Main Differences of WordPress.com Sites & Self hosted WordPress Web Sites

There are many benefits and disadvantages of the free WordPress.com sites.

The pros first. The advantages of a free WordPress.com site,

  1. You can don't need to pay a penny;
  2. Fast setup! You got rich features already set up for you (e.g.  iPad WPtouch theme plugin for a mobile version of your site.  SEO friendly permanent link was setup for your posts by default, but they put the dates as subfolders in the URL, which is not recommended by Matt Cuts.  http://wp89.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/turnkey-wordpress-website-service/ should be http://wp89.wordpress.com/turnkey-wordpress-website-service/ without the date instead. You can only do this with your own hosted WordPress sites.)
  3. It's great to beginners to get familiar with the WordPress interface, features and functions
  4. You don't need to worry about the software upgrade; WordPress takes care of all the upgrades automatically for you.
  5. You are not alone; you can find a huge community of WordPress.com users who love to share experiences and tips on using WordPress.com

The greatest disadvantage of the free WordPress.com sites compared with the self-hosted WordPress sites is that you cannot use the WordPress plugins you create or find free available out there to extend the features and functions. Also you cannot use any themes (custom ones) other than the themes they offer.

Limitations of WordPress.com websites:

  • Adsense, Yahoo, Chitika, TextLinkAds and other ads are NOT allowed. You cannot even put the affiliate links like clickbanks.
  • Uploading file formats only allowed: .jpg .jpeg .png .gif .pdf .doc .ppt    ( for security purpose)
  • No custom css (unless you upgrade for $15/year ), no custom themes( or edit themes), no custom plugins
  • Limited upload space: 50MB ( upgradable to 1000MB for $20/year)

For someone who just need a blog for simple task, you may be satisfied with the free WordPress.com service. For some bloggers or serious business site owners,  you must get your own hosting service to run your own WordPress websites with so much more features and functionality to extend.  In our later articles, we are going to talk about how much more we can do with your self-hosted WordPress websites.

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