact that it doesn't support email or reader widgets. I suspect this may have to do with google buying into feedburner but I don't know for sure except to say one additional thing, I clicked on the monetize button at feedburner and activated the adsense ads and they didn't show up on my feed or my blog either.

I send this to you with the same question I sent to Gideon, what now? There appears to be no way to monetize a wordpress.org blog since the feedburner site no longer recognizes wordpress.org? And since you are speaking for Yaro, what does he have to say about this?

[Blaine Moore]

Well, first, they aren't my videos, I have nothing to do with that site other than casually having looked at it once. I haven't watched all of the videos so I don't know specifically is in any of them.

Second, I don't speak for Yaro. I only speak for myself.

Third, I'm really confused about what your problem is other than that you are trying to follow the instructions in a video for a version of wordpress that is different than the one that you are using.

My theme that I use on my main site has only been updated enough to work with new versions as I go and hasn't been updated to work with Widgets yet, so I can't answer specific questions about widgets.

As far as I know, though, you only need to copy and paste the text into a widget and it will appear on your site. How does that make it impossible to monetize your site?

As for Feedburner and adsense ads, you may need to contact feedburner support for why that does or doesn't work. It's their program so they will have a better idea of what you are trying to do. If you want their ads to appear on your site then you'll need to add it into your theme somewhere (widget or not) and if you want it in your feed then FeedBurner should be able to take care of it directly once you turn it on.