Kaohongshu.blog has been online for more than two years now. The site continues to grow and attract new readers and learners. In case you noticed some technical issues: It became time to move Kaohongshu to another host and explore new horizons. Last week I migrated the blog and updated the design.
From wordpress.com to self-hosted
It’s a challenge to move a fully functional website without downtime, especially when you’re not experienced in WordPress migrations. If done properly, nobody should notice anything. If done badly, not only your website will be offline, Google will know and your ranking might be affected.
I still wanted to see the plan through for two reasons. WordPress.com (which hosted my site) works fine. It’s secure and fast. Depending on your plan and needs, wordpress.com offers almost all the functions you need and you don’t have to worry about updates, since they’re carried out automatically. BUT they are awfully expensive, compared to most self-hosted options for small websites like this one, and there are limitations that increasingly become a pain in the neck, once your site becomes more “mature”. The biggest one being that you can’t install plugins to add new functions to your website, like proper tracking and SEO tools, if you don’t upgrade to their business plan. So this step was more or less inevitable and I’m glad everything worked out.
A new home : )
Migrating the website including the domain to the new host went quite smoothly. Although I did have to change the theme I previously used, since it was no longer supported. This caused some late night work, installing the new theme, eventually buying the PRO version which wasn’t planned, and reshaping the website. The menu had to be rebuilt and I had to figure out how to properly use the new theme’s widgets. Not to mention the technical checks that revealed some security and performance issues that had to be solved.
I’m still not fully satisfied with the current design and continue exploring the options of the new Grid theme. Most importantly though, for the moment, all the content could be saved and the website is up and running. New content will follow soon!
