I’m seriously thinking about dropping WordPress. Well, from my blog’s URL that is.
It’s not because I have anything against having “.wordpress” in my blog’s web address. To be honest, I couldn’t give a shit about that. Especially since keeping “.wordpress” in the URL saves me some money. And I’m all about saving money.
But apparently my blog has become popular enough recently that ads are starting to show up on my posts. I realize that in life there’s no such thing as a free ride, or free lunch, or free market, or whatever that expression is. I also understand that we live in a capitalist society and somebody’s got to pay.
I appreciate that WordPress is providing a valuable service by enabling thousands — nay, millions — of us with this free blogging platform and that it takes effort and costs money to keep it going.
And, for the most part, I think the folks at WordPress are doing a damn fine job of it. It’s easy to use, there are many free themes (templates) available, and you can pretty much tailor the look of your blog any way you want.
That said, having advertisements displayed on my posts seems tacky to me. It’s pure unadulterated, crass commercialism.
Plus, I’m not a fan of ads. I rarely watch live TV because of that. I watch shows I’ve DVR’d so that I can fast forward through the commercials. Why would I want to have ads on my blog?
And so I’m torn. Should I continue to take advantage of the free blogging platform and not worry about burdening you, my readers, with ads? Or should I fork over 36 bucks a year so that my blog will be ad free?
To help me decide, I have three questions for you.
First, do advertisements appearing on blog posts annoy you?
Second, have you dropped “.wordpress” from your blog’s URL by purchasing an upgrade so that advertisements won’t show up on your posts (or for some other reason)?
Third, if so, was it worth it?
Thanks for you responses.
This, That, and the Other 
I don’t access your site directly so i don’t see ads.. It’s up to you.. It’s funny I was telling Jim how popular you are..just now..
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How do you access my site? And who’s Jim?
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from the reader directly. So it loads without the themes.. And Jim is newepicauthor.. You know..
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Oh, right. Got it! Thanks.
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You mean, you don’t see any of the clip art I add. I take time to make that stuff fun. (sigh)
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No, all of that are visible the theme becomes black and white..
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[ Smiles ] I am using Blogger; it’s free and they don’t place ads on our blogs. The only ads are the ones that we put there to make money via Google ADSense.
By the way, I am in no way insinuating that you leave WordPress.
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Thanks. I used to have a blog on Blogger (it was known as “Blog Spot” back then). But when I decided to start blogging again, I chose WordPress. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider that choice.
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[ Smiles ] Now, I do not want to discourage you, but I will say it anyway, “Blogging on Blogger is a lot of hard work!”
Remember, that we Blogger users do not have anything fantastic like the WordPress Reader; which allows you to discover blogs from within your own community.
However, there are highly successful blogs on Blogger.
And, for the record, I love Blogger.
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I personally tried “blogger” and hated it. I don’t even know what my password is any more.
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[ Smiles ] Out of curiosity, what is it that you hated about blogger?
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I didn’t feel it was as professionally done (look/feel) as wordpress. The contents of blogging sites didn’t seem as good quality? of course, this doesn’t apply to all, as I’m sure there are fantastic blogger sites. It’s been a long time, but I didn’t like the design. It just felt like WordPress was better. More options for free.
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[ Smiles ] Actually, there is more flexibility with Blogger; for example, you have the freedom of uploading your own theme, widgets and plugins.
Blogger came a long way!
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actually, there’s another website that does free blogs and gives you a wide range of freedom, but I found it to be too much freedom and was easily overwhelmed. More Html coding required. Too many options. I can’t recall what that site was called.
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[ Smiles ] When the memory of it comes back to you, please let me know.
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I didn’t “hate” it. It was okay, but I feel that WordPress has a much larger and more engaged community. Of course, my Bloggwr experience is from about five years ago.
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Good old blogspot!
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No, no, n/a. There are a lot of advantages to self-hosting (wordpress.org) besides no ads, but it’ll cost ya.
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I had a blogger friend do it – https://www.theredneckprincess.net/
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hi, i came across your blog via the reader search using ‘free lunch’. you mentioned your blog is full of ads, but i read it via the wordpress reader and there were no ads. but even when i went into your blog to read other posts, i could not see any ads either. so i dont think the ads matter, and they seem very discreet and unobtrusive, even if they appear. certainly if they appear in your blog, they are so unobtrusive i dont see them at all… and should not be a reason to go for a paid blog. of course if u can afford a paid blog with wordpress, go ahead, it would help them. and there are advantages with getting a paid blog… more to do with monetising it as well as customising it. i find reading blogs via the reader is very good. it comes up very quick. maybe it does not show up in the traffic statistics , i dont know about that, but i really prefer reading blogs via the reader. this is because often times the actual blog is slow to download, because of lots of visuals or stuff they put there. the reader get rid of all those and download real fast. and is easier to read too. if u have a paid blog, does it mean we cannot read it via the reader? sorry if all this is too long. haha. esp from a total stranger who just so happen to stumble onto your blog and intrigued by the question why people pay for their blog.
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Hi. Happy that you stumbled upon my blog and took the time to comment. I think you can still read posts via the reader even if the blog is a paid blog. And I’m not particularly interest in finding a way to monetize my blog. So if you don’t see any ads or if they are unobtrusive, that’s good enough for me. Thanks for commenting and I hope you’ll come visit again soon.
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