Is SendOwl usable with a premium blog?
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I’m thinking of using a WordPress.com blog and link from it to my ebooks on a SendOwl – a third-party service where digital products can be sold securely.
If I do this I’ll only need the premium plan, not the business one.
If I understand correctly, Sendowl basically works with links that show up on top of the website where they’re incorporated, without actually leaving it.
My questions are:
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Are SendOwl’s links usable on a premium blog? As far as I know there’s no need for CSS access etc., this is purely a link-based system that works from SendOwl’s website. But I want to make sure nothing on WordPress.com strips the codes or makes them unusable.(2)
Is using a premium blog for commercial purposes, in addition to blogging, allowed by WordPress.com’s rules? I will obviously be giving extensive descriptions of products and posting pages from where they can be accessed, so the commercial element will be prominent.(3)
If there’s anything else that I should keep in mind when working in this way and I haven’t mentioned it here, please tell me about it.Thanks for your help.
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WordPress.com blogs cannot be equipped for eCommerce transactions unless they have the $299. per year annually renewable Business upgrade. https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/ecommerce-is-now-available-on-wordpresscom?replies=1
See here for ecommerce details http://en.support.wordpress.com/ecommerce/Otherwise, provided you are selling only what you yourself make or a service that you personally provide you have two options.
(1) Know that the only instructions that will work for posting a PayPal donation button on a WordPress.com blog are found here http://en.support.wordpress.com/paypal/(2) If you set up an Ecommerce site somewhere else online you can create a custom menu http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/ and include a custom link to that site in it. http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#adding-custom-links
Some bloggers create a contact form https://en.support.wordpress.com/contact-form/ on a page and after the people have made a PayPal donation they provide the link to a private page for downloading files. Maybe that will work for you.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/page-visibility/The only advertising program at WordPress.com is called WordAds and it’s for blogs on their own domains.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/
http://en.wordpress.com/apply-for-wordads/Advertising outside of WordAds at WordPress.com is not allowed.
http://support.wordpress.com/advertising/ Here’s what gets a blog suspended:
http://wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/affiliate-links/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/suspended-blogs/
http://en.wordpress.com/tos/1. WordPress.com allows bloggers to insert text affiliate links within post and page content to most third-party affiliate programs, provided they are not the primary content of the site in question.
2. Image affiliate links in posts and pages and any banners, affiliate links in sidebar or footer widget areas, are still considered to be advertising and are not allowed on WordPress.com blogs.
NOTE: Aside from the plugins I linked to for Ecommerce blogs with the Business upgrade only, there is no FTP access and no blogger installed plugin capability on any free hosted WordPress.COM blogs, we cannot install custom or third party themes, and there is no upgrade you can purchase here that changes that reality.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/ftp-access/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/plugins/
https://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/You may be better served by hiring a web host and setting up a WordPress.ORG software install.
WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG are completely separate and have different username accounts, logins, features, run different versions of some themes with the same names, and have separate support documentation and separate support forums.
Be sure to read the differences here http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/ Get hosting here http://wordpress.org/hosting
If you don’t have a username account at WordPress.ORG account, then click http://wordpress.org/support/ and register one on the top right hand corner of the page that opens, https://wordpress.org/support/register.php so you can post to the support forums there.
Resetting your WordPress.ORG password http://codex.wordpress.org/Resetting_Your_Password
WordPress.org support docs are at https://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page -
Thank you for the detailed reply.
It looks like the standard briefing that’s given to anyone that asks about commercial use, but I’m not sure it applies to what I asked – since I won’t be doing advertising but simply linking to my products elsewhere.
However the policy seems rather vague enough on what is allowed that I can’t really take that risk.
I suggest revising the policies to be clearer on exactly what commercial use is allowed, because many people seem to be confused about it – and for a good reason.
Also, I suggest that the premium plan be more accommodating to commercial uses – otherwise there’s no incentive to buy the upgrade.
You have a great platform and it could be much more useful if only the commercial issue were made more friendly and accessible.
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I’m thinking of using a WordPress.com blog and link from it to my ebooks on a SendOwl – a third-party service where digital products can be sold securely.
If I do this I’ll only need the premium plan, not the business one.
Let me clarify that no upgrade at all is required to do this on any WordPress.COM blog:
(2) If you set up an Ecommerce site somewhere else online you can create a custom menu http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/ and include a custom link to that site in it. http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#adding-custom-links -
Thank you.
The only real reason I need the upgrade is to redirect my own domain to the blog.
So, if I have a blog (either free or premium, but not business), with posts and pages linking to my products in addition to regular blog posts, is that allowed?
The commercial activity will be significant but it won’t be done anywhere on the blog itself and won’t be the only content of it.
It seems to fall within the guidelines but I can’t tell because the rules are vague. Is there a way to get an authoritative assessment on such a blog use from sales department or another official department, before starting anything?
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I should clarify: when I said “won’t be done on the blog itself” I meant the actual transactions.
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The only real reason I need the upgrade is to redirect my own domain to the blog.
WordPress.com does not accept domain transfers but mapping an existing domain is possible.
Domain mapping of an existing domain URL that you already own and purchased elsewhere is not done free of charge. You will have to renew the domain name purchase where you made, it and the domain mapping purchase here, each and every year.
Mapping an existing domain costs $13. annually and a domain name purchase and domain mapping are included in the Premium upgrade bundle.
In order to map to a domain one must have an underlying .wordpress.com sub-domain blog to map from and it does not matter what that underlying .wordpress.com URL is. It does not have to match the domain URL.
If you have registered a .wordpress.com blog you log in as Admin under the exact same username account that registered the WordPress.COM blog, and as you own a domain URL already, you can see here for mapping an existing domain. http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/map-existing-domain/
It can take between 24 – 72 hours for domain name propagation to take place throughout the internet. You can view the DNS changes here > http://www.whatsmydns.net/ What’s important during that stage is to be patient.
If required, to move content see here https://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-from-self-hosted-wordpress-to-wordpress-com/
https://en.support.wordpress.com/import/If you have any additional concerns, type modlook into the sidebar tags on this thread for Staff help. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Then please subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.
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Yes, that is an acceptable use of a WordPress.com blog because they are products that you yourself have created and are selling. Thus, not paid advertising.
If you have a domain registered elsewhere that you want to use with your WordPress.com site, you need the Domain Mapping upgrade:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/map-existing-domain/
It is included with WordPress.com Premium, but can also be purchased as a standalone upgrade.
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Thank you, good to know there’s an option to pay just for the mapping (although now that I think about it, the premium plan is actually cheaper).
Do you happen to know if link codes such as the ones used by SendOwl work properly on a blog here?
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Correction – I thought that was the monthly price. Mapping is the cheaper option of course.
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Do you happen to know if link codes such as the ones used by SendOwl work properly on a blog here?
You would need to talk to SendOwl about that.
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