creating a new free blog
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I have a free blog on wordpress.com (unstmorag.wordpress.com) and my friend would like one too. I am trying to make some instructions for her to follow, but everything seems to have changed. I have read the announcement that says you can have a something.blog or a something.wordpress.com blog nowadays, and that’s fine, don’t mind which one.
When I follow the create blog set of pages through and get to the one “Give Your Blog an Address”, I type in the something.wordpress.com that I want, that I have already checked is not currently in use, but it doesn’t give me that as a suggestion to select. It offers me something.blog as a paid option and the only free option is something.travel.blog, but this is not a travel blog.
I don’t remember this being so hard when I created my own free blog a number of years ago. I understand why there are now two options (wordpress.com and .blog) because there are so many blogs out there now, but if what I request is not available why doesn’t it just say so?
Will it ever give me just what I type in as a free blog? If you click on the free option it goes ahead and makes it before even confirming with you. I’ve had to delete two blog domains already this morning as a result.
I just want to get some simple instructions for my friend to get a free blog so she can start blogging. It’s really very frustrating and difficult to work with. I hope someone can point out where I am going wrong. I’m sure it should be easier than this.
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In general, it will only present the addresses that are available, and there are a variety of reasons for why an address may not be available.
What is the address you’re trying to claim?
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Anything ending in wordpress.com- that’s why I said something.wordpress.com in my question. It doesn’t offer me ANY suggestions ending with wordpress.com when I try to make a blog. If I select a business or profession instead of a blog, then it gives me a wordpress.com address, but not for a blog. I don’t want a business, I just want a blog.
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I recommend going with Business or Professional, since that’s giving you the options.
It’s just the initial categorization, you’ll still build the same type of site with the same software, and you don’t need to choose a paid plan. :)
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I don’t understand. I don’t want a business, I just want a blog. Why have these choices if they are not what they say they are?
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The .blog options aren’t offered when you select Business because folks who want a business site generally don’t want a .blog address.
However! It’s all really just a formality. If you select Business, it’s all the same, the only difference is now you get to register a .wordpress.com address.
It’s still a blog.
The system is designed to guide you towards the ideal option for the site you want. It’s ok to not want the ideal option, that’s why we still have work-arounds. :)
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So why not offer the wordpress.com addresses when blog is selected then? If the goal was to avoid offering them to business users, why has that resulted in such confusion for people wanting a blog.
You say it is all the same, but if you select business it appears to set up a home page for you that looks like a business and all the emails it sends you after you have registered seem to think you want to run a business. For someone who isn’t running a business it’s not very helpful. My friend, who just wants a blog, is going to be very confused by this. I am trying to help her do this in the simplest way possible, but none of it is simple any more.
Is there a way, once you have the blog up and running, to change from “business” to “blog” in the settings somewhere, so the emails revert to being helpful for what this site is for?
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So why not offer the wordpress.com addresses when blog is selected then? If the goal was to avoid offering them to business users
It’s the opposite, Business folks generally don’t want a .blog domain, so we offer .wordpress.com instead at the start.
There are far more .blog options than .wordpress.com, so we default to that for everyone else.
but if you select business it appears to set up a home page for you
You can easily edit or even remove the provided home page.
Is there a way, once you have the blog up and running, to change
Yes, the home page can be easily edited or removed, and we’d recommend unsubscribing from the emails if they are not applicable.
We built https://wordpress.com/start for the majority of folks who just want to be guided through the process of starting a free site and given a domain close to what they want. We understand that the solution may not be perfect for the minority, but it’s not really possible to create such a system for everyone without hundreds of options presented upfront.
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Hmm – that’s not my experience. If you select blog, you are never offered wordpress.com addresses. Also the .blog options are not tailorable. It offers you myname.travel.blog for example, even though you have said your blog is about something other than travel. I’m told the middle portion of the URL is not customizable.
I have found how to change that – my point is that it is more confusion for a new user who just wants a blog. How do you subscribe to the appropriate emails? I’m not asking for WordPress to stop sending emails – I like them, I just want them to be relevant to running a blog rather than a business. That’s the confusion for a new user.
The URL you mention, and indeed any other button you might click in order to get yourself a wordpress blog all funnel to the same set of choices. The choices in which I’m going to have to tell my friend to select business even though she wants a blog, and then undo the business settings like the home page once she gets it. She’s going to wonder why I am recommending such a complicated system after me raving about how great WordPress is.
I hope some of this discussion can be feedback to whoever designs these things to let them know it is less than optimal for the entry level free user pipeline. I’ve been a wordpress blogger for many years, and am trying to encourage others to join, but some of these choices make it look really complicated.
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I’m definitely passing the feedback up the chain, but in general the experience is not intended to be complicated.
As mentioned, we built https://wordpress.com/start for the majority of folks who just want to be guided through the process of starting a free site and given a domain close to what they want.
In that sense, it is incredibly easy start-to-finish. If you want a free blog with a name close to the subject you want to write about, you’ll have it in about 1 minute.
Now we understand that folks may want to do more outside of what that provides at face value, like force it give out one specific name, and yes that is where things can get complicated.
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Now that is interesting, the way you say that suggests that there might be a route into getting a wordpress site that DOESN’T go through this guided process. I looked and could not find a way that didn’t funnel me through that. Can you confirm? Is there a way to obtain a wordpress site that doesn’t go through the 6 step guided process?
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Hi there,
You need to follow those steps in order to create a new site. This is the default site creation process.
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I understand that this is the default way to do it, but it just sounded like there was another non-default way, and I was asking where that was so I could try it and see if it was easier to explain to my friend, since the default route is so complicated. If there isn’t an alternative route at all (not just non-default but actually non-existent) could you reply to confirm?
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No, that is the only process users have to create a blog address and site, but as staff-blorbo mentioned, the 6 step process takes about a minute assuming you know what you want for your site name. Also, as he said, everything outside the blog address names are only recommendations and can be changed. The biggest thing you need to know during the process is
If you chose blog, you’ll end up with
example.home.blogas a free address if that address is still available.If you chose business, you’ll end up with
example.wordpress.comas a free address if that address is still available.Every other option will default to
example.home.blogassuming it is still availableHope that helps.
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Thank you for the confirmation.
FYI – you don’t always get given example.home.blog. I kept being offered example.travel.blog, which was pretty useless for a blog that wasn’t about travel. It is most unfortunate that it doesn’t pay any heed to what you type in the earlier questions, nor any of the other keywords you put in in the URL selection page when choosing that middle piece. I think that was perhaps the most frustrating part of the process. I would have gone with the blog choice if I could have had any input into that middle section, but every answer I got said you have no control over it, so in the end I went through the business section. I’ve got the URL I wanted, but now I’m getting lots of business related emails rather than blogging related emails which is just a shame.
It was definitely slicker before when I got my original blog (see first post). I hope it gets better again, I don’t like to see the complication and frustration for new users.
Anyway, I consider my question answered now. Thanks for everyone’s help.
Cheers,
Morag
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