Vs. WordPress.org. WordPress is a publishing platform that makes it easy for anyone to publish online, and proudly powers millions of websites. Table of Contents Overview of Options Using WordPress comes in three flavors: Fully hosted with WordPress.comWordPress.com with an upgraded plan, like our Business Plan that allows a lot of self-hosted functionality, like plugins and custom themesthe self-hosted version, whose software is available for free at WordPress.org. This requires purchasing hosting with another provider, such as Bluehost, GoDaddy, etc. and installing WordPress software on it. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Which Version is Right For You? That largely depends on what functionality you need to have with your site! Self-Hosted / WordPress.org Hosting your own WordPress site can be fun and rewarding, but it also requires some technical knowledge and places more responsibility on you, the publisher.
Many hosting providers offer a one-click installation of WordPress — here are a few examples. Status. I can’t get to my blog! Is WordPress.com’s server down? Probably not. WordPress.com runs on hundreds of servers located in several separate data centers in different parts of the USA. We’re not perfect and we do occasionally experience problems, but our network is designed so that sites continue working even when servers or parts of the network fail.
Outages are rare and brief. If you’re curious, you can always check on our current performance and availability status. On the other hand, the Internet is made up of many thousands of networks all linked together. Is WordPress.com down for everyone or just me? If there is ever a major outage or any scheduled maintenance we will post a topic about it at the top of the support forum. Help us improve: We're always looking to improve our documentation. Logos. Third Party Applications. WordPress.com allows you to connect with third-party applications that extend your WordPress.com site in new and cool ways. This is done in a secure fashion so you can revoke and manage access to your account at any time and third party sites will not need your password. How Do I Connect To An Application?
To securely connect to WordPress.com: On the website or application that you want to connect to, find a button or link asking you to connect to WordPress.com.Click on the Connect link, which will bring you to WordPress.com. You will be asked to login. You can verify you are are on WordPress.com and secure by checking that the URL starts with you’re logged in, approve the application by clicking “Authorize. . ” ↑ Table of Contents ↑ View connected applications How Do I Revoke Access I've Granted to an Application? Security Some applications may still ask you for your username or password. Help us improve: We're always looking to improve our documentation. Accessibility. Accessibility on the web can mean a lot of things. But in general it means making websites as inclusive to as many users as possible.
Accessibility is important for a diverse group of users including mobile users, users with disabilities, and even search engine robots. We handle accessibility of WordPress.com in two simple ways. First, we follow web design standards and best practices. This means when we build new features and new themes, we are building on a good foundation for making our system and your blog accessible.
Second, we address specific concerns. Mobile Accessibility We also provide a level of accessibility to users of mobile devices by offering mobile themes. . ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Improving accessibility on your blog Write good captions for imagesWhen you insert an image into a post or page, consider providing a rich description for the caption that will improve the reading experience for everyone, but especially folks who can’t see the image.
Help us improve: Support Options. WordPress.com offers a number of avenues for reaching helpful, individualized support, but sometimes it can be difficult to determine the best place to ask your question. This document details the various types of support offered for WordPress.com and WordPress.com-related services, and how to take advantage of them. It will help you get straight to the right source, so that you can get the quickest, most accurate answer to your question! Where should I go for support? For more detailed information, please read on. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Documentation Before you reach out to support, you might want to check out our many help resources to see if your question is already answered there. Whenever you are in your blog’s administration screens and have a question, look for the Help option in the upper right corner of the page.
Click on Help and you’ll be able to get instant access to documentation. In addition, our Support site has a lot of great documentation to answer your questions. Forums. FTP Access. We do not allow FTP (File Transfer Protocol) access to any WordPress.com blogs. Please see the information below on alternatives to using FTP. Uploading images and documents To upload images and documents, first check the accepted files support page to make sure filetype you would like to add is allowed. If it is, you can upload files directly from the editor when you create or edit a post. For more information on uploading documents and images please see these support pages. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Uploading Custom Themes Because of the way WordPress.com’s technical infrastructure is designed, we are not able to support uploading of custom WordPress themes on our service.
For more information on alternatives to uploading custom themes please see this support doc. Uploading Plugins Plugins are tools used to extend the functionality of the WordPress platform. Please refer to our article on the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org for further clarification. Transferring your Blog. Security. Your sites are well-protected on WordPress.com.
We monitor potentially harmful activity to ensure there is no unauthorized access to your content. To help keep your sites secure there are a few things you can do to protect your data. Keeping your secrets secret The weakest link in the security of anything you do online is your password. It’s the key to your blog, your email, your social networking accounts or any other online service you use.
If your password is easy to guess, your online identity is vulnerable. All it takes is one person to guess your password and they can delete every post you ever made. . ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Choosing and using good passwords Every password you use has to be easy to remember and hard to guess. On WordPress.com, you can use very long password with any combination of letters, numbers, and special characters, so the security of your password – and by extension, of your blog – is really up to you.
Keepass – Open Source, free to download and use. Register a Blog. Whether you’re starting your first blog, or looking to add another blog to your existing account, registering a blog is easy! Signing Up for Your First WordPress.com Blog To sign up for your first WordPress.com blog, simply fill out the sign up form over here. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Adding New Blog to an Existing Account Log in here (if you are not already logged into your account).Point your browser to to register your new blog.
Or… Log into using the fields at the top of the page. Additional Info Deleted Blog Names/URLs A WordPress.com blog owner can choose, at any time, to permanently delete his/her blog. Blogs that have been deleted by the owner will remain deleted. Reserved Blog Names/URLs When a WordPress.com user signs up for an account we reserve the URL of their username. Help us improve: We're always looking to improve our documentation. PayPal. To add a PayPal button to your sidebar or post, you can follow the steps below.
Note that if you want to add it to your sidebar, you need to copy the code into a Text Widget . First follow these steps: Go to and log in to your PayPal account. To access funds you receive through PayPal buttons, you need a Premier or Business account . Click on Merchant Services . This option will be found in the primary navigation area. Next, you need to add a link for your image. And that’s it! Video Add a PayPal button to your WordPress.com blog <p>JavaScript required to play <a hreflang="en" type="video/mp4" href=" a PayPal button to your WordPress.com blog</a>. Help us improve: We're always looking to improve our documentation. My Blogs. The My Blogs section of your Dashboard lists the WordPress.com blogs that you can contribute to and/or edit.
Your blogs are also listed in other areas, such as the toolbar at the top of your screen (when you’re logged in): And on the WordPress.com homepage under the My Blogs tab: My User Roles Your user role – Contributor, Author, Editor, or Administrator — determines whether or not you can publish posts and manage a site’s settings. User roles can only be changed by blog Administrators. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ My Blogs Dashboard Visibility If you want to remove a site from appearing in the admin bar and under the My Blogs tab of the WordPress.com home page (for example, if you don’t need to access it regularly), you have the option to hide or make the blog visible on your Dashboard. Go to your blog’s Dashboard and look for the My Blogs option: Once you click that, simply hover over the text under the Dashboard column and a link will appear: Filters At the top of the My Blogs page are filters.
Making a screenshot. A screenshot is an image that captures what appears on your computer screen. Screenshots can come in handy when trying to explain something to Support, or if you want to blog about something you’ve seen on your computer screen. No matter what operating system you use, you can make a screenshot in just a few steps. Windows Find the Print Screen key. If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7 you also have the option of using the built in Snipping Tool. For more information on using the Snipping Tool please see this support doc. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Mac Mac users have a couple of options for making a screenshot: To save a screenshot of your entire screen, press CMD + Shift + 3To select a particular area of the screen for your screenshot, press CMD + Shift + 4 Once you press one of the key combinations your screenshot will be saved to the Desktop. Alternatively, go to Applications -> Utilities -> Grab, and choose the desired screenshot type from the Capture menu.
Linux Find the Print Screen key. Shortcodes. Getting Started. Introduction to WordPress.com. Welcome to WordPress.com! If you haven’t signed up for an account yet, check out the Getting Started support page first. What is a blog? A blog is a collection of commentary posted on the internet. There are all different types of blogs including personal, corporate, political, podcasts, photographic, and more. Blog posts are typically displayed in reverse-chronological order with the latest posts at the top. Many blogs allow readers to comment on the blogger’s post, which can create a sense of community and encourage discussion. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ What is WordPress.com? WordPress.com lets you easily create your own blog and write about the things that interest you. How much does WordPress.com cost? WordPress.com blogs are free, gratis. How do I sign up for a blog? Visit the Sign Up page. What is a Dashboard? The Dashboard is where to manage your blog. How do I find the Dashboard for my blog?
Log in at WordPress.com if you haven’t already. How do I write something on my blog? Yes! Yes. Browser Issues. Some issues that you encounter with your WordPress.com blog or account can be solved by changing your browser settings, refreshing the page, or clearing the browser cache and cookies. Supported Browsers Some browser issues may be caused by the browser itself. For optimal viewing and security we recommend that you keep your browser up to date.
You’ll find a list of the latest browsers at Browse Happy. We recommend that you use either Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome for optimal performance with WordPress.com. A note about Internet Explorer: WordPress.com strives to work with as many browsers as possible; some themes are only compatible with Internet Explorer 9 and above and may not be fully functional on Internet Explorer 8 or other previous versions. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Force Refresh A force refresh or reload will cause the browser to re-check with the web server to make sure it has the latest copy of the web page you are viewing. Windows: Ctrl + F5Mac/Apple: Apple + R or Cmd + RLinux: F5. Delete Site. Deleting a site permanently removes it and you’ll never be able to reuse its WordPress.com address (such as yourgroovysite.wordpress.com). If that’s not what you want to do, you can instead: Change your site’s address and keep your contentDelete old posts and continue using the same addressEmpty your site of all its content for a fresh start and continue using the same addressTransfer your site to someone elseMake your site private so only people you invite can see it Permanently deleting your site If you’re sure you want to permanently delete your site, here’s how to do it: In your site’s dashboard, go to Tools → Delete SiteClick the dropdown menu and choose the option: Permanently delete my site’s address and all content.
After clicking the link in the email, your site will be permanently deleted. At this point, anyone who attempts to visit your site will see a message like the one below. ↑ Table of Contents ↑ Troubleshooting I didn’t receive the confirmation email. Rate this: Help us improve: Admin Bar. Contents Related You may have noticed a gray bar that appears at the top of your pages when logged into your WordPress.com account. This gray bar is called the Admin Bar and it is an easy-to-access toolbar with shortcuts to many of the WordPress.com features you already know and love. The WordPress Logo The drop-down menu that appears when you hover over the WordPress logo is a quick way to access many of social features available on WordPress.com. For example, you can access the following features in this menu: Blog Menu The Blog Menu, located next to the WordPress logo on the left-hand side of your Admin Bar, has two different appearances. When visiting one of your own blogs, the Blog Menu provides you with nifty shortcuts for managing your blog’s content, such as taking you straight to your Comments, Customizer, and Widget pages.
If you’re browsing a WordPress.com site that you do not own, you will only see the bottom portion of text (shown in a gray-ish hue above). Main Menu Search. Dashboard.