Hosting service provider
Hi,I had taken hosting service from go Daddy, but have had to cancel the plan as i didn't get adequate support during migration. Plus, their server had some issues which is why my migration got adversely affected!!Now, am back to sqaure one -- looking for a service provider. Which is the best, according to you?
Thanks!Deepa
Hostgater, Bluehost, iPage 
Thanks! Bought from Bluehost. Tell me, will my 185 followers in my current wordpress site automatically join me in my new site? Or do i have to install some plugins for the transfer?
185 seems to be the number of your facebook followers. There is nothing to change in it. Whenever you post something on your facebook site, users will receive notifications. There is no relation between your site and fb.
Or your meant your 392 wordpress.com followers? Here is a link http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/moving-your-subscribers/ ( Not sure if that is the procedure but you can try )
Hi Deepa, You have an awesome blog. I have some apprehensions about moving your blog to self-hosted wordpress blog without adequate know-how. On a SEO front, permalink for all your posts will change which might have a fallout for a while as you will have to rank the blog again on the search engines. I suggest you use the help of a professional during the actual transfer.
Regarding your questions about your subscribers on facebook and by email - save the email subscribers and mail them the new blog address and simply state it on your blog that you are moving to the new blog address. Facebook followers will remain and can be accessed via facebook or the jetpack plugin for wordpress.
All the best!
Regarding Bluehost - I have been with them since 2009 and I am greatly satisfied with their package and awesome support. Very easy to use compared to other hosts.
Thank you Ranjith for the link. Will refer to it when I am migrating.Dr Kindo, Thank you for the compliment. Does this mean that i will also lose all my page-view numbers? :-(
What Lawrence was saying was that currently your wp.com blog has PR1 and it might also be getting traffic from google. If you move to a wp.org self hosted blog, you will be starting fresh. The domain you buy will start with 0 PR and traffic also will be too low like your initial days of blogging.
One thing you can do is buy the redirect upgrade which costs $13 / year and redirect your wp.com blog to your wp.org self hosted domain and transfer all your posts to your new domain. For a few days, traffic will be low but after that it will come back to normal levels. Note that you will have to pay extra 13$ every year if you use this method.
Another thing you can do is keep the posts on your old wp.com blog as they are and don't move them to your new blog. Traffic to your wp.com blog will stay as usual but you will be starting with your .org self hosted blog fresh and it will take time for it to get traffic from google as it happens with a new blog.
Another option is to transfer all your posts to your new blog and replace those posts on your old blog with links to the corresponding posts on your new blog. Traffic will gradually decrease on your old blog and your new blog will behave similar to a new blog with not much traffic.
Goodness!!!So those thousands of page views will not mean anything overnight? I built it up over 9 months, and it is blood and sweat :-( :-( :-(
Please advise me on the best way out of this mess
@ Deepa If you look at the nine months that were wasted, you might lose even more in the future because of the restriction of a wp.com blog - no ads, js etc etc 
I might be able to able to suggest you a good option if you tell me how many pageviews you get per month.
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I think the following option is the best if you have high number of page views ( and you don't want to pay for the upgrade )
Start fresh on your new blog. Do not move posts. Include a message on your old blog saying that you have moved the blog to a new domain.
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If the number of page views are not too high, then I suggested moving the entire content to the new domain.
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Best option if you are ready to spend 13$ extra per year is move all your posts and redirect. Google search traffic won't be affected much. It will recover in a few days if you do the redirect properly. Pay for the upgrade for few years ( say 2-3 ) and after that you can stop paying for that upgrade. By that time, your new domain will rank well in Google.
What if i upgrade to wordpress's premium plan? Gues won't lose my page views then?
Note : It all depends on the traffic you get from Google
If you upgrade to premium plan, the traffic from google will reduce but soon come to normal levels. This is the same as setting up a self hosted wp blog and buying the redirect upgrade.
Buying the redirect upgrade is better than buying wordpress premium because wp premium still comes with a lot of limitations like no plugins, no js etc.
I would suggest going for a self hosted wp blog + redirect upgrade instead of upgrading to premium plan.
Thank you Ranjith for your time. I will move to Bluehost. WP premium is way to premium (expensive) for me at this stage when the blog hasn't made money yet. Yup, will put in the messages etc. Lets see how many of them convert to the new site. Scared!!
This is another example why wp.com is bad
nobody has such problems moving from blogger to hosted domain
Too late to cry now. Am taking it in my stride. :-(
Hello
I think you can use digitalocean which provides hosting plans which is very cheap and realiable for blogging. For 5$, digital ocean provides 20GB SSD, 512MB RAM and 1TB bandwidth. Just with few clicks you can select the OS you want and you can also select the applications you need including wordpress. you can also try Ghost,a new blogging platform.
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