So, I have successfully migrated my blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org after three months. Despite so much effort and time spent in fixing lost information, reviving my blog subscribers is still a massive challenge. Have I mentioned that the ‘likes‘ accumulated for my blog posts over the years have gone too?
There is only one reason I wanted to migrate: Flexibility. Whilst WordPress.com is fairly structured and easy to use for first time bloggers, the platform can be rather fixated. If you are an explorer who likes to try different plugins (like me) or want something more, then you’ll feel the same way as I do. It’s a pity because I really enjoyed using WordPress.com. I can blog all day without worrying about website’s technicality.
I’ve read all the pros and cons before migrating. Honestly, flexibility is the number one challenge for most bloggers on WordPress.com. You’d be tempted with so many plugin features that you wouldn’t be able to use unless upgrading to a business plan. That’s right, not even a premium plan can enable plugin usage. I tried and went back to basic plan simply because I couldn’t afford to pay more. I wonder if WordPress.com has thought of bloggers pain?
Comparing both WordPress.com and WordPress.org, I decided to move on. Whilst migration is not as straightforward as many website has advised, I learned a lot from the entire process. Everything is alright except there is no possibility to migrate ‘likes’ from posts you have accumulated over the years. Regrettably true, I only found out after migration as there were mix comments about this. I took a chance. If you have been investing in driving awareness towards your blog posts, migration would be a huge mistake.
Furthermore, migrating subscribers to a new hosting site is also not as simple. I am referring to followers from WordPress.com who’d subscribed via Readers instead of email subscribers. Basically, Readers are unique to WordPress.com. Initially, my WordPress.com blog followers were able to view my post updates via Readers. However, they no longer able to view them once migration happened, except those who’d enabled the email subscription option. Therefore, if you’ve overlooked informing your followers to enable email subscription in advanced, you’d risk losing them.
Subscribing to Jetpack plan was what I did. In the end, I spent some funds in saving my blog followers as a short term solution. If you are my WordPress.com followers today, please please please kindly enable your email subscription to my blog. It’s a matter of time before I lose you completely.
If you are looking at some cost saving from blog migration, I would say there isn’t much difference. All the patching up work would add up to similar cost anyway. If you have too much to lose, especially all the ratings earned from your loyal followers throughout the years, then don’t migrate for the sake of fun. However, if you are keen to explore different plugins, enjoy some perks of flexibility and customisation, you may want to weigh the overall cost of a business plan on WordPress.com and other hosting platforms to find each worth before going through the trouble of migration.
I have come too far to reverse my action. Definitely I hope no one repeat the same mistake as I did. Once again, if you are my current WordPress.com followers, I would greatly appreciate if you can kindly enable your email subscription to my blog.
