Wordpress dot org vs Wordpress dot com

[Kevin]

I recently migrated my Wordpress.com site to Wordpress.org, and although I now have added features, I seem to have lost my 'follow a blog' capacity.

I've Googled a lot but it seems this is one important feature that you can't keep. No one can follow your blog and you can't follow anyone else's blog.

Am I right or is there a way around this?

[Marcy]

It doesn't sound right. Go ask in the WP discussion groups. Just curious: why'd you move?

[Kevin]

Marcy wrote: "It doesn't sound right. Go ask in the WP discussion groups. Just curious: why'd you move?"

No it is right, Marcy. I've found out since that the free wordpress.com site links you to the other wordpress.org.

Wordpress.org is a stand alone system that enables me to pop in more features (eg a direct 'add to cart' button for Amazon of my book), and as I've since found, my blogs (even the older ones) are being found by readers via Google.

There are pros and cons.

[Marcy]

Kevin, I use .com and I've gotten readers via Google.

[Kevin]

Marcy wrote: "Kevin, I use .com and I've gotten readers via Google."

There's a blog and podcast called Author Media who go through the benefits of having a Wordpress hosted site, which is why I did it.

What I didn't know is that the 'followers' function didn't come with it.

http://www.authormedia.com/announcing...

[Kevin]

Has anyone changed back to the free Wordpress site from a hosted one.

I'm trying to find out how to make my older free site live, but I get the run around from my web host, and from Wordpress.

It can't be difficult.

[Mercia]

If you closed the blog down the name can never be recovered. I will forever regret closing merciamcmahon.wordpress.com and the account name merciamcmahon.

[Kevin]

It's fine. I now have my original free wordpress account back. It worked out I had to go to the dashboard of the wordpress.com (free) account and change the hosting back to wordpress, rather than the people hosting the site.

Within 24 hours it reverted back.

[Caimin]

If you're continuing to use your self-hosted version of WordPress, there's plugin called Jetpack that adds lots of the wordpress.com features (like subscriptions) to a self-hosted site.

There's more info here:
http://jetpack.me/