Has anyone successfully switched from wordpress.com to wordpress.org?

[Heidi]

If so I would love to hear about your experience and what hosting company you use!

I need to make the switch soon, but am worried about downtime, and the importing process.

[kellypea]

Hi, I switched a little more than a year ago with my non-food blog and have been thinking about it for my food blog but haven't gotten around to it yet. Although the learning curve was a bit steep in the beginning, it went extremely well. I did receive some assistance from a techie who reads my blog, so that was very helpful. There's quite a bit of written support in the codex, but it's a lot to get through. I'm willing to help if you'd like. Let me know.

[Heidi]

Kelly thank you so much for your response, I'm sorry I must have missed this earlier!

I just looked at your wordpress blog and it's really nice, very clean layout.

I do have a few questions and would love your help, the first one is: Is bluehost the preferred host for wordpress?

Also, can I build my site on a random domain that I own, and then switch the domain to savory.tv? My thought with this is that there would be less downtime, if that makes sense.

And one more! (you will be sorry you offered your help I'm sure!)
Are most of the templates customizable with regard to color and design? Or do you need to take what you get with the template?

Thank you so much in advance, I don't know why this is so scary for me!

[kellypea]

Hi -- Sorry it always takes me so long to respond. So many bright and shiny things on the internet...But in the meantime, I've begun the process to take my food blog to my own domain, and yes, I think it's a bit scary, too. So far, the wordpress migration was much easier than what I'm experiencing with Typepad, which I use for my food blog.

The hosting service I use for my WP blog is ANHosting or MidPhase. They've been outstanding. If I've had any difficulty whatsoever, they've responded immediately and I've not had problems with my blog not being up without notice ahead of time.

I don't really understand your question about a random domain. What I do know, is your content is your content. Uploading it wherever you want it is the real issue. As far as templates go, there are huge amounts of them for WP. Do a google search and they'll come up everywhere, but begin with the ones linked to in the WP codex to start with. Yes, you can customize them, but each designer has his/her own way of organizing the files, and it isn't as easly with some as others to adjust. Many of the designers are helpful if you contact them about changes -- but not if you've messed up the functionality with design changes.

[Charles McKeever]

I agree, there are lots of templates out there, but be careful because there are not always created equal and most of the free ones are put out there to garner backlinks to other sites. I highly recommend looking into premium themes. I know there are some people who roll their eyes at the idea of paying for a themes, but the really good ones come with some fantastic administrative options and they are usually well thought out and designed. Check out the themes from solostream. Michael Pollock, the guy who started the site is really good and he is friendly and responsive to questions.

As for hosting I agree as well. As long as you can get support when you need it, the lights are always on, and the services are there, it really doesn't matter who you send your checks too :) These days most all systems are based on Linux, PHP, MySQL, and are using the same open control panel. Most all of them support Fantastico for installing WordPress and all the other open source goodies out there. This makes it really easy to move from one service to another with minimal down time. Anywho....blah blah blah...

Kelly, what made you leave TypePad? Just curious?

[kellypea]

I use two different platforms: Wordpress for kellementology, my non-food blog, and Typepad for Sass & Veracity. It's crazy, but I got so busy, until recently, I haven't investigated how to switch S&V over to a Wordpress format. I have the domain now, but haven't done all of the work. It's prepped and ready to go, but I need to spend some time (it's VERY slow for me to do these things since I'm self-taught) to figure out how to get the add-on domain files up and pretty with a nice theme instead of that plain text view I get when I activate the redirection.

Does that make sense? Hahahaha! But I LOVE Wordpress so that's the goal for S&V. SOON!

[Charles McKeever]

Would it help if I did a video on how to import into a new WordPress blog? I've been through the process in several format so I have the process down. Let me know if you think it would help.

[kellypea]

Thanks for offering. I could help, but I've done it too. I think I'm just having trouble with Typepad's directions, so wouldn't want to waste your time. I know in the long run, anything that helps build my knowledge base is good.

[Dawniemom]

I switched my blog from .com to my own hosted blog and had no problems whatsoever. As long as you know what you're doing, as far as your domain and whatnot, you'll be fine. Even if you don't, there's always someone around to help :)

[Joan]

I haven't switched but started my blog with wordpress.org so I'm not sure about the switching process but I use Hostgator which is a good and fairly well recommended hosting site.

The more content you aquire, the harder it may be to switch so I wouldn't wait too long.

I used a program called The Niche Blogger which really takes you by the hand and tells you step by step how to do a self-hosted blog. On my first blog I was lost, before I discovered The Niche Blogger. It tells you what plug-ins, how to write articles to get you up in the search engines and so much more.

It is a subscription site but once you get your blog up and running, you can cancel it. It think it's $13.95 a month but it was really money well spent for me. I went on to do 2 more blogs using all her recommendations.

[Charles McKeever]

I use hostgator for several sites and I have to agree they have been very stable for me. I used HostMonster for a while, but I had a rough patch of bad support and a flaky server. Everything eventually got worked out, but it was enough to drive me over to HostGator. Truth be known though, I think HostMonster, HostGator, and BlueHost are all the same on the backside. In fact I think all or part of their operations are based out of The Planet here in Dallas. But for an affordable solution that can be scaled to something bigger later, HostGator is my pick too.

How many videos do you get inside the niche blogger membership?

[Heidi]

Thank you everyone for your helpful answers! We've chosen a template, and plan to make the switch after the holidays. Hopefully it won't be as stressful as I am imagining it to be!

[Charles McKeever]

Hey Heidi, now that we're all "back from the holidays" I think we are all interested to know how if you've made any advances on moving your blog from a .com to a self hosted blog. I know I'm interested in your experience so please let us know how it is going.

If you need anything please let us know here. I think there is some really good heads here and we could walk you though it. I know I've helped people with moving from Typepad to a self hosted WordPress blog and I've done several imports using the various methods, so don't be shy.

Let us know if we can help :)