There are a billion good reasons to host your own website, and really only one reason not to: having someone else host your site is easy. Really, really easy. Using a site like Blogger, Tumblr, or Posterous makes being a webmaster dead simple. But far and away, the biggest problem is this:
You have absolutely no control over your site.
That’s right – your site, your hard work, your blood sweat and tears, and you have absolutely no ownership. What kind of sense does that make?
The situation that unfolded yesterday regarded a Tumblr site. The complete story can be found here, if you’d like to see it straight from the source. Me, I like crib notes. So here they are.
This cat who goes by Tumbedore was the registered owner of http://pitchfork.tumblr.com . He only had 5 posts, but whatever, he had it first.
The company Pitchfork contacted Tumblr to find out if they could take over the URL in question. After all, Tumbledore hadn’t updated in quite some time.
Ten short minutes later, without contacting Tumbledore, Tumblr deleted all his posts, and re-assigned the URL to Pitchfork.
To make matters worse, Tumblr lied about it after the fact. But that’s not really the point. The point is that Tumbledore lost all his posts (granted it was only five, but imagine if it was five hundred), and he has no recourse. He wasn’t paying for the service. He doesn’t own the content.
URL gone.
Content gone.
Search engine traffic gone.
Just like that.
If you’re going to have a website, you need to do it right. Get a custom blog setup done. It’s quick, affordable, and you will own the site and content. You will have complete control. You, and no one else. That’s exactly how it needs to be, if you’re serious about your business.
You are serious about your business, aren’t you?
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