The hosted for free version of WordPress is down.

If you have a WordPress blog with a URL like:

http://yourblogname.wordpress.com

Then you won’t be able to login to the blog, nor will the blog be viewable by visitors until WordPress.com gets things working again.

Apparently, WordPress.com is busy trying to restore its service. This effects millions of blogs, no word at this time how long it will take to get things back online.

 Own Your Own Blog!

More information here:

mashable.com

If you Own Your Own Blog and have it self-hosted then this link explains how the WP Stats plugin might be causing you some trouble because WordPress.com is down:

techie-buzz-com

If you have a blog at a free blog host, such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com, then your blog can be shutdown by the free blog host.

You can prevent this by owning your own blog.

Earlier, in my Free Hosted Blogs and Self Hosted Blogs posts, I discussed the advantages of having your own WordPress blog with your own registered domain name, hosted at a web host of your choosing. This gives you complete control over your WordPress blog. You are the Big Kahuna, the Supreme Dictator of this kind of a blog because you Own Your Own Blog. You control how your blog looks, what gets posted, what topics you cover, what features the blog has, and … well, EVERYTHING!

The trouble with a blog hosted on a free-service like Blogger.com or WordPress.com (Remember, WordPress has a free blog service too, which is WordPress.com, besides the self-hosted version of WordPress that is installed at your web host – see WordPress.org for that version.) is you must agree to the free blog’s Terms Of Service (TOS). If you violate the TOS, then the free blog host can pull the plug on your blog.

It does not matter how much work and effort you put into this blog, or how much income you might be earning from the blog, or how popular your blog is. If you violate the TOS, then POOF!!! Overnight, your blog may disappear.

I was busy searching for a theme for an associate’s blog, when I followed a link to a blog I wanted to check out, then this WordPress.com TOS Blog Shutdown notice appeared on my computer screen:

I’ll bet the blog’s creator really enjoyed the emoticon WordPress.com placed on the bottom of its shutdown notice. A snotty thing for WordPress.com to do, in my opinion.

I have no idea what this free WordPress.com blog did to get shutdown. Here is the WordPress.com TOS.

I won’t divulge the URL of the Web site (Hah! So what if I did, this blog is deep-sixed now!), but this blog had been using WordPress.com for free blog hosting. The blog dealt with WordPress themes and in some way it must have violated the WordPress.com TOS.

WordPress.com pulled the plug on this blog … it’s gone.

If you are going to have a blog, and you plan to make it an endeavor where you put time, energy, effort, and thought into it, if you plan or hope to make money from the blog, if you are going to provide a service, or sell goods and merchandise, if you want to establish professionalism and credibility, then for goodness sakes Own Your Own Blog. Don’t be at the mercy of a free blog service’s TOS.

Own Your Own Blog, it’s really that simple.

WordPress Works Wonderfully

Go to www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com and sign up to get a free blog started. There is plenty of help available online at either of these free blog sites to get you going, you won’t find it difficult to set up a blog at either blogger.com or wordpress.com. Each of these free blog services have made it very user-friendly to get a blog published. They will walk you through the process and you will simply fill-in a series of forms to get your blog created. It will probably take you less than 15 minutes to have a free blog live on the Internet.

I suggest you choose the free WordPress blog service for your “beginner” blog. When you switch over to your own self-hosted WordPress blog after learning the basics of blogging with a free WordPress blog, then you will find similarities between the two blog platforms and this will shorten your blog learning curve.

Use your free beginner blog to blog about anything you want, but it might be a good idea to save the blog topic you really want to blog about for your self-hosted blog. Blog instead at your free blog about something else, a hobby, your city, your dog or cat, or whatever might provide enough to post about for a month or so. You just want to learn about blogging and how blogs work, so save your good stuff for the big game – when you own your own self-hosted WordPress blog!

Use the help and tutorial resources that are available with the free blog and become familiar with all you can. After you have your own self-hosted blog, you will find that you have many more features, options, and design capabilities with this kind of blog than a free blog.

New, beginner bloggers can learn a lot with a free blog. Start blogging with a free blog and then move on to a self-hosted WordPress blog. Think of a free blog as your warm-up and basic introduction to blogging. A free blog can be your INTRODUCTION TO BLOGGING 101 course.

You’ll have some fun with a free WordPress blog, and learn a bunch about blogs and blogging too.