Help with Self-Hosting?

/ Anita Dawes and Jaye Marie
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I have been avoiding tackling this problem for a while now, but the time has come… as the walrus once said. I know it must be now, for I have started blitzing the house, cleaning things that haven’t been touched in months, and that is never a good sign.

For someone who wages war with technology daily, we are actually contemplating the nightmare job of changing our blog/website.

We have been here on WP for 9 years and reasonably content, but our media usage is running at 84% and soon we will be forced to upgrade to Business.

But we don’t really want to.

WP has been good for us but there are some annoying shortcomings. The lack of Google Analytics and better SEO, for a start. Then being unable to use any plug ins and restricted to our choice of themes.

Thing is, I’m not sure if my ageing brain will cope with the mandatory hassle to transfer to a self-hosted WP. I have heard it can be a nightmare and I have enough brain melts (hissy fits) every time we are plagued with the upgrading tinkering going on, and a change of this magnitude might just be the straw that breaks this camel’s back! Surely, it can’t be too difficult?

I mean, just how complicated is it?

And what happens to this blog and the content?  Does it all transfer, or will I have to start from scratch?

Is there a way I can tell if someone has self-hosted, so I can have a look?

And most important of all, would you recommend doing it?

As I have been thinking about this for a while now, I have come up with a possible solution. I am sure that some of our followers have already made this transition and could share a few dos and don’ts with us.

All feedback regarding this ambitious or very stupid plan will be VERY welcome…

32 thoughts on “Help with Self-Hosting?”

  1. Self Hosting is a type of all time Tread for your site. Like you always need to check for the maintenance, you are Responsible for smooth working. Ks Hosting Provide you the best ever Hectic free hosting for smooth working of your site.

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  4. I’ve considered self-hosting and I still may take the leap. With that said, I trashed some of my older posts but didn’t delete them. I either copied the content or set them up to post as an archive at a later date. I audited my media and was able to delete over 1,000 images. It is a tedious and time-consuming process but it is worth it, IMO. Another suggestion regarding images is to resize them, for example, an image that is 2000 x 2000 can be resized to 700 x 700 so it won’t eat up a lot of your GBs.

    I had the Business plan for a while and it seems too pricey for what it has to offer plus there is no reblog feature. So, I transferred back to the Premium plan. Whatever your decision, be sure to back up your blog before transferring.

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  6. So, the main issue is running out of space?
    It’s probably worth going into your archives and deleting the posts that aren’t directly from or about you, for example your ‘Jaye’s Journals’, or that have some direct meaning for you.
    It was quite revelatory when I did it, last year I think it was, (time moves so strangely these days) and I freed up so much space.
    It’s certainly a time commitment, but that’s all it is, no nasty jousting with new software or any of that stuff that really, REALLY annoys us, my preciousss. 😀
    Then, see how it works/looks and go from there.
    Hope this helps. 😀

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  7. Hello,
    ich hope to be able offering some advice. Self-Hosting is not difficult, but you have to choose a good hosting partner first. There are many who charge an exorbitant cost for hosting wordpress. That was why it took me so long to host the blog myself. Now i have found one, in the EU, and with affordable costs of round about 7.– Euro for one year hosting, with one domain, unlimited transfer volume, WP-automatic updates, and 25 GB Webspace. The transfer of the blog content is also easy. Thanks to the GDPR, WP.com must also keep the data available for download. P.S.: Before the GDPR came into force, you would have had to pay for it.
    This in short! If you want to get more information, you can send me an email (michaelwzach@office.eu.org) . I will make i short listing what you should consider. Best wishes, Michael

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  10. I know several bloggers who got sick of WP, switched, and then switched back, because they lost so many WP followers. My media was also getting full. So I went through my oldest posts and asked myself, “Is this one worth resharing at some point in the future?” If it wasn’t, I deleted the post and removed the images from the library. It was a lot of work, but not as much work as switching to another platform. Good luck with whatever you decide!

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  12. I self host, but it gets expensive at times. Also, I’ve had nightmares with the transfers. You can migrate your whole blog, but you will likely need the new platform to help you with the transfer. Also, most hosts have a storage limit and then fees for extra, so it’s worth checking all that out first.

    I hate to say this, but if you’re nearing capacity, it might be worth deleting some of your oldest posts/images. And for new posts, ensure you use small file-sized images.

    I hope this helps and you get sorted. Hugs xx 🙂

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