WordPress.com Top 10 Features

WordPress.com is a free web-blogging service which uses WordPress CMS software as their blogging platform. Here are the free blog feature list : http://en.wordpress.com/features/

Before starting a blog in wordpress.com , I tried some CMS softwares offline. I used Joomla, Drupal, Vox, Plone, etc. WordPress CMS matched my exact needs. Self hosting was a tedious task with the work of creating content as well as an extra burden of administration. I decided to go with the free blogging services. I registered with blogger.com and spent some time testing it. Although it is feature rich with allowing editing theme XML, CSS, allowing JavaScript, Flash embeds, but somehow it was not a match for me. At last I finally tried wordpress.com . After starting it felt a bit bad as there was no manual theme customization options which became a habit that time, no free CSS editing, no JavaScript, and had limitations. As time passed, I was getting into wordpress.com the more I discovered the features and adjusted myself, and started to post more content. At last I am now fixed in wordperess.com, and mapped a domain with their domain upgrade feature.

I have used wordpress.com for a good amount of time. I have found some features of wordpress.com which I felt was the best. Note that I will be talking about wordpress.com feature and not only wordpress CMS software.

1. Simplicity and Clean Interface

   The main feature I find in wordpress.com is its simplicity. The interface is very simple. The dashboard you can have a look at your overall blog state, the stats, top posts, google blog search links, your latest activity, comments, etc. Even the dash-board has a mini editor, which you can use to make small posts. The collapsible panel on the left side makes it very easy to navigate to administrate the blog. The composer has a simple rich text formatting editor as well as an HTML editor with proofreading feature, and autosave draft. Apart these, the simplicity has been achieved by enforcing the limitation of editing themes, entering JavaScript, php etc, although you can edit the theme CSS file after buying a CSS upgrade. This helps the blog author not to bother about the themes, and the blog features, and do more on the contents. But limiting these is compensated with excellent collection of sidebar widgets, classy themes, and shortcodes. Keeping the interface simple, and the blog management simple, the blog author can concentrate more on the content. Although a lot of people complain about the limitations of embedding flash, JavaScript etc. but if some one needs to so much fine tune a blog or site, then it would be better going self hosted. As for me Simplicity is the best feature of wordpress.com.

2. Akismet

   Akismet is a spam filtering service. It filters link spam from blog comments and spam TrackBack pings, and it is the best of the lot. At first it is difficult to understand the importance of Akismet, but as time goes on and comment starts to come, it is clearly visible that without Akismet, a person would go mad manually reading and deleting spam comments. Akismet does an excellent job with blocking spam comments and track backs. A very few spams get passed through it, but Akismet is constantly updating, it gets better. Recently wordrpess.com has introduced Akismet Stats, which can be accessed from the left side panel Dashboard -> Akismet Stats, where you can have a look how Akismet is doing. You even don’t need any configuration to make it run. Thanks to Akismet it has blocked over 2.5k 13.7k 67k spam comments in my blog (till now). For larger blogs with a lot hits, and large viewer base it would not be able to survive without Akismet. Check out more here : http://akismet.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akismet

3. Support

   It would be injustice if I did not list the Support within top three. WordPress.com has three levels of excellent support system, which definitely will solve your question or answer your questions in a snappy.

   • Support Website

     First, most of the problems, and questions you have about wordpress.com could be found in the support website. The help articles are written in a very simple way. I have most of my questions answered from this support site, and I believe it would be the same for others. And most importantly the support articles are updated. Link : http://en.support.wordpress.com/

   • Support Forum

     Second, the wordpress.com forum is the next step of the support system. Here also searching the forum with your question would get most of your answers from the existing posts. This is one forum I have seen, which is super fast. After posting a question answers comes very quickly, even within 5 minutes your problem might get solved. The excellent performance, and quality of the forum is a result of users, volunteers, providing support, and ofcource WordPress.com staffs. Link : http://en.forums.wordpress.com/

   • Contact Email

     If still there is some problem/question which did not get solved/answered by any of the above ways, which should be very rare, then you should go direct to the head quarters and get the question answered …. contact wordpress.com . Contacting administration of some website is painful, as a lot of times answer comes after you have solved the problem, or forgot about you have ever emailed them, or even often results in no reply. WordPress.com email contact support is different. I have experienced manual reply with an answer within 1 day, and even within 10 minutes. This email contact is really fast. Link : http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/

   • IRC Channel

     Yet another way to get support is the freenode IRC chat channel.. Here you can get in live communication with the wordpress.com guys. This channel is not that much responsitive, but definitely some serious issues and questions gets resolved very fast as the problem is directly sent to the wp guys. To know more about the IRC wordpress.com channel on freenode read this post: WordPress.com IRC Channel

   This support system is one of the simplest, fast, and the best I have experienced. But as the forum rules say, if you have a question, first check the Support website, if it is unsolved, search the forum for similar posts, if still it is unsolved, ask in the forums and wait for an answer, and in the worst case contact email support.

4. Reliability

   Unlike other free hosting service wordpress.com is very reliable. It has fast servers which is capable to handle huge about of traffic, and many redundant data servers to backup your valuable blog. So you can make sure your blog is accessible 24×7 and even if some server fails, your blog won’t.

5. No Lock-In : Blog Export and Import

   What ever you do in the blog will not lock-in your data. You can export your blog contents in a wordpress XML format and preserve it offline. You can restore your blog with this file easily in wordpress.com, or on your self hosted wordpress blog. Also it is easy to migrate from other blogging system to wordpress. WordPress supports a lot of other blogging software export files, which you can import and transfer contents of your old blog. Link : http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/

6. Shortcodes

   Shortcodes are small keywords in your blog post which is recognized by the wordpress CMS system and replaced with corresponding complex and long html syntax when generating the webpage, saving a lot time copy pasting and writing tedious html codes. For example you can see the sourcecode shortcode in a lot posts in my blog, which formats a code in a certain programming language. The digg shortcode is used to make the digg button appear in this post. You can embed YouTube Videos, Vimeo Videos and a lot. There is a range of shortcodes available in wordpress.com check the list here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/shortcodes/

7. Tag and Category Structure

   Probable this is the main feature for which I felt that wordpress.com was best for me, is the category and the tag structure. A post can be assigned to some tags, which are keywords describing the post, and the posts could be assigned to categories, which you can broadly categorize your blog post. You can assign a post to more than one categories also, which many CMS doesn’t allow and strictly maintain the difference between tags and categories. You can have hierarchical categories and structure them as needed. If in some point of time you feel that you need to convert a category to a tag, or the reverse, then you also can do Thus blurring the difference line between Categories and great flexibility is achieved and blog posts can be easily organized. Link : http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories-vs-tags/

8. Updates

   You always get surprises from wordpress.com . Every month you get a lot of updates, including new themes, new blog features, update to existing features, and all. Currently wordpress has given a wave of new themes. It is always updating, and providing new features, and killing bugs. Read the wordpress.com blog to get the picture : http://en.blog.wordpress.com/

9. FOSS

   Wordpress.com runs on a Free and OpenSource Software; the WordPress.com CMS, and licensed GPLv2 under So it comes with the basic four freedoms.

   • The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
   • The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
   • The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
   • The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

   Read the Free Software Philosophy : http://www.gnu.org/ . As a FOSS supporter this is also a feature which comes in the top

There goes the features which I feel the best in wordpress.com . But wait, the title reads “WordPress.com Top 10 Features” ! I ask the readers to comment and tell about what is the best feature for them in wordpress.com , and help me decide the 10^th point. Also please let me know what are your views.

Update

02.04.2011 : The freenode #wordpress.com IRC channel contact method is added in the Support point.