Blogging, Personal

Self-Host Considerations

  • Sumo

Not so long ago, I decided to migrate my site to Word Press for two reasons: 1) To make use of the domain and host I bought; and 2) because the rank of my blogspot site reverted back to zero. And I can say that I am a happy and contented user of Word Press.

You might be on the state where you are contemplating if it is worthy to self-host your blog.  Allow me to give you some of the points that might help you decide.

1. Cost
Cost is inevitable when you decided to self-host your site. You need to purchase your own domain and your host. The cheapest hosting you can avail is $10/year while the domain will cost you from less than a dollar to $10/year . Beyond $10 is already too much. (Beware of the cheap .info domain being offered by hosting companies because the initial price might be really low but when you renew the domain, the price will be double of the regular .com price.)

2.  Security, Reliability and Dependability
This is one important thing that a blogger should consider. I read some stories about their missing blogs. One day it is still there, the next morning it is already gone. Weather our blog is monetized or not, we invest so much time and effort maintaining it. And if it will be gone for no reasons at all, we will definitely experience the feeling of loss. We cannot sue or go after the providers because they own the hosting and they are just giving us a favor to use their space. We are already considered blessed if they exert efforts to help us restore our site. The probability of this event to happen can be reduced if not eliminated, if we own the host.

When you self-hosting your blog, only you or only those whom you authorize can access your file and databases*. No one can just access your database much more delete it . And you can further increase your protection by using complex credentials. You can also perform scheduled backup of your database and files (which I strongly suggest) so that if some inevitable events happen, you can restore your system at no time at all.

3. User- Friendliness & Flexibility
True that I am from I.T industry (can I use this as an excuse to justify why I am not good in English?:D) but I.T. is a big umbrella of different programming languages, tools, application, frameworks and many other areas that I admit, am also are not familiar with. And Word Press is of these areas.

Word Press is an abstract thing to me until I started using it. Just like blogger or blogspot. I am not familiar to both platforms until I started using them. With Blogger, some one introduce it to me, help me with the tricks and give me some tips. With Word Press, I am like a blind man trying to find my own way. But Word Press is not a rough nor complicated road. From installation to migration to usage, they all came handy. It is not a dark street that someone should be afraid of. Everything can easily be learned and no high-level technical skill is needed. I can say that Word Press is more user-friendly and flexible based on my experience.

This is just an insight of a newbie in the world of blogging. I hope this article becomes helpful to you. Blessings!

*Database – repository of the contents of your blogs.

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3 thoughts on “Self-Host Considerations

  1. Hi Mommy Mylene, i’m considering na to have my own domain, but I still need to be clarified on some points the price and webhosting, security of data, etc. sana we can talk over the phone ano. mahirap mag-usap sa chat. can you email me (mvtorrecampo@gmail.com) your contact number? Thanks. 🙂

  2. I’m thinking of having my own doman too kaso iniisip ko pa if it is worth it at the moment kasi madalang pa ang opps kaya konti pa ang budget. pero i’m considering what you’ve told me before and the info that you shared here about the site security. like what i’ve told you then kapag nakapagdecide na ako to have my own domain i’ll definitely ask help from you. 🙂

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