Do you maintain a blog or website at WordPress.com and need help in transferring blog’s hosting to a different hosting provider or in order to migrate from WordPress.com to self hosted WordPress.org ? Here is some official help provided by the folks at WordPress.com.

WordPress has launched a new service called “Guided transfers to WordPress.org” which allows blog owners and web publishers having blogs at WordPress.com to migrate to self hosted WordPress. The service is supported by expert WordPress engineers and support staff at costs $99.

The following things are included in the service package:

• The WordPress folks will install the self hosted WordPress software on your new webhost’s FTP server. All you have to do is send them your FTP username, host address, password and the technicians will install the entire software for you, which includes uploading all the files, creating the database, importing the older database and performing compatibility checks.
• All the posts, comments and other content will be backed up from the older WordPress.com site and migrated to the newer blog, powered by WordPress.org. You don’t need to touch any of the codes or spend another night doing it manually, WordPress technicians will handle everything for you.
• WordPress technicians will install important and mentioned plugins on the newer host which also includes Jetpack –one of the newer plugin packages offered by WordPress.

There are quite a few advantages as well as disadvantages  of self hosted WordPress over the free blogging platform provided by WordPress. The very first advantage is that users have more control on site’s theme, visibility as well as the overall user experience. You can tweak the php code, modify behavior and use third party plugins according to your needs. However, one of the biggest advantages of self hosted WordPress over WordPress.com is the ability to run third party Advertising networks like Google Adsense, Kontera, Buysellads and so on. (Note: Blogs that are using WordPress.com VIP account can run third party advertisements, upload plugins and use custom themes. One good example of a site using WordPress.com VIP hosting is Techcrunch.com)

The disadvantage of self hosted WordPress is that you have to know each and every code that’s up in your server. This includes having the knowledge of php codes, custom HTML styles, maintaining and testing plugins and so on. Another annoyance is that you have to handle backups, comment spam, software upgrades and other technical glitches.

If you’re fairly new to blogging and don’t know these geeky things, it would be better sticking to the WordPress.com platform as of now and migrate your blog to self hosted WordPress at a later point of time.

Check – Guided Transfers By WordPress.com