Knowledge is potential power. The goal of my website is to provide knowledge that assists readers in making money online and learn from other people’s costly mistakes. I recently had some business dealing with Wordpress.com. I have decided to write about my dealings with Wordpress.com. Hoping that all readers will learn from my situation. This information should allow you to save both time and frustration.
Brucesmoneyrants.com is the second incarnation of my making money blog. My first attempt was hosted at Wordpress.com. I chose Wordpress.com because of my past dealings with the Wordpress software. I had tried out software from Blogger.com and several other sites. Wordpress has several features that drew me in. Wordpress allows users to easily extend their blog’s functionality through widgets and plugins.
Wordpress.com shares the same creators as the Wordpress blogging platform (Wordpress.com vs. Wordpress.org, n.d.). Several features of Wordpress.com invited me to choose their hosting.
1. Built on the Wordpress software that I already liked
2. Wordpress.com stated they had over 70 templates available
3. Availability of plug ins and widgets
4. Daily stats can be tracked easily
5. Having a blog that was “xxxx.wordpress.com”
At first, I was enjoying Wordpress.com. I created “emergencymgmt.wordpress.com”, “lifeofreedom.wordpress.com”, and “brucesmoneyrants.wordpress.com”. My main blog was on money making. My plan was to develop the other two later. My first surprise came when I chose a template. I had about 12 templates available. You had to pay to access the 70 templates. Next, I found out you cannot upload external templates.
I started adding widgets to my blog. Wordpress.com did not allow me to upload my own template but Wordpress.com could be personalized through the widgets, right? Not at all, Wordpress.com offers a few widgets but is limited on the widgets that you can add. Wordpress.com also does not allow any javascript in their widgets. Wordpress.com’s rules about java script greatly reduced my ability to monetize. Java script is required to run ads from Google Adsense and Amazon.com.
I was able to insert HTML into widgets. This allowed me to place small banner ads in the blog’s sidebars. Not as lucrative as Google Adsense or Amazon may be but it was something. This type of advertising does require you to manually change the code to show a different ad. I was not completely turned off. Wordpress after all is a great blogging platform.
I reached a point where I was happy with my blog’s look. It was not perfect but was the best I could reach without paying Wordpress.com extra money. I was not trying to get something for free. I was more than happy to pay for Wordpress.com’s extra services. I just wanted the blog to be self sustaining. I began posting links in different blog directories and posting everyday. Within a week, I was seeing some results. My Wordpress.com blog had a high day of 12 unique visitors and was already indexed in Google.com. I was pretty pleased.
My posts focused on resources to help readers make money. I only wrote about things that I had found useful or resources that were helping me (i.e. e-books, Zac Johnson.com, etc.). I included reviews of products or courses that had helped me.
I was expanding my knowledge while providing information to assist reader’s in their own business. My next move was to register with blog directories. I found a website that listed 50 high profile blog directories. I spent many hours posting to these directories.
Doomsday soon came. I signed up with a internet marketing course called Blogging for Dollars. In my view, this course offered some very useful tips. I believed readers would find it helpful. I wrote a review post about my experience and posted it.
I woke up Thursday morning and checked my blog’s stats. The blog was gone. My screen now stated that “This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service”. I was still able to sign in to my account and view my emergencymgmgt.wordpress.com blog. I also could still view stats for my World’s Dumbest Criminals blog that was not hosted with Wordpress.com but used their statistics widget.
My mind whirled with potential explanations. Did I plagiarize? No, I was extremely careful to cite each and every one of my sources. I had not posted anything vulgar. Well, there was only one place to look….Wordpress.com’s Terms of Service. I found a few lines that offered some insight:
1. “the downloading, copying and use of the Content will not infringe the proprietary rights, including but not limited to the copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret rights, of any third party”
2. “you have fully complied with any third-party licenses relating to the Content, and have done all things necessary to successfully pass through to end users any required terms”
3. “the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing)”
4. “your blog is not named in a manner that misleads your readers into thinking that you are another person or company. For example, your blogs URL or name is not the name of a person other than yourself or company other than your own”
I only saw one potential problem. I had posted about products where I included an affiliate link. My recommendations were not meant to cause anyone pain or harm. They were products that I had found useful and wanted to share them with readers. My review included an offer to prove I used the product.
I believe there are two sides to every story. I sent Wordpress.com’s support an e-mail asking for an explanation of how I violated Wordpress.com’s Terms of Service. I did not request nor expect the decision to be reversed. After all, it is their site. They have the right to refuse service to anyone. I respect their rights. I just wanted to know why and maybe offer an explanation. After sending the ad, I had to go to work. I recieve my e-mail on my Blackberry and waited for a response.
Throughout the day, no answer from Wordpress.com came. It was not in my spam filter. Nope, no answer there. In checking my other two Wordpress blogs, I realized that my login was now suspended. Well, I guess Wordpress does not believe in customer service. Just shutoff your account with no explanation. They have this right but a little customer service might avoid articles like this.
For all budding affiliate marketers, be leery of hosting a blog at Wordpress.com. If you do not want to make any money, only impart information to the internet then Wordpress.com hosting is for you. Affiliate marketers, I would suggest sticking with downloading the Wordpress blogging platform to your own web hosting. i am happy to discuss this situation with anyone. You can find me at Bruce’s Money Rants.
You can find out how to make money from home for less than $2. Visit blogging for dollars to learn the tools necessary to explode your income. Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on marketing advertising