If you haven’t read yesterdays post I would recommend you do so before reading this one. You can read it by clicking here.
So, I want to start out by saying THANK YOU! You guys are absolutely amazing and I truly appreciate everyone’s support on my last post. I am always so touched by how caring and supportive this community is and that’s why it’s so difficult for me to consider leaving it. You guys have become like family to me and I truly appreciate every comment you guys leave.
WP’s Response
I decided to share the emails with you guys so that you can see for yourselves just how irritating this situation is. When I initially told them about my issue this is the email I received yesterday telling me I had been blocked.
I felt like they were incredibly passive-aggressive about the situation and just started blaming me off the bat without even finding out all the details of the situation. They didn’t even do their research well because they clearly got the number of blogs I follow wrong- by literally thousands…
I tried to politely let them know that they had made a mistake and even sent them a screenshot as proof showing the actual number of blogs I follow which can be found in your wp-admin dashboard.
They completely ignored the fact that they made a mistake, did not even address the issues and pretty much told me to leave WordPress.com and move to a self-hosted site. Except, from my research I have learnt that if they wanted to they could unblock me- they have done so for other people. They just don’t want to. At least they offered to refund me my money for the plan.
My guess is that their site has serious glitches- all my comments were showing up as read on my notifications for a while which I’m guessing is them reading the comments. My Ads revenue went away for a few days and then came back. My traffic page has been glitching for a while now. And it’s not just me- multiple people have been effected.
I read a post online by a woman who didn’t use WP for MONTHS and came back to find she had been blocked from following accounts. How is that even possible when she did not use her account for months. Clearly, their algorithm does not know the difference between spam/bots and actual interaction/blogs. And instead of fixing this they blame the victims for being too interactive which is so weird because blogging is supposed to be an interactive hobby. The interaction is the best part for me.
Also how am I being accused of self-promoting on other blogs when I have literally never commented trying to promote my own blog. I always try to leave comments about the post and only ever leave a link if I feel like the post would help the reader/I have nominated them for something. And that is as RARE as Selena Gomez’s makeup line (can you tell I’ve been binge watching makeup videos online?).
I mean how do you accuse someone of stuff like that without even reading the comments they have left or the posts they have written. Especially when all these comments are sitting in my spam folder- how come they aren’t being blocked?
And let’s be honest- a permanent block is so excessively mean- I mean most social platforms have blocks but it’s usually for an hour/day/month. Permanent blocks with no prior warning is just so awful for people like me who are blocked due to errors on their part.
What Now?
I am considering moving to a self-hosted site but it will be a lot of work so I’m going to wait till I have my mid term break. Till then I guess I will keep blogging as I usually do and not like/follow anything. I will continue to leave comments on your blogs and support you guys as much as I can.
I will write in more detail about moving to a self-hosted site once I do more research because I know some of you may be interested in moving to self-hosted as well.
Some Disturbing Things You Should Know About WordPress.com
- They Own All Your Content
Source: https://www.crazyegg.com/
No, not some of your content. Not most of your content. They own ALL your content and can apparently do exactly what they want with it whether you like it or not. I found this very concerning because as creators don’t we have any rights to our own content that WE created.
2. They Can Terminate Your Site
Source: https://www.crazyegg.com/
They can terminate your site whenever they want without even giving you an explanation. If that’s not super scary I don’t know what is. Can you imagine all your hard work being deleted and never seeing it again? Even if you decide not to move to a self-hosted site I would recommend backing up all your posts so that if your site does get deleted by mistake at least you will still have your posts.
I hope this information helps because I did not know about this before and it’s actually very scary to think that they have this much power over you. I also want to warn other bloggers- be careful with liking/following/commenting. I think recently there has been a lot of spam/bots on WP and they are handling it horribly and I would hate to see what happened to me happen to anyone else. Also please back up all your posts and media- I would hate to see someone lose everything over a mistake on WP’s part.
Also if my blog disappears they’ve probably terminated me for writing this post…
HELP!
For those of you who already have self-hosted sites could you please tell me more about it in the comments. What host are you using? Would you recommend it? What problems have you run into if any? Did moving to self-hosted effect your traffic and follow in anyway? How would you recommend making the move? Are you up for hire to move my site for me? Thanks I really appreciate any information I can get although I got quite a bit of information on the last post which I truly appreciate!
Random Announcement
This may be the weirdest time and most random post to announce this on but after years of hating on social media I have finally started a Facebook page lol! I won’t be super active on it but I will reply to messages and post updates about my blog so if you are interested feel free to head over and follow the page and friend my profile (that’s how FB works right? I’m not too sure to be honest…) Either way thank you in advance for stopping by and supporting it!
Page: https://www.facebook.com/Lifesfinewhine
Profile: https://www.facebook.com/pooja.gudka.79
To sum everything up- yes lifesfinewhine will go back to normal posts starting tomorrow and eventually I will move to a self-hosted site. Again thank you for the continued support- you guys are the absolute best!
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I’ve used Bluehost for my self-hosting for years and like them a great deal. They’re on par, price-wise, with the other sites I researched (it has been a few years, though). One thing I particularly like: setting up email addresses with your domains is pretty easy.
I found porting my information from a WordPress hosted site to my WordPress self-hosted site to be pretty seamless.
Thank you for sharing that- it’s comforting to know that the process can be done seamlessly. I really appreciate the information!
After reading all two posts I’m utterly speechless. I thought WP was like the best platform for bloggers and now all this comes to light. I guess most of us having been blogging blind of their policies.
I’m so sorry about your predicament. Hopefully your mid term break gives you ample time to sort the self hosting thing out. I’m not too good with that moving techy stuff so like you said, we’ll expecting your elaborate post on that in the future.
My sincerest love and support friend💚❤
I thought it was as well but it’s obviously very unprofessional. Thank you so much I appreciate it!
Please please please keep us updated on your journey to starting your own website. I’ve been trying to do the same thing and have hit a wall. I love wordpress, but sometimes I feel it can be limiting.
It can definitely be very limiting especially after a few years when your blog has grown more. I will definitely keep you guys updated on every step I take.
Wow this is so crazy that they blocked you! Know I mentioned her before but Gabby Abigail has tons of really great posts about blogging & a few about her experience going self-hosted!
Also, I’m not sure if I’m reading the terms wrong but it seems like the terms give WP rights to use your content to promote your site globally? I don’t think they can repurpose it for their own means without your permission. But most social media sites function with similar types of terms.
It’s a shame they would push one of their most active bloggers away from using their hosting platform.
I wrote her name down on her planner and I will definitely view her posts on blogging/self-hosting. Thanks again I truly appreciate the information!
I really hope so. Yeah I don’t understand why they keep telling me to move to self-hosting without even addressing any of the things I mentioned especially when I told them that they had got my follower/following count mixed up.
I am sad to hear this, because I have always had such a favorable impression of WordPress. Maybe they are starting to act like a monopoly…
I wish you the best with your mid-terms and with your move to a hosted site…
I don’t have mid-terms in second year but I do have an assignment where I have to cook!!
Yeah it’s quite sad when they don’t listen to the people on their platform. If anything it’s probably a loss to them.
I think I’d rather take a calculus test than cook…
and it is sad when a company does not listen to its customers, particularly its best customers, like you…
Our assignment is to fail at cooking so it’s not too bad lol! I mean we’re expected to fail because the instructions are from literally thousands of years ago.
that’s one assignment I would not have to prepare for then… 🙂
Lol yes I am so happy about it!
Ugh so sorry to hear you are having trouble!! And what?? I totally didn’t know they own our content. Not happy about that. Hopefully you can get to a self hosted site soon. Do what makes you happy. Fudge WP
Thank you so much and fingers crossed everything goes well with self-hosting!
I have used siteground and now currently using bluehost to connect to WordPress. I have known about them being able to delete your post and all that. Which is why I have always written my post somewhere else first then copied it into a WordPress post. That way I wouldn’t lose all the things I had written about so far.
Thank you for the information. I’m glad you knew about this and were able to write your posts as well. I will be doing so as well and I will try to back my old posts through something else as well.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know about those facts you have posted. I didn’t know of the authority I have given WP… I truly hope your issues get resolved.
I’d follow your blog anywhere.
Thank you so much and yes I was completely unaware till a few days ago. That’s why I wanted to share it with others so they can know too.
This is very helpful. I’m sorry about what happened to you. I hope you do a self-hosted site soon. Wishing you the best
Thank you so much I really appreciate it!
Be sure to go into your admin panel and export your entire site! Also, if you Google Blog booker, you can download your entire site into pdf form, free!
Oh wow I didn’t know that thank you for sharing that information!
I wish you great success on this move Pooja. It’s unfortunate that they ignored your plight and opted for your moving instead. I thought the aim of every company was to maintain relationships with customers… lol, and they’ve basically lost one. Hostgator seems to be a great option and Jirah Merizz did a full post on how she got self hosted. To be sincere, I’m also going to be self hosted when it’s time. That’s for sure. It’s somehow dealing with all these. Good luck!
Thank you and yes Jirah has been super helpful in sharing information about her move to self-hosted. I feel like WP has gotten so big that they just don’t care anymore. I would definitely recommend eventually moving to self-hosted it seems to have a lot more perks. Thanks again!
You’re welcome. Oh yes, I’m definitely getting self hosted!
Oof I’m so sorry this is happening how absolutely obnoxious. I’m glad you’re still here and keeping us updated about where you’ll go. Self hosted site is like a foreign language to me so I will have to look into that. I too am aspiring toward a book and intend to own all rights to my content.
Thank you! Yes, I was pretty disappointed by WP’s response. I would definitely recommend not uploading stuff about your book on your WP site then.
Wow that was THE most petty and extremely passive aggressive email exchange I’ve seen. How unprofessional. Again, I am so sorry this is happening to you. This info does worry me regarding owning all of my personal posts. Get it together WP.
I know I really did not expect an email like that from such a large platform- he didn’t even address anything I said he was just like you should leave… Thanks and yes it is worrying. I am more worried about being terminated though because I don’t want to lose all my content forever. I have been reading a lot from people that have been wrongfully terminated and WP pretty much refused to help them in any way. Maybe I’m just being a bit paranoid though lol!
You have every right to feel paranoid! I truly hope you don’t lose all of your content without getting a chance to back it up first. *sigh*
I hope so too- WP needs to get itself together smh.
I wish you the Best of success on this move Pooja.
Thank you so much.
I too can’t comment on other’s site!
I got your comment!