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Post by Ted on Feb 10, 2019 10:43:40 GMT -8
After having a free site with wordpress.com for 10 years I've taken the leap to self-hosting.
I wanted to do more with my site but to do so with wordpress.com was very expensive. So I chose to self-host.
Drop by and let me know what problems you find.
I hope to publish more puzzle books this year, if my health permits.
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Post by djmills on Feb 10, 2019 12:22:04 GMT -8
Ted, your web site looks good. I followed links to gumroad and like the layout. :-)
I need to look into gumroad for my fiction, too. :-)
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Post by unclegarf on Feb 10, 2019 15:38:37 GMT -8
To be fair, Ted, the only web site I have is the one out of reach of my feather duster.
Seriously, had a quick look and what an eclectic, enlightening piece you have put together. Not one for puzzles, life being weird enough for me as it is, I appreciate any entertaining read. Nice one, Ted.
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Ria Stone
SWF Writers
Posts: 1,055 
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Post by Ria Stone on Feb 12, 2019 10:48:12 GMT -8
After having a free site with wordpress.com for 10 years I've taken the leap to self-hosting.
I wanted to do more with my site but to do so with wordpress.com was very expensive. So I chose to self-host.
Drop by and let me know what problems you find.
I hope to publish more puzzle books this year, if my health permits.
Lo siento, I am confused right off the bat. From your post, I got the idea that you moved your website from WordPress.com to a new host. But, when I open
I see that it is powered by WordPress. In addition, if you want to "like" a post, it asks you to log into your WordPress account.
What I am missing here?
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Feb 12, 2019 12:22:19 GMT -8
As did Ria, I noticed the Word Press issue - as in you said you moved from Word Press, but it says powered by Word Press at the bottom.
Couple other things I noticed.. the imagery is the same as the old site. If it were me, I'd take advantage of the move to give it a face lift. Not that there is/was anything at all wrong with the images, just that since it's new, you want it to stand out for your repeat visitors and not have any confusion as to whether they are on the new site or the old one. New imagery would do that for you.
I was going to mention the nav bar, but I see you have worked on it, and it's much better. When I first looked, it only said 'eBooks', and was missing the video link, etc that is mentioned.
Other than that, the only thing (and this is just me, so take with a grain of salt) is the sheer amount of politics. A quick search yields that the work 'puzzle' appeared 5 times on the homepage, while 'Trump' appeared 81. You mention on the site that you have a blog. If it were me, I'd keep my politics and my puzzles separate, by placing the politics on the blog. Again, that's just me. It's just that politics are so dang divisive nowadays. You don't want to run off sales because someone doesn't agree with your political opinion. Sales are sales - keep the sale pouring in, not caring where it came from, only being happy that it did. To be honest, it's more like a political soap box than a place to sell your fine puzzles and advertise your eBooks. Again, just my two cents, but I'd keep the lighthearted stuff where you have it (the story about the 3 yo with the bear is great), and move the more serious stuff to a blog where folks can comment, etc. If you keep it positive, folks will be more likely to return (you know, the whole catching bees with honey bit). As a matter of fact, you might end up getting referrals and forwards just to read your articles. I think many could use some positive, uplifting news nowadays. Truthfully, we get enough sour grapes from the antics of all of our world leaders.
There are things you have on your site that I wish I knew how to do. I have no idea how to do the Forum thing (I have a comments page only), nor the Search feature (which is cool if you can't recall what page you saw something on). And you have far more social media links than I have on my site. That's precisely what one would expect to see and I hope to get there myself one day.
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Post by Ted on Feb 13, 2019 9:29:02 GMT -8
I moved from hosting the site for free on wordpress.com to a self-hosted wordpress so I could do more for much less money for what I wanted to do than where I was with wordpress.com
To Like something you have to login or create a new wordpress account. This is for security. I believe it was the same on the former site.
Chris, the forum thing is a plugin called bbpress. The sharing social media links is part of Jetpack plugin.
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chelsfield
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Post by chelsfield on Feb 14, 2019 0:49:50 GMT -8
My website is (semi)self-hosted with 'wordpress.org', my blog hosted by 'wordpress.com'. With the first, you download all the software onto a local server,maintain files etc. You have a bit more freedom with design, and I think it is cheaper?
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Post by Ted on Feb 14, 2019 19:11:32 GMT -8
Chelsfield, if I had stayed with wordpress.com and wanted the features which come with a self-hosted site it would have cost about 30/month according to wordpress.com plans. At Inmotion Hosting they provide the basic wordpress and look after its running properly. I'm responsible for any plugins I may add, but those are updated by clicking on an update link so it's a no-brainer. I've used Inmotion Hosting before for a pretty busy site and they were great with support. Recommend to anyone thinking of self-hosting anything www.inmotionhosting.com/home-r |
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chelsfield
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Post by chelsfield on Feb 15, 2019 0:30:26 GMT -8
I appreciate that. But wordpress.org is a totally different beast, in that if you had the capacity, you could download the software and run it yourself for almost no cost. You have opted for what I did: I have a friend with a server who has downloaded wordpress software. I 'self-host' through her. I presume you are paying Inmotion a fee?
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Post by Ted on Feb 15, 2019 3:16:27 GMT -8
... I have a friend with a server who has downloaded wordpress software. I 'self-host' through her. I presume you are paying Inmotion a fee? I pay Inmotion a small fee for their hosting wordpress on their servers. I could have rented some server space and installed wordpress my self but instead I chose to use the wordpress already installed for my plan. Here is the link to their plans for wordpress: www.inmotionhosting.com/wordpress-hosting-s I imagine your friend has to pay something monthly for her server unless she has it in her own home. |
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Ria Stone
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Post by Ria Stone on Feb 15, 2019 11:09:01 GMT -8
I moved from hosting the site for free on wordpress.com to a self-hosted wordpress so I could do more for much less money for what I wanted to do than where I was with wordpress.com To Like something you have to login or create a new wordpress account. This is for security. I believe it was the same on the former site. Chris, the forum thing is a plugin called bbpress. The sharing social media links is part of Jetpack plugin. "self-hosted" on wordpress?
I understand that you moved from free to paid hosting on wordpress :-)
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Ria Stone
SWF Writers
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Post by Ria Stone on Feb 15, 2019 11:19:36 GMT -8
After having a free site with wordpress.com for 10 years I've taken the leap to self-hosting.
I wanted to do more with my site but to do so with wordpress.com was very expensive. So I chose to self-host.
Drop by and let me know what problems you find.
I hope to publish more puzzle books this year, if my health permits.
Took a look at website.
Chris has some good suggestions.
I can see that it is a work-in-progress.
But, it gave me an opportunity to see ALL your books :-)
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chelsfield
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Post by chelsfield on Feb 16, 2019 0:51:56 GMT -8
... I have a friend with a server who has downloaded wordpress software. I 'self-host' through her. I presume you are paying Inmotion a fee? I pay Inmotion a small fee for their hosting wordpress on their servers. I could have rented some server space and installed wordpress my self but instead I chose to use the wordpress already installed for my plan. Here is the link to their plans for wordpress: www.inmotionhosting.com/wordpress-hosting-s I imagine your friend has to pay something monthly for her server unless she has it in her own home. From her own home. Does Inmotion supply you with urls with that fee or have you bought them? |
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Post by Ted on Feb 16, 2019 9:14:52 GMT -8
From her own home. Does Inmotion supply you with urls with that fee or have you bought them? The URL for punzhupuzzles.com is owned by me through namecheap. www.namecheap.com/ All I had to do is point the DNS to the proper nameservers for inmotion, Took about 30 seconds.
Inmotion can provide domain URL's but I like to keep all my domains in one place.
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