I totally agree with you. I have never experienced the satisfaction that I now have online with a free host. I only pay $4 a month for my hosting, and I now have 3 domains for far less then the ad revenue I was giving up by allowing free ads on my blog for the host I was using. When considering the value of my blog, even in the beginning, you own hosting solution is actually far more cost effective in the long run than anything I ever saw for “free”.
WARNING – Wordpress says “No” to affiliate blogs
Recently I have been receiving quite a few frantic emails from friends – asking me if I knew why their WordPress.com blog has been deleted and if I had any idea how they could get it back. Unfortunately I could not help them as this was a decision by Wordpress based on violations of their Terms of Service (TOS)
This post is an important warning for everyone who uses Wordpress.com blogs to drive traffic to their main sites or to affiliate products. If you do either of these you could end up getting your blog deleted without warning.
Just to make sure it is clear, this warning is for people who have a free blog hosted at WordPress.com (your url looks like this: username.wordpress.com). If you are using the WordPress software on your own hosting account you have nothing to worry about.
If you are running one of the free blogs at WordPress.com you have to follow their terms so that you don’t get your blog deleted without warning. Here are two very scary terms in the terms of service for Wordpress.com blog:
Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs.
SEO blogs: Blogs that are written for search engines instead of humans. These blogs are dedicated to trying to fool Google and the other search engines into ranking them highly. Wordpress.com is not meant for this type of activity
Wordpress.com clearly states that blogs that violate these terms:
will be deleted as soon as we find them or they get reported
Doh! Those 2 terms ban two powerful uses an internet marketer has for a blog. But we shouldn’t be surprised because most of the other free blogging platforms like Google’s Blogger have similar terms and they will suspend/delete your blog without blinking. Here you can read Wordpress’ complete Terms Of Service and see the Types of Unacceptable Blogs
Blogging is an extremely potent way to achieve good search engine rankings, build your list of
subscribers and generate traffic to your own sites or affiliate sites. There is not question that if you are serious about earning money online the you need to be running a blog. But if you are using the free blog platforms make sure you are not just driving traffic to your main site or affiliate products. Put high quality, human written content in your blog, stimulate dialogue and provide value for your readers, and from time to time suggest a product via an affiliate link. If you do this your blog will be OK.
subscribers and generate traffic to your own sites or affiliate sites. There is not question that if you are serious about earning money online the you need to be running a blog. But if you are using the free blog platforms make sure you are not just driving traffic to your main site or affiliate products. Put high quality, human written content in your blog, stimulate dialogue and provide value for your readers, and from time to time suggest a product via an affiliate link. If you do this your blog will be OK.Fortunately if you just want to drive traffic to your main site or affiliate links from your blog there are some good alternatives.
In my opinion WordPress is the best blogging platform out there and I highly recommend it as the blogging platform for everyone to use. The absolute best solution is to set up a WP blog on your hosting account and domain. That way you have full control over everything and don’t have to follow other people’s terms.
Here are three great blogging resources for affiliate marketers.
Atomic Blogging from Alvin Phang is an excellent course and it includes some very nifty WordPress plugins and templates you can’t get anywhere else. Alvin is a having a sale right now and until Feb. 10th you can save 60% on Atomic Blogging
Blogging To The Bank by Rob Benwell. Rob is one of the pioneers in affiliate blogging and I’m truly amazed at the amount of content he gives away in his step-by-step Blogging To The Bank guide.
And once you have your Wordpress Blog up and running Semiologic Pro is a powerful theme to use that is full of traffic driving plugins that you can’t get anywhere else (I love this so much I use it on this very blog) Click here to learn more about Semiologic Pro
Have you lost your Wordpress blog or know anyone who has? Please leave a comment and share your story so we can learn from your situation. Or if you have any questions or feedback please let a comment.
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15 comments - add yours
Timothy W. Crane
February 10, 2008
Barbara Rozgonyi
April 17, 2008
Good advice!
My wordpress.com blog made it on the fastest growing blog list, was blog of the day and welcomed thousands of visitors a month, but . . . had to move it to a self-hosted platform.
Here’s a blog movers guide that tells how to migrate to independent blog ownership: http://tinyurl.com/3hjfwa
Be sure to save your posts somewhere besides your blog’s interface. Composing in LiveWriter is a good way to create, edit and manage your content.
Christina Hills
April 17, 2008
I can understand why wordpress.com wouldn’t want peole to put up spammy blogs that are just for the search engines and not for human readers.
BUT, I totally disagree with their terms that you cannot lead people to affiliate products.
This is such a dissapointment to me, because I was wanting to teach newbies to use a wordpress.com blog. It’s so fast and easy to setup.
Seems like wordpress.com is missing the big picture here of how people can be blogging, AND earning a living from it at the same time. Let the public decide if the blog is no good or not.
Lawren Smith
April 23, 2008
This is unfortunate and a surprise to me. Not long ago, prior to joining the business I am currently involved in, I went through a training from a guy who became a millionaire by using blogs for affiliate marketing. Because Blogger did not allow you to use their system for affiliate blogs, he recommended using WordPress. Thus, much of his training about creating blogs for affiliate marketing was through WordPress. This news probably put a dent into his training business, at least for a little while. I am sure he can or has recovered. He didn’t get to where he is by not being able to think on his feet. One has to have this kind of skill if you are going to be successful at managing your own business.
Thank you for letting me share….
Chris Stirling
April 23, 2008
Lawren – just to be clear the no affilaite blogs on Wordpress is only on the wordpress.com website. If you use the Wordpress.org blog software on your personal hosted site you can blog about anything you want to – like affiliate marketing.
Lawren Smith
April 24, 2008
Thank you for clearing that up Chris. I take it that the WordPress.org is the paid version and Wordpress.com is the free.
I do believe that the training taught one to start using Wordpress.com because as you know most people who are new to online marketing, don’t have any money or are looking to spend as little as possible.
Chris Stirling
April 24, 2008
Actually both versions of Wordspress are free but to host a wordpress.org blog you will need your own domain and host service which does have a cost.
Wordpress.com is totally free becuase you are using the wordpress.com domain and server to host your blog. Doing so gives Wordpress the ability to control what goes on their blogs.
Lawren Smith
May 6, 2008
Thank you Chris for your words of wisdom about WordPress. I am fairly new to internet marketing and I recognize that I have a lot to learn. But, as you may be able to see, I have no fear of asking questions; even if they sound a little stupid.
Once I have learned a little more about blogging, I will then be able to consider the option of having my blog hosted and getting my own domain name for it, but this will take a little bit of time. I still have so much more to learn other than blogging. But this is also what makes being an entrepreneur so great. I get the opportunity to spend my time learning about such new and interesting things.
Paul Francis
June 9, 2008
How would we transfer all of our content on a wp.com over before it get’s deleted? (Easily? Mine is not spammy but I really don’t want to worry about it either when it appears hosting fees are dirt cheap and I can actually throw in advertising to easily cover that.)
The URL in the comments above for the guide does not work.
Chris Stirling
June 9, 2008
Paul – here is a link to the Wodpress solutions site on how to transfer your content http://wordpress.org/support/topic/132847
Lawren Smith
June 10, 2008
I don’t use WordPress for my blogs. As a beginner to blogging, I found blogger to be much easier to use than WordPress. I am not sure why, but when I first attempted WordPress, I struggled with it. WordPress was the first blogging tool I attempted to use.
At some point I intend to migrate from Blogger to WordPress. I need to hone my skills-sets in blogging before I do that because of the issues you just explained above. I currently use the free version of blogger, but I primarily write about my experiences as a network marketer. I am not part of an affiliate program and the content I write about is intended to help others who are new to network marketing like me.
Thank you for letting me share…
Chris Stirling
June 10, 2008
Lawren you blog looks great – well done. I too started on Blogger when I started blogging. It is a great platform to start. The reason I switched to Wordpress was because of the flexability of WP to customize and add features (plugins). Also hosted blogs like Blogger are not really yours because they are hosted on thier server. If Blogger decided to shut your blog down they can (and they do this often) and there is nothing you can do about it. But that being said – Blogger is still a good platform and there are many successful Blogger blogs making a ton of money.
Mansid
September 19, 2008
Who nows how much is the price to have wordpress software? Any one here has used the sofware? Is it friendly user? Where can I buy it (give me the link)
Chris Stirling
September 20, 2008
Mansid – there are 2 versions of Wordpress and both are free. YOu can set up a hosted Wordpress blog for free here http://www.wordpress.com or if you have your own website and want to add a wordpress blog to it check your c-panel for Fantisico and just follow the instructions or go to http://www.wordpress.org to download the package.
And yes Wordpress is very user friendly and there are tons of free tutorials on the web to help you learn how to get started.
Mansid
October 2, 2008
From experience, which one of these free blogs are better: WordPress or Blogspot? Why? Any one of us would like to share. I personally like to know! I need you feedbacks, please.
