Self-Hosted Blog? Why not?

29.05.08 at 9:58 in Wordpress and Themes # 27 Comments

Anyone want to know how can I have michaeljubel.com as my blog? Do you want a blog like mine, a self-hosted Wordpress blog with my own domain name? Well, it’s not free (of course), but you can have one like mine with a very low price. But, before we get to business and talk about money and prices, I will explain you some terms in web hosting services, in a very simple way of course, which is rather important to be understood well. And I will take some blog sphere friends as examples to make everything easier to understand.

What is the difference between domain and web hosting?

Well, this is some examples of domain: michaeljubel.com, hannasyalala.com, majarimagazine.com, sherwintobing.com, republikbabi.com, putraditama.com, journal.marisaduma.net, ydoea.com. Do you get the idea? Domain is simply some identification you use to get to somewhere on the internet. There are many suffixes in domain names that you can choose, .com, .net, .org, .info, etc.

“Somewhere on the internet? Where is that ’somewhere’ actually?”

Aha, this will define what web hosting is all about. Web hosting companies provide some space in their servers on the internet so you can put your blog data there. Everyone from all over the world will be accessing the data in that server when they visit and explore your blog. So, that ’somewhere’ may refer to the location of server where your data is kept.

Can I have a blog with domain like that without having the web hosting service?

Yes, why not? Domain and web hosting are actually a different type of web services. Some web hosting companies usually put those two services into one package, but many of them provide separate services so that you may only buy just domain, or even only just web hosting.

Examples of domain without paid web hosting are guebukanmonyet.com and jakartabutuhrevolusibudaya.com. Those two blogs are actually hosted in Wordpress.com then owner bought some domains pointing to Wordpress.com server so that the Wordpress.com blogs are accessible through its own domain names in addition to the ones that Wordpress.com already provided: guebukanmonyet.wordpress.com and revolusibudaya.wordpress.com. This is very useful when you want your own personalized domain without being messed up with all the start-up and installation process. This process may be frustrating to some people; it includes the Wordpress installation, theme installation, and FTP client configuration. The main drawback of having Wordpress.com blog with your own domain is the lack of personalization in the blog theme and layout as you can only choose Wordpress.com provided theme.

I want a total control of my personalized-domain blog; meaning I must rent a web hosting service. But, can I have a free one?

Obviously you can. You need two things: a domain (this is usually not free) and a free hosting service. After buying your own domain, you should have it pointing to the server of the free hosting service. One example of free web hosting service is 000webhost.com; the one which is used by republikbabi.com and izul.co.cc. The server name may be something looked like: ns1.yourwebhost.com or dns6.yourwebhost.com. You can do this setting in your domain control panel.

I don’t know much about web hosting services, is there anyone that provide comparative review or something?

Well, I recently find a comparison portal that reviews top Web Hosting companies in the world: Webhostingpal.com. You can seek for the cheapest and the most reliable web hosting service on the net. The website is pretty simple, free from banner ads, and only need little time to load. Considering the HUGE bandwidth and disk space the listed web hosting companies provided (it is all in the order of GIGABYTES) in the portal, it is only useful for you who want to have a HUGE business website that offers business and e-commerce hosting if you are planning on selling any goods from your website.

$7.95/mo for 50 GB disk space and 750 GB bandwidth. (this is madness)

See? Holy cow, that’s cheap!

Well, can I have just a USUAL one, please?

Yes, just try the local web hosting companies. I have been using Qwords.com and everything goes well up until now. They have quite a nice customer support service, both for the ones who already have IT background and also for the ones who doesn’t really understand these stuff at all (yet).

$1.00/mo for 100 MB disk space and 8 GB bandwidth. (pricing is actually in Indonesian rupiah)

Although the international web hosting services are way cheaper if you put the disk space and bandwidth into leverage, but you don’t really need that super-huge space for a personal blog, do you?

How about the domain names pricing?

Usually, a web hosting provider sells domain names as well. At Qwords.com, you have have your own domain names starting from IDR 80.000 per year. If you want to seek another web hosting company, you can go the the portal I’ve mentioned above: Webhostingpal.com.

Good luck with your self-hosted blogs! Should there be any question, I would be very happy to help!

27 Comments

ninjarider said:

punya self hosted blog . . . memang menguras banyak perhatian, memiliki tantangan tersendiri
bukan begitu Bang Jubel?

saya lagi nyobain tantangan itu, sambil megukur limit kesabaran saya di http://www.ninjarider.org

# 27 - 9 November 2008 at 12:45 pm
damar sözler said:

thanks

# 26 - 19 October 2008 at 09:14 am
want to have my self hosted blog said:

hello.. I wanna thank u very much 4 this nice post! I now have an idea about this and I am planning to buy my own domain…

thanks again!

# 25 - 14 August 2008 at 09:04 pm
tintin said:

wah postingannya mirip sama postingan saya ..

salam kenal mas jubel ..

kirain orang luar negeri .. ternyata budak bandung euyyyy ..

# 24 - 11 August 2008 at 03:25 pm
hasnun hassan said:

hi, first of all saya mahu ucap thanks sebab tulis tentang webhsoting dan domain ni. actually saya dari malaysia. now i have my own domain name and paid hosting blog which is a lot better in terms of performance. thanks again. post kamu memberi saya aspirasi untuk subscribe my own domain dan hosting. sila la lawat blog saya ya. thanks again. bye

# 23 - 30 July 2008 at 09:40 am
ridho said:

tapi lu lebih baik punya blog satu lagi di wordpress.com, biar search engine result nya bagus.
diisi salinan dari wordpress yg self hosted.
coba aja..

# 22 - 24 June 2008 at 07:39 pm
paskal said:

helo…im from malaysia and my wordpress is self hosted

# 21 - 16 June 2008 at 08:50 pm
fikri said:

WOW.. pelayanan dari mas jubel sangat memuaskan.
baru ngisi komen langsung dibikinin. Makasih yah bel, itung2 bisa jadi alat promosi. nanti mereka bisa bayar lewat paypal gw, lumayan kan nambah2 penghasilan. hahhaa

# 20 - 3 June 2008 at 09:46 pm
michaeljubel (author) said:

christin - html ama css gak terlalu susah kok.. ato gak, pake template orang yang udah jadi aja. hehehe.. tinggal klik-klik, beres! hehe..

Izul - tulisan lu lumayan bermanfaat oii tentang2 komputer2 gt. hehe.. yup, hidup gratisan! hehe..

Chal - Joomla juga bisa kok.. sama aja.. tapi kalo buat nge-blog kayanya mendingan pake wordpress aja.. simple but powerful.. joomla is way too powerful. don’t need that for a blog.

fikri - fik, kmrn RP gua dah dikumpulin.. tadi Penelitian gua juga dah dikumpulin.. ga ada kerjaan nih. hahahaha.. iyee gua beresin! hehehe..

# 19 - 3 June 2008 at 09:13 pm
fikri said:

ga usah pusing tin!! wong katanya jubel mau beresin punya gw kok.
ya nggak bel?? (menagihmenagihmenagih)

# 18 - 3 June 2008 at 08:19 pm
ChaL said:

Klo pake joomla, gmn? katanya bgs ya? soalnya masi miskin ilmu yg macam gini…

-regards-…

# 17 - 2 June 2008 at 07:10 pm
IzulCybercafe said:

Gratisan emang paling Asik Deh, apa lagi untuk Tulisan2 gue yang gak penting giTu..
Hidup Gratisan…..
———————-

# 16 - 1 June 2008 at 04:56 pm
christin said:

nyeeehh… iya sih gak mahal bel. lebih mahalan kopi. hahaha. eh tapi harus ribet dengan customizing CSS segala macem itu gak sih? males belajar HTML

haduh haduh. nanti nanya lagi ke fikri atau kamu deh.

# 15 - 1 June 2008 at 03:08 am
michaeljubel (author) said:

Christin - ya kalo pengen beli aja.. hehe.. gak mahal kan.. apalagi dibandingin ama kurs euro.. jd inget kata-kata fikri.. “hah, beli domain dan hosting cuman seharga kopi sekali minum”.. gt kalo ga salah kira2.. hahaha..

myfakeplasticthoughts - yup, begitulah kira-kira.. pilih aja yang standard 1, ntar dikasi email.. lalu transfer.. beres deh.. hehe..

Calvin - 000webhost.com emang lumayan bgt tuh.. mana gratis pula.. tanpa ad sedikitpun.. hehehe.. saya jg punya hosting di sono.. walopun isinya gak penting.. hehe.. iseng-iseng doang hehe..

# 14 - 1 June 2008 at 01:08 am
Calvin Michel Sidjaja said:

dulu gw pake idwebhost… hargaya mahal bener, untuk sementara gw puas deh dengan 000webhost walau pengen ganti2 ke hostingan lain nantinya

# 13 - 31 May 2008 at 10:36 pm
myfakeplasticthoughts said:

iya makannya langsung gue ralat “kayak bukan deng” hehhe..
iya iya gue salah baca 160 ribu per bulan bukan tahun..

eh trus gimana bel? gue tinggal mesen, bayar, abis itu bisa langsung gue utak-utik khan? aduh tiba2 munculah keinginan gue untuk eksis di dunia maya hahaaha

# 12 - 31 May 2008 at 05:54 pm
christin said:

pengeeeeenn… tapi tetep gak ngerti caranya

~~terutama yang gratisan~~

# 11 - 31 May 2008 at 05:20 pm
michaeljubel (author) said:

astri - sip, gua add di blogroll juga ya..

Andika - iye, isu eksistensi.. mo ngapain lagi coba punya domain kalo gak biar eksis? ya ato gak supaya blog nya lebih catchy kali ya.. ya tapi kan pgn catchy kan artinya pgn eksis. hahaha..

grace - wah, harus dicoba dulu tuh usaha ngeblog sedikit demi sedikit.. lama2 jadi hobi.. hehe..

andre - hahaha.. oke dahh..

yuki - yup, mereka pake Wordpress.com buat hostingnya.. alhasil themenya cuman bisa milih yang udah tersedia dan tidak bisa iframe.. shoutbox kan pake iframe..

yonna - yaelah bayar cuman 10rb/bulan aja kok.. cuman 333 perak per hari.. hehe..

si tukang nyampah - wah ditunggu tempat sampah barunya! hehehe..

myfakeplasticthoughts - hah?? ultimate?? kagak! gua yang standard 1! hehehe.. itu 160rb per BULAN! yang gua 110rb per TAHUN. hehehe..

# 10 - 31 May 2008 at 02:00 pm
myfakeplasticthoughts said:

eh, bukan deng kayaknya.. ulmate mah 160.000 per bulan yaa? haha

# 9 - 31 May 2008 at 02:00 pm
myfakeplasticthoughts said:

hmm.. nah ini dia yang dari kmrn gue tanyain bel.. hehe.
thx buat infonya,,
btw, lo ambil paket yang mana? ultimate hosting yak??

# 8 - 31 May 2008 at 01:59 pm
si tukang nyampah said:

Hmmm…jadi kepikiran buat punya tong sampah baru
Ntar lu yang ajarin gue buat bikin segala pretelannya yah bel…hihihihiw

# 7 - 30 May 2008 at 10:14 am
yonna said:

@michael
Intinya mbayar kan? males

*demen ma gratisan

@Yuki
iya emang, tasa kan beli buat domain JBRB, guebukanmonyet, berburu. hehehe baru nyadar ya?

btw, enakan elo, gak bayar kan ya?!

# 6 - 30 May 2008 at 09:20 am
yuki tobing said:

I didn’t know that JBRB is hosted in wordpress, I understand now why one of them said they could not put shoutbox there, just like other wordpress blog.

# 5 - 30 May 2008 at 03:55 am
andre said:

thanx bel
lumayan jadi referensi kalo mau bikin website perusahaan gue sendiri

(halah gaya, perusahaan gue sendiri…)

# 4 - 30 May 2008 at 12:18 am
grace said:

gada niat…
kinda complicated though….
ngeposting baru aja malesnya minta ampun..hehe

# 3 - 29 May 2008 at 10:44 pm