After 4 years running my blog at wordpress.com I finally decided to migrate it to its own new domain at javabullets.com.
I have been very happy with wordpress.com as it is low maintenance, but always felt it would be nice to run it off its own domain. The motivation came from already running a wordpress.org blog for my wife at www.mummysgoneacycle.com, and finding that it wasnt too much work in terms of plugins and updates. So I decided to take the plunge
Tasks
- Hosting – This was easy as my existing hosting allowed for extra domains
- Choose domain Name – This was the hardest part, and in the end I decided I needed java in the name, and because my best posts were based around bullet points I opted for javabullets.com
- Choose Theme – Free or Commercial? This is tricky as there is so much choice out there. In the end I opted for a commercial theme from Thrive Themes. My reasoning is clean, and looked easy to configure.
Plugins
I made a list of the typical plugins I might need, and had a look at what the usage levels on the plugins were and reviews then just decided on a plugin. I figure if i get it wrong then I can choose something else. Id certainly be interested in feedback on these choices.
- SSL – I opted for “Really Simple SSL”
- Caching – someone on Hackernews had mentioned WP Super Cache as handling high loads so I chose this
- Google Analytics – Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights
- SEO – Yoast since this is what everyone seems to use
- Code Formatting – Code Prettify seemed the simplest
- Spam – Akismet Anti-Spam seems standard
- CDN – There are too many choices in this area so I chose “Jetpack by WordPress.com”
- Backup – UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin, I’ll also take monthly backups of my own out of paranoia
I also think that I will upgrade to the Pro versions of a few of these plugins as time goes one
Migrating from wordpress.com to wordpress.org
I did consider hiring someone for this, but the process of finding someone to migrate the blog was harder than doing it myself. So I done it myself. I think its gone well so far, although I did misconfigure my URL pattern in my new blog so the automatic referral from wordpress.com was generating 404’s!
Conclusions
Well the initial migration has gone well and I’m now operational. Ive a few things I’d like to work on next like experiment with color options on my theme, and maybe get a logo. The biggest hit is the SEO with all my old links pointing to glenware.wordpress.com, but I’m told google will eventually sort itself out on this one.
But I’m glad I’ve made the move.
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