Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
2
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You, me, them, everybody
—You want to build up the number of users as fast as you can to pro-
mote a cause, to change minds, or to lay the groundwork for making money. WordPress is built
to efficiently do this.
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Only people you publicize it to
—You can tweak your WordPress settings to keep your blog off
of search engines and out of automatically generated links. People will still be able to visit your
blog, but they'll have to find out about it from you or people whom you've told about it.
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Only people you name
—WordPress allows you to keep your blog private, only usable by people
you specifically name as users. These users have to sign in before they're allowed on your blog.
You can have up to 35 users for free; above that ceiling, you have to pay a flat fee to add an
unlimited number of users. This is great for creating a private blog for a club or a small company.
It's also good for protecting a blog from public exposure while you get it just the way you
want it.
Decide now how public you want your blog and be ready to make your settings choices to fit. To
summarize the privacy settings in advance, the relevant settings are as follows:
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Search engines
—In the blog setup screen, described later and shown in Figure 2.2, turn off
search engine access.
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Discussions
—In the Discussion Settings for your blog, described later and shown in Figure 2.6,
you can make people register with WordPress.com to comment, or you can let people who aren't
registered comment.
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Blog Visibility
—In the Privacy Settings for your blog, described later and shown in Figure 2.8,
set your Privacy Settings to be visible to everyone, including search engines; to block search
engines, but allow normal visitors to see your blog; or to only be visible to users you choose.
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Related links
—In the Extras subpanel of the Appearances menu, described in the next chapter,
hide related links. (Many people prefer this option to be off even if they aren't keeping their blog
particularly private.) This also keeps your links from showing up on other people's blogs.
Playing the Domain Name Game
WordPress names your blog's domain—its web address—using the following formula:
blogname
.wordpress.com. Depending on what you choose as
blogname
, this is not a terrible
domain name. The WordPress name is quite well respected even outside the WordPress commu-
nity; within it, having a domain name of this type identifies you as a member of a large and over-
whelmingly friendly club.
Many of us, though, have ambitions that only a custom domain name, of the form
www.
blogname
.com, can fulfill. WordPress makes it easy to add a custom domain name at any
point in your ownership of your blog, charging about $15 per year for the privilege. We describe the
considerations in choosing a domain name and signing up for one in Chapter 10, “Adding
Upgrades, Audio, and Video.”
