A Somewhat Belated Annual Unsolicited Endorsement of WordPress
Posted on November 15, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 13 Comments
Usually in the second week of October I make mention that I use WordPress and that I find it extremely simple to use, easy to manage and is a thing that I can endorse for anyone who is looking to have their own space here on the Internet. However, this October I was traveling all over the place (the second week of that month I had one day at home in-between being in Wichita and NYC). So this year, my annual unsolicited endorsement of WordPress falls in the middle of November, because I am finally home.
However, do not let the relative lateness of the annual endorsement lead you to believe I am less enthusiastic about WordPress as both a blogging tool and a foundation for one’s own home on the web. Indeed, if this last year and the collapse of the former Twitter have taught us anything, it’s that having a space of one’s own online, not at the whim of a massively insecure and hateful billionaire (or, honestly most anyone else) is an essential thing. Social media sites may come and go, but your own site can, like, mine, outlast several generations of these increasingly ephemeral places.
In addition to 2023 being the 25th anniversary of Whatever existing, it also marks the 15th anniversary of me hosting the blog on WordPress. As a host for the site, WordPress has been damn near bulletproof; in those fifteen years the site has been down only for a few hours in aggregate, and rarely more than a few minutes at any one time (which have been rare enough to be remarkable in themselves). However, even if I didn’t use WordPress to host the blog, I would still use their software for the site. It’s simple enough to just bang out a post but complex enough that I can do all sorts of things with it, with hundreds of themes to skin the site, and widgets and background processes to further get the site to my liking. It has a lot to recommend it, either with or without WordPress as the hosting service.
As I note every year, WordPress neither asks for nor expects me to make this annual endorsement. I do it because I appreciate the service and the software, and think if you’re thinking about having your site, and you should, WordPress is a very good way to do it.
See you all again in a year (more or less), with another updated endorsement.
— JS
It’s a reverse endorsement deal – you’re paying them!
I like WordPress so I’ll second your motion. But my impression is that Automattic is evolving toward being more of a general web host; certainly the new (for the past few years) bloc editor is far more complicated than most blogs would need but their old “classic” editor was a lot less than what a serious web site might require. The point being that it will be interesting to see how the service evolves over the next few years.
That reminds me, that I thought about setting up a WordPress site to bore people who decide to read it with holiday experiences.
I wonder how long it would take to set one up for the next holidays.
And X still isn’t as dead as I feared it would be by now. It’s still one of the most useful places for me (besides Amazon recommendations) to find books to read.
And the local bookstore profits most from that. Even thou I’m not entirely sure, that they aren’t annoyed at me for most of the time ignoring the books they’ve got on shelf.
Yes but your site gets more traffic than mine. Lol.
I have twice recently had WordPress sites that are not hosted at WordPress be compromised, leading to whole sites being over-written by scammers/hackers/web pirates/utter assholes.
My host charges a pretty penny to “clean up” such infestations, so I don’t imagine they feel motivated to prevent them in the first place.
So I’m guessing you have saved yourself that pain by being hosted by WordPress.
Does WordPress also handle domain registration and email? Because a friend of mine is looking to set up an online presence and really has no idea where to start. And I haven’t the time right now to really dive into the research.
@Wiredog
For basic needs cheaply (domain registration and email) I like these people, who have been around for a long time:
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net
You pay for what you use, which is nearly nothing unless you suddenly become a phenomenon.
That’s if they actually need their own individual domain registration with linked email. Not clear they do, if they just want to explore an online presence.
Looks good, works good. Same as last year, and the year before…
I don’t do email with them, so I can’t comment on that, but they do handle domain registration, for a fee. (They host and manage the domain registration for my site, everybodyslibraries.com .) I might get it more cheaply myself on my own, but at the moment it’s convenient for them to handle it.
They have a bunch of service tiers, starting from free (but with ads), up to many thousands a year. I pay for one that keeps ads off my site, and has a few other features (not least of which is the peace of mind that they’ll keep the software up to date instead of me having to keep on top of security patches myself to ensure my site doesn’t get compromised).
Which plan do you use?
I own a WordPress site, and it’s hosted by Bluehost. I tested the migration over to WordPress hosting, and was informed that my current platform isn’t supported. So no migration yet. Hoping this can happen soon, because I’ve heard stories about Bluehost, and I want to abandon ship.
@wiredog: My spouse runs a webhosting business that can do WordPress installs and email. His business has been around since 1997 and he’s been hosting my sites since we met about 10 years ago. Check him out at http://www.sandwich.net.
A useful post for TemplateMonster customers.