Vox Alternatives
By Lissie
Vox is Closing Down Their Hosted Blogs
Six Apart - the owners of vox.com have announced that the free blogging platform will close as of 30 September 2010. People with blogs on the site will have to move them elsewhere. Six Apart is recommending that you move to Typepad - which is also, not coincidentally, owned by Six Apart.
For those that really care about their Vox blog - I'd suggest that maybe you should think a little before you make a decision.
You've Lost All the Links to Your Vox Blog
Most users will be focused on saving their blog's content (text, video and photos) - but from an SEO point of view the loss of links is way more important.
First where ever you take your hosted Vox blog - you have lost all the links to your site. Say your site was called mysite.vox.com - every link to that web address will go nowhere after the end of January. So first off try this go to https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ and in the "explore url" box type in the url of your vox blog. If any links show up - follow each one and make a note of it. You will have to get in contact with the owner of each site and ask them to update their link to your new domain.
Vox's Recommended Alternatives
Move Your Vox Blog to TypePad
Typepad is usually a paid service - but the offer to Vox users is that they will get a free TypePad Basic account. . Other options suggeted are wordpress.com and posterous.com. They forget to mention a couple of points though.
Move Your Vox Blog to Wordpress.com
Vox doesn't mention this, but Wordpress.com does NOT allow commercial blogs - you can not run ads on your free wordpress.com hosted blog - you can't even link to affiliate offers. If your blog is even slightly commercial WordPress is not for you. However
Move Your Vox Blog to Posterous
I like posterous because you can blog by just sending an email - a very attractive option for those of you who are fans of iPhones and iPads or even just smart phones. The look is clean and simple and you can also blog to other sites including WordPress, tumblr and livejournal. Postereous does not however allow you to have "private" posts.
Why Do You Have a Vox Blog
My Vox Blog Is
| Consider Moving to
|
|---|---|
a personal but public online journal
| wordpress.com
|
a personal but private journal
| facebook.com
|
its the place I want to make money blogging
| self-hosted WordPress and/or Hubpages
|
backlinks to support my other income-producing sites
| posterous
|
In More Detail
Wordpress.com
As I said this is not he answer if you have even the slightest commercial intention. But probably because of this Google has always rated Wordpress.com blogs well. There is an awesome array of themes and customization options, lots of community. And if you do later move onto your own self-hosted WordPress site you will be familiar with the interface.
Facebook.com
Frankly I have ignored Facebbok for years - but recently I have seen more and more friends, people who would NEVER consider having a blog - getting into Facebook - as a form of just pure interaction and sharing its the way of the future I think. Just make sure you understand how to make Facebook secure.
Self-Hosted WordPress
If you had a blog at Vox you have just learned the hard way the biggest disadvantage of it and every other free platform - you have no control. If the company went out of business you wouldn't even have had the opportunity to recover your blog! There is a way around this - but it will cost you a little money and you may have to make a little more effort too! You will need to buy your own domain name (from under $10/year) and some hosting (from $5/month) but that's about as cheap as it gets - and if you are in business of courses your expenses are deductible.
If you would rather write ocasional articles rather than blog on a regular basis - then I'd higly recomnend hubpages - and you can make money with hubpages too!
Comments
Nice Info.
Another good one is Dreamwidth, which is based on the LiveJournal software, but has lots of useful features that LJ lacks.
Hi Lissie!!
The first article to come up on my computer this morning about the huge ghash in the earth in NZ! My blessings for your safety of course, and continued prosperity are with you always!!
Thanks for the heads up in this GREAT Hub!! I have had a WordPress Commercial Blog for years!! It is set up to look like a web site but with the blogging feature!! I ADORE WordPress and must have a self-hosted one!!??
Thank you also for reminding me of the need to back-up all my writing/blogging/articles/etc. because in-deed we never know when a company we use devotedly decides to change direction! (Which is what all of us do, too!)
You are just the BEST Lissie!! Me, too, I vote ten thumbs up for HubPages!!
Thank you for being another bright ray of light in a world that seems to be growing dimmer by the day!!
Blessings always, Earth Angel!!
I am seconding the Dreamwidth suggestion, it may be a better fit for the people who want friends-only journals than facebook since you can still keep it separate from RL. Also it's specifically designed for journalling rather than social networking. Basically it's like LJ before Six Apart raped it for the code they used on Vox. Only better.
Thanks for the comments guys as the suggestion re http://www.dreamwidth.org/ - it looks like that its a paid option though - unless you can get an invite code - any idea where to get one of those?
Like you say, Lissie, this is the second example in recent months of why relying on a free blogging platform isn't such a good idea! The Today.com bloggers all went through it a few months ago, and now it's the turn of Vox.
You should also add GROU.PS into your list. They have announced their migration tool for Vox. Check out - http//grou.ps/vox.php
Thank you for this information.
I second the motion about using free platforms for hosting your content...and that goes for sites like Hubpages and Squidoo. Back up all your important content on free sites like these.
Squidoo came in and literally "cleaned house" and changed the rules of what they now wanted on their platform and locked out a whole lotta people out of their lenses.
Just how these free sites work...no guarantee they'll be here tomorrow.
Hello guys & girls, yes it is my own fault but i was too late to move my blog, and now I lost it. Does anyone know if you can still access it in any way or retrieve my files (texts)?
Thank you,
N.
i did not manage to transfer my posts from vox, now that it had closed down, is there any way i can retrieve those posts? they mean a lot to me.
Hello, hello, 20 months ago
Thank you for an ineresting article, although I never been on Vox, but it is an eue operener. About internet or anything else you just can't learn enough.