I’m taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge. One of the reasons these challenges work is it encourages you to visit other blogs and comment. It’s great for exposure, additional links and getting inspiration too.
Because it’s a blogging challenge, many of the blogs are free blogs over at WordPress.com or Blogger. I stumbled on a problem when I went to comment on a WordPress.com blog and I needed to be logged into a WordPress account.
Free account suspended - You need your own domain!
I mainly used this particular WordPress.com account last year. I posted snippets from this blog and other things that caught my eye. Most of it was done through Amplify (recently closed) but I did log in and manually post too.
I did use the account a couple of months ago to comment on another blog, but other than that it has been pretty inactive. There was no warning before suspending the account, no opportunity to back up my posts. My content has just gone.
Poof.
Vanished.
Now, you may be thinking, I have no intention of blogging, so having a blog account suspended doesn’t apply to me.
Think again.
Why You Need Your Own Domain…
If you use any free site – Facebook or a free website, you run the risk of your information just disappearing with no warning.
Rules change all the time, and they’re open to interpretation. Don’t forget these free sites are abused all the time. Inadvertedly break the rules and you will be tarred with the same brush.
My WordPress.com account wasn’t spammy. It didn’t advertise affiliate links. As far as I know, I wasn’t breaking any rules. Yes, it did have links to source back here (and to other sites I don’t own too), which I guess could be interpreted as commercial traffic driving or rank boosting.
The Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites
Most of the time it was me rambling on about things that didn’t fit over here on this blog. I prefer to write and save my posts in Word first so lost content isn’t an issue. The blog wasn’t commercial anyway, so no real damage done.
Facebook is a bit different. I don’t write my status updates beforehand, although any images I use are on my hard-drive. I would be gutted if I lost my Facebook page, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world because it isn’t my main internet presence.
Yet, for many small businesses free websites, Facebook or free blogs ARE their main online presence.
Is this you?
Can you afford to be shut down without warning?
No?
Then it’s time to get your own domain name and website or blog. It’s not as expensive as you think.
My Account Is Suspended Or Why You Need Your Own Domain by Jan Kearney
Grab your guide to local search and learn:
- What elements are important on your website
- How to set up your Google My Business Local Page
- How Google Plus can help you zoom past your competitors
- Two things you should not neglect if you want to rank in the local search pack
- How to power past your competitors and dominate your area
Simply add your name and best email address in the box below and I'll whizz your report and worksheet straight over to you.
Don't worry, I hate spam too (probably more than you!) I'll never trade, share, sell, exchange your email address or any other jiggery pokery.
Great reminder that we need to own our authority site.
Any of these platforms that are free to use can close you down at any time and for some people this could mean losing a lot of work.
Look what happened with YouTube not that long ago when many well-respected marketers lost their accounts.
With WordPress.org being free and many cheap hosting options available, it really does make sense to control your own destiny!
Hi Valerie. Aye, these sites can close you down at any time. YouTube was a recent one, Blogger and Squidoo had a mass clear out last year and accounts were shut down without warning too.
I’ve spoken to many small business owners who prefer to set up a Facebook page rather than a website. Makes me shudder, it’s just asking for trouble!
I don’t think that you’re account was closed because it was against their rules. I think that the site was shut down because it was neglected. It is well known fact that a great deal of comment spam is targeted at old and neglected blogs where the users haven’t posted in ages. Do you think it’s very cost effective for a company like Automatic to pay for bandwidth, disk space just on the off chance that you may login every so often. You have to remember that there are millions of sites hosted, you also have to weigh up if the company wants a load of hassle from spammy blogs that have been neglected and I have see enough to last me a lifetime. These types of services you need to login at least once a month to keep it active.
To be honest you have as much chance as losing your data on a self-hosted blog as you do on wordpress.com account. A lot of things can happen to a webhosting company as can wordpress. You’re site could be hacked, the company could go under, you could install a plugin that could damage your database. The moral is, if you information is valuable don’t leave in just one place. Backup often and in more than one location. Do the same with your online data as you do with offline data.
Hi Mike,
I beg to differ 🙂 First of all, none of my blogs, regardless of where they are hosted are ever neglected to the point of comment spam – it drives me crazy and I’ve cleaned up enough of other peoples without letting mine go to rack and ruin too.
And while the blog hadn’t been posted on for quite a while, the last login was only a couple of months prior. WordPress.com requires a login to comment on most hosted blogs, to like hosted blogs and sometimes to even share them.
Just to drive the point home, I have 2 more WordPress.com logins, both neglected (not comment spammed) and even more rarely logged into. The last actual blog posts were in 2008 and 2009 – 3-4 years ago and I can’t remember when I last used the accounts to comment – well over a year. I can still log into those accounts today – I tried when I wrote the post and again today – they’re still live.
While I do agree with you about backing up data – that is a must. But if you use free sites for business you are figuritively putting your head on the chopping block and can be shut down at any time. All of these types of sites have regular clear outs, they’re abused beyond belief by Internet Marketers. Use them in ignorance of their terms and conditions and you can be tarred with the same brush and suspended – how many people actually read those things?
As for being hacked – yes that happens. Hosts going out of business – that happens too. Corrupted plugins and themes – hell yes. But in all my years online, I’ve seen more free accounts suspended or removed than all of those put together.
I think my comment may have been misunderstood. I am not saying that you’re accounts were neglected, but there must be a limit to which WordPress sets before it culls a user, and yes there going to be some legitimate users out there that are going to be affected. I am not condoning their action just trying to make sense of why they did it. Did they really delete you whole site without the chance of reactivating? If they did then that is bad.
As for the other accounts do you use the Jetpack or Aksimet plugins with these as this reguarly autheticates your login at wordpress.com for them to work?
Yeah I agree with what you’re saying about the hosting, just trying to educate that hosting a self hosted blog is a great deal more risky and lot more work than using WordPress or blogger. It’s good to teach both sides of the story sometimes.
Hi Mike, you got the growly me, I didn’t mis-understand, I know where you’re coming from 🙂
One account, the really old one is my akismet login – so yes that may explain it. The other has nothing attached to it – surprised it’s not been given the axe to be honest.
So yes, legitimate users get caught in the cross-fire on free site, and more often than people think. That’s why I always recommend the self-hosting option, well that and why build authority to a site you don’t own?