Hi fellow bloggers–
I have been researching making the move from wordpress.com to wordpress.org for my other blog, Leap of Mama. Does anyone have experience with hosting a wordpress.org site? I’m looking for the simplest option that is also affordable, as I don’t have a lot of experience with site maintenance or security. Even though I like the built-in community of WordPress.com, I want more control over the ads on my site, as communities like BlogHer won’t let you join from WordPress.com.
Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated! I have read forums, but it helps to hear from other bloggers who have actually used WordPress.com as well.
Happy writing,
Olivia
oliviaobryon 
Didn’t even know there was a wordpress.org. Just googled and found this … http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/wordpress-org-vs-wordpress-com-a-definitive-guide-for-2014/
Don’t know if you’ve seen that. Based on a quick scan, it seems like .com provides more directed but limited options, while .org gives you a lot more freedom and options to do what you want. So, it may depend on your level of tech knowledge.
I’d like to know what you learn about all of this. Who knows, if I ever have the time to turn my writing and blogging into what I really want it to be, a site on .org would probably make sense.
Yes, there are definitely pros/cons to both. The biggest advantage to .org is controlling ad space, in my opinion. You can also use the google analytics plug-in for stats, which is nice. However, you have to pay a monthly fee for a server site to host your blog, so it’s a bit of a commitment and you don’t get the exposure of the .com community. (Plus the learning curve of having more control over all the elements… I’m assuming the backend interface is similar in look though) I’ll keep you posted on my discoveries.
Olivia, I realize this post of yours is 6 months old, so maybe you got it all figured out already, but if not, I made the transition and documented the process. Here is how I went about transitioning to self-hosted http://kalenkimm.com/2013/07/launching-www-kalenkimm-com-transitioning-to-a-self-hosted-site/
That process will get you through to having a blog site with the same type of backend as WordPress and where you can actually set up your own advertising. I have taken an additional step since then and set up a static home page with a blog as part of the overall site. I actually hired a web guy for a pretty reasonable price to do that. But I have total control now and, as you can see in some of my posts, am now even able to do affiliate ads with some pretty big names. This is all in the last 30 days so not sure how it will end up in the long run, but I am giving it a shot.
Congrats on your new addition!!!
Thsnks! So glad you took the time to respond, that is all really encouraging. I’m looking forward to checking out what you’ve done.