Badmovies.org Forum

I want to start a blog, and there are tons of sites to sift through.  Just wanted some input: which do you think is the best blog that isn't attached to a social network (Facebook,etc.)?

I use www.blogspot.com for my blog and I think it's pretty good. I haven't tried any other Blog site though.

I'm assuming you want a free blog site. For me, the best way is to register a domain, spend a few bucks a month on hosting, and install your own copy of Wordpress. Virtually total control of everything.

But then, I have several content-managed sites. At this point, I'm trying to justify getting a static IP and hosting them myself. That's the utimate. I just have to show that putting in fibre with a static IP is cheaper than all our other stuff combined. I've got a backbone running right past the front door of my shop. Maybe if I resold some of the bandwidth to my neighbours it would all even out....

Sorry, getting off topic, but this got me thinking. :teddyr:

I think you'll find that having your sites hosted at a DC is almost always more dependable than hosting them at home.  With a good provider you get redundant power, redundant routes, and 24 hour support in case you are away and something goes wrong.

Badmovies.org is hosted in the Colo4Dallas DC, backs up to a remote site in NYC, and I keep a copy of everything here at home as well.

I agree that registering your own domain is a good idea.  Always register the domain yourself with a registrar.  I use Network Solutions, because I always have.  A lot of people use GoDaddy, just be warned that they will always send you marketing stuff for their other offerings, and make sure your contact information is up to date because GoDaddy has an onerous fee if it is incorrect.  Then find a good shared hosting provider to install Wordpress (and keep your Wordpress updated!).  Don't use any hosting provider you find via a "10 best hosting provider" websites.  I'd suggest Knownhost, as I use them and they have been great.

If you're looking for a free site you can get a wordpress blog hosted on wordpress.com.  That's what I did before I bought a domain; once I was sure I wanted to purchase,  I moved everything over and it was quite simple.

Blogger is popular too, and I've never tried it from the creator's side, but I have to say as a reader/user I don't like the blogger.com blogs.  Most of them look exactly the same, and I have constant difficulty posting comments to them.  They're always glitching on me.

Running a server would be more for fun than anything else. I'm pretty certain the cost would be prohibitive anyway. I'd want to do it right, with a dedicated fast machine, hardware RAID 10, nameserver, backup power, etc. It's on the wish list, just above the Beowulf cluster.

I keep all my domains registered through hostmonster.com, then point them to where I actually keep the sites. Hostmonster charges $10 a year per domain, gives me a lot more control of domains and subdomains than other companies I've tried, and have never sent me an email about anything that didn't actually require my attention (server maintenance, domains nearing renewal, invoices, etc.)

I would also suggest if Joe does get a domain, keep it as short and meaningful as you can, don't register anything you can't get the .com for, and register the name across the board - .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info - and redirect them all to the .com. You'll be that much easier to find, and you've ensured that your domain stays unique.

For the blog itself, whatever platform you choose, be sure to install Google Analytics. It's a very useful tool, along with Google Webmaster Tools. You can keep track of how many people are visiting, how they're finding you, where they're coming from, what they're reading, how long they stay, plus a lot of information about the keyword density of your site, what Google is indexing and when, whether the spider has found problems, all sorts of stuff. If you want the blog to build some good traffic, you should have some kind of an SEO strategy. Doesn't have to be complicated, even a little effort in that direction can help a lot.

I've considered do a blog or creating a website but all I know is a little basic HTML and I'm not sure I'd have the patience for all that code texting...

Wordpress.org or bogger.com provide templates and interfaces, almost no coding is necessary.  (That's why blogs have exploded).

http://omg.trevorsmuckyundies@blogspot.com (http://omg.trevorsmuckyundies@blogspot.com)  :buggedout: :wink:

True, it's usually no more difficult to publish to a blog than it is to post here. Some knowledge of coding is nice to stand out from the pack, but they're all pretty much plug and play. You can be up and running in minutes. Most modifications you'd want can be accomplished with plug-ins, and the rest can be figured out in time. Most of the hard work is in building up good content, so it's best just to get started simply and figure out the other stuff as you go.