subject: Here Is How You Can Move Your Blog To Your Own Domain (Part 2) [print this page] Here Is How You Can Move Your Blog To Your Own Domain (Part 2)
In the previous article we cover how, after many people start their blogs on hosted platforms, and despite the fact that doing so is a good start because they are free and they are generally trusted in the search engines, there were nevertheless, perils associated with hosting a blog on someone else's server.
That way, you are at the mercy of the owner of the platform. They can delete a blog without warning, may be because they felt that the blog was too commercial or much like spam. Then, WordPress doesn't allow affiliate links used on their blogs and therefore, making money by hosting a blog on their servers can be more difficult for some.
And so, ideally, we arrived at the idea that it is better to host your blog on your own server and preferably, in the root of the domain, giving you especial benefits. Like ranking better in the search engines, having more credibility in the eyes of your visitors and if you use WordPress in this case, hosting it in your own server that is, you are free to have affiliate links if you wish.
Finally, if you had a blog in another domain, you would need doing a 301 redirect to tell search engines and visitors that the files have moved, and where they've moved to.
Now, how do you do this? You can search Google for "301 redirect" so that you learn how to set this up. Moving your blog from a hosted solution, it is much easier to provide a link to your new blog in a post on the old location.
Just create a new post on the old blog, saying something like, "We have moved! This blog has been relocated to a new domain. Click here to visit the new blog, and be sure to update your bookmarks!"
You are now linked in a new location, and told your visitors where to find you, as well as notifying the search engines where to find your new blog. They will follow that link to your blog's new location, and you'll probably get the new domain indexed faster than if you did not link to it from the old one.
This makes you understand that by having this done at the beginning, that is, starting your own blog in your own domain, would have prevented you from doing this later. A domain name is generally under $10, and hosting can be found very inexpensively.
When you want to install a fresh blog on a new domain, log into your cpanel and click the Fantastico button, (the little smiley face one), and click New Installation. From the drop down directory, choose the domain you want it to reside on.
If you want to be located on yourdomain.com, leave the next field blank. If you prefer it to be on yourdomain.com/blog, then put the word blog in the next field. Then you'll just enter all of your administrative login information and click Install WordPress and your blog will be live! You can find plenty of free themed templates to customize your blog with a quick visit to your favourite search engine.
