Update to Adult Content Policy on Blogger

I recently wrote a post on choosing a blogging platform I have some bad news.. it has all changed. The only part that is still true is the self hosting information at the bottom. I’ll add that to the end of this post

 

As you might have heard by now Blogger has it in for Adult bloggers. You may have received an email that looks like this.

Important Update to Adult Content Policy on Blogger

You are receiving this message because you are the admin of a blog hosted on Blogger which is identified to have Adult content.

Please be advised that on June 30th 2013, we will be updating our Content Policy to strictly prohibit the monetization of Adult content on Blogger. After June 30th 2013, we will be enforcing this policy and will remove blogs which are adult in nature and are displaying advertisements to adult websites.

If your adult blog currently has advertisements which are adult in nature, you should remove them as soon as possible as to avoid any potential Terms of Service violation and/or content removals.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

Even if you haven’t received this email you are not off the hook, as I suspect you soon will.

This is a wakeup call; it is time to move your blog to self-hosting if you have adult content of any type. *Even if you are on WordPress.com, rumor has it that they are deleting blogs too.

It is not hard, nor is it very expensive.

You need three things

  1. A Domain Name
  2. Domain Privacy
  3. A Hosting Company

 

Step 1: Export all of your content from Blogger. Do this NOW! Do not do any of the other steps. I’ll wait https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/97416?hl=en
Do this even if you are not going to self-host, or think you are safe. This is your content; grab it now before anything bad happens.

Step 2: go to http://who.is and see if the domain name you want is available. I do not recommend that you buy a .co.uk address as it has privacy issues (message me if you need this explained further), always buy a .com address if you can.

Step 3: Choose a hosting company. Read their Terms of Service very carefully about adult content. Do NOT choose GoDaddy

Step 4: Purchase your domain name. You can do this from whoever you like however please be sure that they offer domain privacy or you might find your name and address visible on the web for all to see. As a best practice I suggest buying it from the same people you are going to buy your hosting from. It just makes things simpler later. *If you have already purchased your domain name for use with your Blogger/Wordpress.com site this makes things a little more complicated. Contact me directly for more information.

Step 5: Buy your hosting, again please be sure to VERY carefully read their Terms of Service for Adult content. (I am a big fan of hostgator  http://www.hostgator.com/shared I’d suggest the “baby package”)

Step 6: Install your blogging software of choice on your new host, I find that the WordPress software works extremely well, but it is not the only choice. On most hosting packages they have a very simple wizard to walk you through doing this.

Step 7: Import the file from your old site and choose a new theme and design for your blog

Step 8: Extend your right arm out horizontally from your body with your palm up and fingers clenched, slowly raise your middle finger and say “FO Google”

For more information (or to hire me to help) contact me mdknight@subtlemark.com

 

From my now outdated post:

Self Hosting

 

Pro: Install whatever CMS (Content Management System I.E. WordPress) You want. *except for Blogger, they used to offer the software but stopped long ago

Con: There can be a bit of a learning curve for new bloggers, and it costs money

 

Pro: Do whatever you want (so long as it is legal in the country you buy hosting in.

Con: You have to learn how to do whatever you want and actually decide what you want to do because you are no longer limited by someone else’s rules, and it costs money

 

Pro: You can buy your Domain Name and Hosting package from whomever you want

Con: You have to do some research and read their Terms of Service to make sure about their reliability, their reputation and how they feel about Adult Content, and it costs money

 

Pro: You are completely in charge of your own site, how it looks, how it works, and what it says.

Con: You are completely in charge of your own website so if you break it you (mostly) have to be the one to fix it.

 

This is the option I will recommend almost everytime, even to a newbie.  There is no substitute for being able to have your site just the way you want it. And there is nothing more satisfying than learning how to do it yourself. I know I said over and over during the self-hosting pros and cons that it costs money, but let’s look at how much it really costs.

You must buy a domain name, this can run from as low as $1.29 to as much as $24 the average is about $12 per year.

You really want Domain Privacy to keep your name and address out of publicly available records that service generally runs about $15 per year.

Then you need a hosting package. A web hosting package with unlimited sub domains, add-on domains, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space costs us $7.96 (we run 5 websites on that package), now let’s add all of that up.

 

Domain Name      $12.00

Domain Privacy    $15.00

Hosting  Package  $96.00

 

Total Costs per Year $123.00

Cost per Day  $00.34

I think that 34 cents a day is a very reasonable price for having complete control.

Now of course you can spend more, you can buy a theme, pay for pro features in plugins as well as many other extras. Why you can even pay me to help you set it all up 😉

 

I hope that this has shown you some of the options available to you for starting your very own blog. The most important thing to remember is that you are not alone. Many people (myself included) are happy to help and offer support.

 

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