As you know, I switched to a self-hosted WordPress.org solution for this blog about a month ago. Since then, I have noticed that my stats have declined slightly. What’s worse, I don’t seem to be gaining new followers quite as fast as before.
I attribute this to two factors:
- One, the new blog is no longer available on WordPress Reader.
- Two, it is much harder to reblog my posts. As a result, it is mostly those who are already following me that read them.
After a few hours of head scratching, I decided that:
- One, if I don’t stop scratching my head, people will think I have lice, and
- two, I need to come up with a way to fix this.
So, I decided I had two options:
- Return to the old blog, or
- reactivate the old blog while also keeping the new one going.
I have decided to try the second solution for now. It means I will duplicate each post on both blogs, which is a little more work, but worth it if it means I can reconnect with people.
What does this means for you?
Hopefully, this should have no bearing on you. If you find that you receive email notifications twice, I apologize in advance and ask that you unsubscribe from either blog. If you wish to reblog my posts, you may prefer to unsubscribe from the nicholasrossis.me one.
Both blogs will have the exact same content, so you can follow whichever suits your needs best.
In case you’re wondering, you can find the old blog on nicholasrossis.wordpress.com.
Let’s try this out and see how it goes! I’m sorry for any inconvenience, but hey, it’s better if I make mistakes and share the results with you, than if you make them, right? 🙂
I’ve been thinking of switching mainly for the plug-ins and ability to do more on the blog. Alternatively is to get a separate website but not sure that would work either!
I’ve enjoyed the plugins and small tweaks I’ve made, but the price was too high for me 🙂
Good to know. Thanks, Nicholas.
Hi Nicholas, I haven’t dropped in for some time as I deactivated all my email notifications – there were just too many of them from the blogs I follow! But I still get notification from Goodreads, which I usually ignore, and that is how I came here today – attracted by the ‘my new old blog’ title. When I use the reader I never get further than whoever is in the first few posts as I usually catch up on all I’ve missed when I visit a blog.
I decided to go self-hosting when I set up my author’s platform, but I took up a great special on GoDaddy – just to try it out for a year – using WordPress. I decided not to transfer my blog because most of my followers are there for my photos and I don’t want to suddenly bash them about the head with my writing. I put a link to my personal WordPress.com blog in the menu so potential new people can join in. I also put a feed from my personal blog into a widget in the footer (using Jetpack).
I was thinking about upgrading my blog to .org when my year with GoDaddy is up but I think I’ll leave it alone!
I still haven’t read the third novel in your Pearseus compilation, Nicholas, I really must get to it so I can do a review. What I love about your story is that I can still remember what the first two were about! I didn’t want to read all three in a row. Big mistake! I’m not doing a lot of fiction reading, these days, nor reviewing. Maybe after I get my own novel up off the ground. 🙂
I can totally identify with being unable to read half as many blogs and books as I’d like! Still, I’m thrilled to see you here again. And that you still remember the plot of the first two books, which means that they were memorable 🙂
Yeah, they are stickable books. Ones I’ll read again. 🙂
Do whatever your instinct tells you, Nicholas, although I am a bit worried that Google won’t ‘like’ your duplicated content and you may pay the price where it comes to their popularity in searches. As you know, I also have two blogs. I kept my free WP blog for the exact benefits you mentioned – and blog also on my self-hosted site. The latter depends solely on the traffic I drive to it via FB and Twitter. So, for your self-hosted site, you need to intensify your automated tweets for example. Now, between those two blogs I duplicate content very rarely; ie when I have a new launch or a free promo to announce, but even then, I change the wording – the first paragraph is unique. I blog on both sites, mainly on the self-hosted site, and I blog different things on each one. Interviews, reviews and author tips on effrosyniwrites and nowadays, only recipes and the odd book tour on the free blog, effrosinimoss. The idea here is to differentiate between the two as each follower may not necessarily be interested in the lot. I have a few who follow both blogs but not many. I think in time each one decided what interests them and what did not. It’s up to you how to proceed. For me, this solution works like a charm. Good luck and hope this helps a little 🙂
Thanks for sharing your experience! Google was something I did consider. So far it hasn’t made a difference, but it’s still too soon. It’s something I do monitor, though 🙂
Wow, I told you this was confusing. I think I gave you some helpful hints before, but to recap: I left my old wordpress blog open with an auto redirect link to my self hosted for a year. Then when I didn’t want to pay WP to keep the redirect, I posted many times about the redirect ending soon.
No, you don’t have a reblog button, but you can reblog anything from anywhere by using ‘press this’ tool in your dashboard, and letting others know they can do the same with your posts. (I posted on this myself). Many bloggers aren’t aware of this great tool.
And finally, I’m self hosted and polled my readers, and they all told me I was still in the reader, so you should be?
I hope I helped a bit here. Feel free to ask me questions about this confusing dilemma. I know it well, lol. 🙂
Thank you so much, Debbie 🙂
Anytime. 🙂
Where am I? I don’t even know which one I’m following. Probably both, depending whether I’m picking you up on the reader or by email notice. Thanks for this note though as it’s good to know about the complications. I do find interacting with self-hosted blogs much harder, so I’m glad your duplicating, though what a pain. Hope this works better for you 🙂
Thanks! So do I. I’ll share how it goes down the line 🙂
What a headache!
Still receiving okay, but will pay close attention. 😀
Thank you, Tess, and apologies for any inconvenience 🙂
You are welcome, Nicholas. No problem at all. Rooting for you. 🙂
It looks to me like your blog is highly successful if you look at the numbers. There’s 80 comments here today. Some 30 people and over 60 likes. I consider that pretty good audience no matter what. I know bloggers who would kill to have even 10 comments and likes happening on their blog page. You’re still a great guy with a thriving blog!
Aw, you! *blush*
I have a lot of wonderful people follow me, for which I’m terribly grateful. What got me worried is that very few new faces have turned up since the move.
Diana wrote today on that, and she offers some great tips on building up one’s blog. Basically, it can be boiled down to engaging with the people behind the screen, instead of promoting yourself. You can read it on https://mythsofthemirror.com/2016/01/08/clueless-blogger-reports-in/
That’s no good. I must say, I don’t receive email notifications for your posts any more, nor do they show up in my reader – if that’s happening to other people it could explain your dip in stats. Hope it gets sorted for you!
Thanks! If you follow me on https://nicholasrossis.wordpress.com all that should get sorted out for you 🙂
I think I’ve just done that – however, will let you know if I’m still not getting notifications. Hope all is going well, and your newest family member isn’t keeping you up at night (too much) 🙂
Don’t go there… Sleepless in Athens 😀
Oh dear 🙂 I’ve been there – it does pass, eventually.
Lol – so I hear, but accounts vary wildly as to when 🙂
Yes – in the hands of the sleep gods, unfortunately! But I will say this, my gorgeous girl is nine now, and I can’t imagine where the time has gone or how it passed so quickly…
I think I’ll dedicate tomorrow’s post to you, then, as it has to do with the joys of parenthood 🙂
Oh, that’s very sweet! Thank you, I look forward to reading it xx
That’s such a pain, Nick, as if you haven’t got enough on your plate. I was still receiving all your posts though, but I may have missed reading some over the holiday period, I wasn’t reading or blogging much myself at all. One thing I noticed when you switched is that there are so many pop-up ‘s appearing when I try to comment that the comment box is almost completely obscured. Makes it kinda difficult… but not impossible. This is when I view on my phone, which is 99.9% of the time. Hope you find an easier workable resolution to your issues. Love to baby and mom, too. Xxx
Lol – I’m typing this with a baby in my arms, so at least the twin approach can help me hone my multi-tasking 😀
Susan said something similar, in regards to the popups. I wonder if it’s best to remove them, or ask people to go to the old blog.
If you send us all to the old blog, then what is the point of the new blog? I want to support you where you want to be read. I’m guessing that’s the new blog, so if it was created by Attomatic then maybe you should get in touch with them so they can rectify it. You should still be able to have popups, it’s one of the perks of going .org after all. I’d love to have them, but I won’t leave .com. Its too difficult for me. I’m not technically minded. ?
That is so sweet of you, but all I want is to interact with people. So, I don’t have any preference as to which blog people should visit. I even considered getting rid of the new one altogether, but I’m too fond of the minor fixes I’ve made to the design to do that 🙂
Don’t blame you Nick. ? You have two new babies, not one!
😀
I made the switch so early on in my blog history that it didn’t really affected me… though even I noticed that followers come more slowly and fewer on the self-hosted blog. I just assumed I had to rely on different things than the WP reader.
Though I know my posts still appear on people’s reader, because I see people coming from it from the stats. I just don’t think WP still suggests my blog to people in the readers as it used to be when I was on .com
But then (because I had so few people following me at the time) I did notice that people who followed me but didn’t actually knew me, never interacted with me on my blog, so in the end I didn’t really regret the numbers and just thought I had to realy on other means tolet people know my blog excist and lure them to interact with me 😉
Personally, I’ve never regreted the switch. .org allows me a lot more conrol on the blog itself, which is what I was looking for. It does work differently from .com in many respects, but I’m still happy with it.
Thank you for that! Yes, it’s good to be in control of things. Let’s see how this twin approach works our. Hopefully, it will combine the best of both worlds 🙂
That’s frustrating about your stats going down! I thought with jetpack you should still show up in wordpress reader? I recently just had an issue with my comments showing up in the reader too which was a nightmare, but still my site was showing up. Hope whatever you do works out!!
Thanks! The twin approach lacks elegance, but at least it works fine 🙂
Glad you kept the old blog since I re-blogged from it today!
Awesome! Thank you 🙂
I’ve been changing theme all day today and that’s bad enough. Feel I don’t know who I am anymore. But your situation is messy. I hope it resolves in time.
Lol – thanks. Yes, theme-hopping can be a hassle 🙂
It opens all sorts of doors too, though.
Yes, it’s great fun 🙂
Well I don’t know that I’d go ad far as that. I
See, I can’t even comment properly now I’m so boggle-eyed.
Lol – believe me, I know the feeling 😀
I couldn’t tell so do what you think is best.
Thanks, John 🙂
This post rocks for me. I too switched and have lost a great many readers. So, I’m now going carefully over these answers to you and trying to fix things. I wish you luck and thank you mightily for addressing this!
Yay! So glad that’s helped you. It’s why I decided to post about it, in case someone else has similar troubles.
Again, you are so helpful and supportive. It’s terrific, really.
Aw, you! *blush*
I had noticed you seemed to fall off the radar on my Reader and I didn’t know what happened. Then you suddenly started showing up again. Now I understand. So glad you’re still here.
Yay! That’s all I needed to hear. Thank you 🙂
What address do I show under on your Reader?
nicholasrossis.me is what shows. I went back and looked at previous posts and they’re all there. I’m glad. I enjoy reading your posts.
Ah, good to know. Thank you! 🙂
Sorry to hear your stats have gone down… mind you it could also be because people tend to be extra busy at this time of the year. Happy New Year, regardless 🙂
Thank you, Christy – you too!
Yes, that’s true. Let’s see how it goes 🙂
Nicholas, as long as you didn’t deactivate your WP.com blog your followers should be able to get this blog in their reader. Did you put in a forwarding with WP? As far as posting twice, you don’t need to do that. I was baffled by this too, but I have people who sign up to follow me on WP.com still and they receive my self-hosted site. Just contact WP.com and have a forwarding put on (similar to mail) and you’ll have the same audience. Anyone can reblog from your SumoMe WordPress button on the sidebar. The stats show differently on self-hosted as if they’re split between two places, one at the top and one under Jetpack “stats.” Which is why I use Analytics by Yoast instead. Hope this helps!
Thank you, Sue! You’re right, and I’ve already done all that. However, it’s the discoverability that troubles me the most 🙂
It could just be that people were preoccupied over the holidays and weren’t reading blogs as much. I know I have a whole slew of “marked as read” emails regarding new posts that I haven’t actually read yet. I must go through them soon. Meantime, I never quite grasp why people leave wordpress — for me, it’s easy and it works. Change always harbours some unexpected results. But see? I found you!
You sure did! Thanks 🙂
I don’t even know what self-hosting is. Help? I use .com times three. I know I have too many blogs and should probably drop a couple. Thoughts? Is that the way to go?
My advice? Stick with .com, which is what you already have 🙂
Hi Nick – aren’t WordPress supposed to put an automatic re-route from your old site links to the new .me when you upgrade? I upgraded several months ago now, but still have old links bookmarked on various devices and they all come out OK to the new address… Weird!
Yes, but you can deactivate the automatic redirect 🙂
Re-activate it then! lol Seriously, I just looked in my Reader and you’re still on there with this new web address – I just came back on the link, so other followers should get here OK. 😉
I need some help here. What address do you see on the Reader? Thanks!
Sorry – got distracted this weekend! It’s saying nicholasrossis.me and I just landed on your ABOUT page 😀
No worries 🙂
OK, so nicholasrossis.me does show up on Reader – good to know. Thanks!
I’ve known a few who made the leap, but I’m not convinced the upgrades are worth it. I like interaction and discoverability. Some won’t even let me comment via WordPress, and that kills conversations.
See? It’s that sort of thing I wish I knew before hand 🙂
I don’t think I’ll ever make the leap.
I did notice that after you made your switch your posts started showing in my Junk folder rather than my blogs I follow folder, so if that happened to others it could have been another contributing factor for your declining views. Then again December was fairly low for me so it could have been seasonal as well.
That’s interesting; thank you for sharing!
It might help if you write a post about how to share your posts using the two buttons on the left of your page under ‘Click below to Reblog’ Nicholas, e.g., some folks may not even have noticed them because they were looking for a reblog button beside the Like button (as per the old WordPress blog location) and that the obvious WordPress symbol is NOT the best one to use.
Good point. A post will only be read by only so many, though, while I’ll still have the missing followers problem. In just a single day, I have gained 5 new followers – or as many as through December!
But I will share that post Nicholas ???
Yeah, I have heard both good and bad things from self-hosting WP blogs. I thought about creating one just for my author promotions but I was scared to lose followers. 🙁 Thank you for sharing your experiences with us, Nick, and I agree, it’s better to share with other authors than hide behind a facade. 🙂
Like everything else, a self-hosted solution has its pros and cons 🙂
So true.
Sorry for your troubles, Nicholas!
Learn all you can so that you can help me handle my blog! 🙂
Happy New year!
Lol- deal! 😀
Good plan since it isn’t a total switch. The reblog thing was always confusing and seemed like a big loss. I tried reblogging this from my phone and it ended up logging me out of my own blog for some reason. You’d think WP would fix that.
Yes, I’m rather surprised that they haven’t. Makes me feel there is competition between the two platforms.
I know. At the very least it’s that they’re not compatible. Maybe the ‘trick’ is to get more people into the hosted site than the regular blog. Though that still doesn’t explain why so many important features are missing.
Good luck. I’ve not made the switch over, and I don’t see it in the near future. I’m happy with what I have now.
As far as reblogging goes, I now manually reblog to save the worry and hassle of copyrighted images. I don’t want any images on my site that I don’t own. Also, manually reblogging gives me control over how much content I use from another site, and my comments fit better. And I can remove links from the content, which means the reader has to go to the original site to click them.
I ran into a problem last year when I reblogged a post and the lady wasn’t happy that almost all her post–which was very short–ended up on my blog. I explained that I didn’t control how much was reblogged, and she understood.
Hitting reblog is convenient, but not good in all instances.
Interesting. Your approach is the best, but too time-consuming for most people 🙂
It does take a little more time, but if the post is worth reblogging, it’s worth taking the extra few minutes.
Not a problem for me, Nicholas. I will stick with both blogs, and see what happens.
Best wishes, Pete.
That is so sweet of you Pete; thank you 🙂
I have exactly the same problem. Nobody could follow my blog easily on my .org site so I have been duplicating posts on both http://www.mtmctguire.co.uk (my blog) and http://www.hamgee.co.uk/blog for several years now. It’s a massive pain in the arse, not the post adding but all the other really irritating gubbins that goes with like adding tags (I loathe adding tags with a passion).
Right now, I’m unsure what the answer is, if you use .org you have a lovely site and you can attach things – like optimise press or sumo me! But there’s a whole raft of other things which you can’t attach. Ideally I’d be able to have a .org site with a window that just fed my blog on .com in. Blog in one place but shown in two…. Any alternative is effing complicated isn’t it!?
Cheers
MTM
Somehow, it’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one! 🙂
Yeh I think there may be a fair few of us. 🙂
Having been tempted to self host this makes me glad I did not yield, but then I don’t get your kind of following, nor the need to count on more than the fingers of two hands!
Aw, that’s sweet. Thank you 🙂
Navigating the waters of social media for authors is becoming a full time job. I’d like to know how it goes with a follow-up post Nick.
I’ll be sure to share 🙂
On the flipside, .org allows you to install so many cool plug-ins that help you capture emails or do awesome stuff that’s nowhere near possible in .com.
That’s why I made the switch in the first place. But I missed the community…
That makes sense now. I seem to think I was trying to reblog something you posted the other day and gave up on it. Hopefully this will resolve that problem. And thanks for the heads-up, Nicholas!
Thanks for sticking with me, Graeme 🙂
Welcome back! 🙂
Lol – missed me? 😀
Yes – hope your posts will still fit around my morning coffee!
Lol- absolutely! 😀
Wow, that’s disappointing that things haven’t gone so well – I hope your solution works, but either way I’ll still be following your fun and very informative blogs – all the best 🙂
Thank you so much, Catherine 🙂
Good luck in getting this sorted Nicholas. I can’t understand why self-hosted blogs are not in the WordPress reader.
Hugs
I should have realized it before switching over, but it’s never too late to fix it 🙂
Hugs
That’s the reason I have resisted self-hosted so far, the community aspect seems easier to maintain with .com.
You are wiser then me, then 🙂
Or not as brave 😉