Shifting From Blogspot To Own Site - Some Questions
Hi all,
I am planning to shift my blog from blogger dot com's blogspot to my own website. I have some questions on how to go about it, and would like the guidance and inputs from experts of this forum:
1. what is the best hosting company for a blogging-centric site?
2. What environment to go for? PHP/Linux, ASP.NET/Windows, or any other? What platforms are best suited?
3. What plug-and-play softwares are readily available to implement the features that blogspot provides?
4. Is there a straightforward mechanism to shift my content from blogspot to the new site? I of course have the original notepad files that I had used to compose the article content.
5. Any other issues that I need to be careful of?
Thanks in advance.
Megan posted this at 20:11 — 4th December 2009.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
There are tons of hosting companies that would suit your needs. I can't make a specific recommendation about that. You will want Linux/PHP since that's what most of the popular blog platforms run on.
Wordpress is the most popular blogging script right now. You'll probably want to go with that, it might be educational to research some others. Think about what you do with your blog right now - what specific features do you need? Make a list and compare the options available according to your needs. I think Wordpress has an option to import from Blogger/Blogspot etc.
Many hosting companies offer Wordpress already installed. That would be a good option if you don't want to be bothered with installing it yourself. It is good to learn how to do that yourself though.
Megan
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san1965 posted this at 01:30 — 5th December 2009.
They have: 9 posts
Joined: Dec 2009
Hello Megan,
Thank you for your inputs, much appreciated.
Your point - "Think about what you do with your blog right now" actually set me thinking. I prepared a quick wish list about what I need from the new site which I don't get from blogspot. One is that visitors to my site should first sign-up and "register" with the site before they can read the full article; otherwise they will get to read only a snippet of the article. (In blogspot, anybody can come to my site and read.) Two, I would like each of my articles to appear in search engine listings with their own URL. Three, I would like to present a given article in pages, with navigation buttons. (In blogspot, the reader gets to read the full article in one screen.) Hopefully, this feature will enable me to track better the amount of time spent by the reader. There should also be the facility to install and run a forum.
Megan, do all these hosting companies provide the right solutions / packages / softwares that can enable the implementation of the above features? Perhaps there is a price to be paid for each of these features?
Besides wordpress, any other software / platform that you would recommend? How about dreamweaver?
One final question is that when I publish the website on the host company's machines, is there some way that I can prevent visitors from accessing it till I am absolutely certain and satisfied that the site is looking exactly the way I want it to look?
Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for your inputs and advice...
Megan posted this at 16:48 — 5th December 2009.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
The functionality has
nothinglittle to do with the hosting company. They just provide the base technologies that the software will run on (PHP/mysql). Then you choose a software such as Wordpress that will provide the functionality.I'm not really that familiar with blogging platforms other than Wordpress. Drupal, which is what this site runs on, is a much more extensive content management system that's better suited to larger, more complicated sites (although you could use it for a simple blog if you wanted to). I'm not sure if eithe rof those do the specific things you need. Probably, but you'll need to look into it.
With Dreamweaver you would create each individual page separately - not what you want here.
Whatever software you're using might allow you to put the site into "maintenance mode" while you work on it. Otherwise you could just put up a "coming soon" message on an index.html page and set the site to serve that instead of whatever the default is with the softare.
Megan
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san1965 posted this at 04:40 — 6th December 2009.
They have: 9 posts
Joined: Dec 2009
Hello Megan,
Thank you for your inputs; appreciated.
In the meanwhile I have registered the domain with GoDaddy and changed their parking page to a customized one by using their tools. And I am soaking in information about the hosting and web-designing part, in order to get ready to perform the shift from blogspot to the new site. (And thanks for your article on Dreamweaver on your blog; it stopped in my tracks to buy the product... so, if I shouldn't be using DW because it generates static pages, then what design tool should I use to be able to have on my site articles with their own unique URL (picked up by search engines); _and_ which does not have this problem of static-ity?)
Incidentally, after registering the domain, I carried out certain amendments to the Registrant information on GoDaddy's control panel. The WHOIS tool of domaintools dot com however continues to show the older information. Is there a finite time-gap between updating of registrant information and it getting reflected in WHOIS?
Thanks in advance...
leahmarie posted this at 16:33 — 6th January 2010.
They have: 11 posts
Joined: Jul 2009
In my opinion there its a time allotted for a site's information promulgate but it is not to long i think.
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