Happy New Year and Happy New Site!
For those of you who haven’t noticed, somewhat simple is officially a dot com!
For months I have seen so many of my favorite blogs switch over from blogspot to wordpress and it got me debating and weighing the pros and cons of doing the same. Without boring you with all the details, let me just say I decided I had to find out what all the hype was about for myself and so about a week before Christmas, I pulled the trigger. I went to godaddy.com, bought the url, paid for 1 year of hosting and $60 later I was ready to start designing my new site!
Let me just say I had never heard a single negative thing about WordPress- ever! But can I just tell you how much I hated it!?!?! Seriously. Hated it with a passion!!! I am not exxagerating one bit when I say I literally spent hours every day for nearly 2 weeks trying to make my site look good! I know I wasn’t 100% acquainted with blogger the first month I used it, so I kept telling myself WordPress would get easier, but the reality behind it all was that Blogger and I just get along so much better! I was on line with godaddys tech support almost daily and twice had to reset everything on my site because of some error that happens “occassionally”. WordPress and me are not friends, infact our relationship ended pretty badly and we aren’t even speaking.
So my point in this (long) rant is for all of you debating on going to a dot com. I FIGURED OUT THE EASIEST WAY TO DO SO! Blogger. So easy, quick and painless. Here is how:
1. First, you have to have a blog through blogger. (duh.)
2. Go to your dashboard and click the Settings tab.
3. Click the Publishing tab on the link bar.
On the top of this page it will say:
You’re publishing on blogspot.com
4. Click on the Custom Domain link.
5. If you already own your own domain you can click the link that says Switch to Advanced Settings.This will walk you through the steps of what to do next. My domain was through godaddy and there were a few more steps I had to do that weren’t hard, they just took a few extra minutes.
If you don’t have a domain already, you are in luck- this is the easiest thing ever. After searching for a domain that is not already taken, purchase the domain from blogger for $10 (which is a pretty standard cost, by the way).
6. Once paid for, just follow the rest of the setup steps, which takes only a minute, and in no time at all, your blogspot address will be transfered to a dot com or a dot net or whatever you end up buying!!!
And here is a huge bonus!!!- Blogger will host it for FREE! With other hosting companies you will pay about $5 a month, but with blogger there is NO MONTHLY FEE! You pay the $10 annually for the domain and that is it! (And don’t worry, I was totally refunded from godaddy!)
Blogger says it could take up to 3 days for the transition to go through completey and mine did take 2 days, but its not like the site doesn’t work during that time. My blog still looked normal and I only had a problem with my followers link not loading. Everything else was fine. (And speaking of followers, because this is pretty much the same site, my follower numbers are the same and my rankings for blog sites don’t have to reset either- which was the biggest con to switching to WordPress, in my opinion.)
So now when my readers type in somewhatsimple.blogspot.com they will automatically be redirected to somewhatsimple.com. Most of you probably didn’t even notice, but go ahead, look at your address bar.
And do you like my new buttons on the side? All those pretty colors make me smile every time I come here. I love this place! (Though I do change up my blog almost as often as I change my underwear, so don’t be surprised if one day it is all different again!)
I am dang excited to be here, on blogger, for good. I love this blog and I hope the rest of you love it too.
So hello again and welcome to somewhatsimple.com ! Kick your feet up and get comfy! 2010 has just begun and I am ready for some good, creative fun.
Have a great New Years Day and I will see you all back here tomorrow for my favorite features from yesterdays link party. (Its not too late to add your link, go ahead and do that now!)
Happy New Year!
About Steph from Somewhat Simple
i love your new look!
thanks for all of the insight on wordpress and staying with blogger. this post is definitely a keeper (one that i will save to my bookmarks).
thanks for sharing and happy new year!!!
I love it. It looks so nice, and I'm happy to hear that you are happy with blogger. I've been mostly happy with blogger and find it easy to do everything that I want. =)
I have seen a lot of blogs go to wordpress and wonder about it, but I have always loved my blogger blog! It is good to hear that wordpress is not the end all when it comes to blogging! : )
I love the new look and congrats on the .com!!
It looks great! Congrats on making the switch, hope it makes life just that little bit easier
way cool. Thanks so much for that information….one day I will do the switch =D
Well it…rocks! Your sidebar is one to be envious of.
Interesting about the whole dot.com thing. I've owned mine for a long time but when you search it redirects to my typepad address.
Happy New Year and great new look.
I was given the link to your blog by a fellow Scrapbook Challenges member and I love your blog! Just the answer I was looking for! Thank you so much for sharing!
Love your new looks! The layout and colors are beautiful!!! I having some blog jealousy!
Thank you so much for this info. I am love your blog, and will be following closely!
Thanks for this post!! I've been wanting to make the switch but hadn't done it yet. After reading this I followed your lead and did it. Thanks so much. And happy new year!!
Well-I hope i don't have problems as I am in the middle of a switch to WordPress due to the never ending problems I have had with Google in the 7 months I have been blogging. I hope the switch to WordPress is smooth and easy because everything about my Blogger relationship has been a total nightmare. Sorry things didn't go smooth for you and hope you stay problem free with this account. Great blog.
New follower. I would love for you to come over and follow me too.
Cheri
Your buttons look great!! I do have a question, though. What's the benefit of having a dot com versus having a blog through blogspot? A lot of people are switching over but I have never figured out why.
Great Site! Didn't see it before, but nicely done, girl!
I bought a .com name a few months back and am still sitting on Blogger.
Now I just might get my hiney in gear and just-do-it!
(might email you questions though!)
Happy New Year!
Tina
How did you fix the followers link? I just switched to .com through blogger and mine is broken now too. Did you just have to change the address or did it fix itself once the site changed over?
Awesome! I purchased from GoDaddy on Black Friday… I've been wanting to make the switch. Thanks for the great info.
I'm with Cathy; what's the advantage in a dot com, other than the fact that it sounds more professional than having 'blogspot' in your url?
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
You've saved me what could have been such a hassle!
I've been pondering these very things (dot com AND the exploring wordpress)
I'd love to hear more on how you've achieved such a nice individualized look and 'feel' to your blog design-wise through blogger!
I've been wondering how complicated it would be to buy a dotcom address and make the switch, and I'm also sort of a Blogger devotee. Thanks for all the tips!
Thanks for the input. It always helps to hear stories like this before jumping on the bandwagon. I appreciate it! Great post!
For me, having a dot com was just something I always wanted to do- even long before i started blogging. It just sounds more legit for a business. Maybe because everyone can have a blogspot address for free and a dot com sounds like a certain company is putting more into a dot com… does that make sense?
But I have also heard that search engines will find your site faster and more frequently with a dot com over blogspot- not sure how true that is, but we shall see!
Thanks for the tip! I really wanted to change the URL of my blog but did not want to have to change everything! I will try this
Oh my goodness, thank you! I had no idea it was so easy to switch over!
I went through the same thing about this time last year. Glad it is all worked out for you now ((hugs)).
I just did the same thing on the 1st! I bought my domain on go daddy and redirected my blogger addy to my new domain! TidyMom.net (couldn't get .com, though it's not being used, it's owned grrrr)
My only problem has been, the search on my blog is not finding older posts – but maybe that's just a matter of time, but it is frustrating.
And for those of you asking WHY? – for me, it was MUCH easier to tell people – I blog at TidyMom.net – than to say tidymomof2.blogspot.com
THAT was a mouthfull!!
~TidyMom
Looks fantastic! I switched to a dot com earlier this year also and remained on Blogger as well.
I was so excited to read this post 2 weeks ago and so I did it I did the dot com through blogger and I need help!! MY COMMENTS link is gone, all the older post still have comments and the new ones don't even have a place to link. Can you help? thanks!
your blog is beautiful. i'm on blogger too with my own domain but am probably moving to wordpress soon. i'm scared though. and you're not making it less scary.
think about using disqus comments on blogger. i just installed it about a month ago and i love how it encourages interaction in my comments now.
Thank you! This tip is just what I was hoping to find today. I'm not sure I'm ready to switch over, but good to know how now!
Why did I not read this post like twenty minutes ago.
I just bit the bullet and bought a dot com from Godaddy with the intention of switching to wordpress, and I am totally lost. I have no idea what I am doing. Signing up with blogger was so easy. I mean I have a wordpress blog, but how on earth do I get my fancy new name to link up with it?
maybe I should jsut stay with blogger. Ugh.
I too am a fan of Blogger. My husband (the geek in the family) keeps telling me about how much BETTER WordPress is and how I can host my own stuff and yadda yadda yadda. So I checked out WordPress and hated it.
But – I did my domain name a little differently than you did. I went through GoDaddy and had my .com forward to my blogger address and mask the main page as http://www.superchikk.com without changing any settings in Blogger. It works pretty much the same as it does in Blogger. The only downside is that I have to have a separate sitemeter for my domain name and my blogspot address to see who is actually coming in through my domain name. But that's really not that big a deal to me.
I FINALLY got around to doing my switch over to my .com & your directions were perfect! Thanks!
Oh my gosh! I recently came to the same conclusion about TypePad. Great customer service but the templates were soooo boring and I couldn't figure out how to make my own banner or anything for that matter. So, I switched to Blogger and LOVE IT! Also, I secured my own domain name. Always good to get one and well worth the $20 or so/year.
OMGosh! you just saved me some money and possibly a lot of headaches. I was just this morning trying to decide if I want to move to WordPress from Blogger. Also the subscription with the server I've had a website through for several years has to be renewed today. All I need a server for these days is my blog, which after reading this article, is going to remain with Blogger. Lord Love a Duck, I love these older post buttons at the bottom of your page that I'm looking at right this minute. How can I do that? I love, love, love your blog and I don't even know how I got here!! ♥
Hi Steph,
Question, I have a blogspot blog and a wordpress site. I would just love to have it all in one hosted by blogger for free with my domain name. Do I need to shut down my wordpress site that is currently being hosted by hostgator first?
Thanks!
Nancy
I have been thinking about going to dot com. You sold me!
Thanks for all the info!
SO…..I want to switch to a .com, but don't want to lose my followers and google readers. Will the feeds still update automatically? Or will my readers have to re-subscribe. Will I be able to run my blog just the same, the only difference being the name?
Question. . .when you switched to dot.com did you loose links. . like links other blogs did to you. . and the links you linked to in your own blog. . thanks for your time
Nope! You won’t lose anything! The only time my links broke was when I hired a guy to transfer my blogger blog to WP this past spring and I thought he knew what he was doing and he clearly did not! But even then, if you hire the right person, you won’t lose anything!