WordPress.com

1. donron
   Member
   Feb 21, 2011, 4:34 PM

   My wife informs me that if we have a wordpress.com blog, WordPress.com gets the traffic and the corresponding benefit of Google ranking. Is that the case? If I have a mapped domain, does that change how Google looks at the site, or does it still credit wordpress.com? The issue is we have a magazine site hosted on another host provider with shared servers. The site has been dog slow and we're about to do a huge Groupon email. I love the stability of WP.com blogs and want to change our blog from the host provider to a wp.com site. The current site is http://teenidentitymag.com (a WP site hosted on Blue Host). I created teenidentitymag.wordpress.com (currently private) but my wife doesn't want to switch b/c of this ranking issue.

   What is the definitive answer on this?

   The blog I need help with is teenidentitymag.wordpress.com.

2. timethief
   Member
   Feb 21, 2011, 5:18 PM

   The reason one pruchases domain mapping is to provide a seamless transfer between the root blog URLs to the domain URLs for readers.
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/

   PageRank does not transfer from the root blog to the domain URL. It starts over again.

   For example:
   Some bloggers start out on free hosted blog platforms like wordpress.com or blogspot (Blogger) on a test basis. They plan to establish traffic, purchase a domain and then to switch over to paid hosting. They are happy about their PageRank and they purchase a domain name and domain mapping.

   Well, the Google Page Rank and Technorati authority and rank belong to the root blog ie. the original wordpress.com or blogspot sub-domain url for the blog.

   If you purchase a domain name and move the blog to another URL all the links will be broken unless you also purchase domain mapping so readers are seamlessly transferred between the URLs.

   PageRank does not transfer from the root blog to the domain URL when your purchase domain mapping. It starts over again. The PageRank on the new blog on your domain will drop to 0/10. That can’t be avoided, however, in about 4 – 6 months time, all things considered you may be able to restore it.

   It's also important is to understand the differences between wordpress.COM free hosted blogs on this multiuser blogging platform and free standing wordpress.ORG installs for self hosting. http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

3. donron
   Member
   Feb 21, 2011, 6:03 PM

   Thanks for the quick reply. I'm familiar with the difference b/t a .com free site and the installed WP software from .org. The bottomline issue is this: will a domain mapped to a WP.com site (e.g. teenidentitymag.com mapped to teenidentitymag.wordpress.com) get the same level of Google ranking as if it were installed or a 3rd party host provider.

4. timethief
   Member
   Feb 21, 2011, 6:26 PM

   I believe that there are over 3 million blogs on wordpress.com where the SEO is excellent. It's my experience gained from a from scratch comparison of blogs on wordpress.com free hosted software to self hosted wordpress.org installs that the wordpress.com blogs will have better SEO and better page ranking than the wordpress.org installs with SEO plugins will.

   It's my experience that purcahsing domain mapping and moving a blog that was getting very good traffic on wordpress.com to a self hosted wordpress.org install where I installed a SEO plugin, resulted in a significant traffic loss that was never regained. That's why I have moved that smae blog back to free hosting on wordpress.com.

   WordPress.org installs are "stand alone"sites. They are not part of the wordpress.COM community. WordPress.COM blogs are part of a very large blogging community with all benefits that eshew from that including better SEO, traffic from the global tagging pages, and the opportunities to be featured in blogs of the day, posts of the day, growing blogs, and Freshly Pressed.

5. donron
   Member
   Feb 21, 2011, 6:32 PM

   Thanks. This is helpful. Hopefully it will be enough to convince my wife to switch our site to wp.com. I do like the added flexiblity and the look we have with the current hosted site, but I'm fed up with the sluggishness. And since we're about to do some major marketing to the site, I'd like the confidence of knowing the site is on Automatic's servers.

   Thanks again.

   ~ Ron

6. timethief
   Member
   Feb 21, 2011, 6:41 PM

   There is no guarantee of course on the SEO because it's not only the SEO that Staff provide it's also the SEO techniques the blogger employs both onsite and off-site that are factors in pageranking. When it comes to servers wordpress.com has many of them (redundancy) and in the almost 5 years I have been here there has only been a single DDOS attack that took blogs down.

   I just looked up the number again and I was way too low on the figure I posted above. Among the very best things about WordPresss.com these last almost 5 years I have been here has been the up time. WordPress.com going down is a rare event and Staff acted as quickly as humanly possible possible to get 10.2 million blogs up and running again in 110 minutes

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