Virtual Assistant Forums | Work from Home

My Office Zilla · #1 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008

I know it is kind of the opposite of what we'd really want for our business but this is for our family. One of the cousins is moving away and I thought it would be great for us to be able to keep in touch with her if we started a family blog where everyone can post (text and pics). And, of course, it needs to be F R E E.

I started a search and OMG! There are tons of places to start a blog. Some I can't tell if you can upload pics and some I can't tell if they are searchable. We don't want it to be...no one should be able to find it unless we give them the url. Instead of digging through thousands of options I thought I'd just ask here if anyone is particularly happy with a host they use or if anyone had a recommendation.

Make it a great day!

Brianna Young · #2 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008

Hi Sundi!

I do know that when you setup a Wordpress blog, you have the option to make it searchable or not. My daughter's blog is on Wordpress and I made it non-searchable. It's been about 9 months now, and we haven't had any problems at all.

I hope that helps!!

Bri

Cheryl R · #3 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008

I use blogspot. very simple to set up and to use. Pics upload easily and yes you can make it unsearchable and have multiple contributors.

ChristinaVOS · #4 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008

I second Blogger (blogspot) it has an option to make it a private blog so anyone who wants to read needs to request permission and setup sign-in info

D_Victoria_Virtual_Assistance · #5 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008

I third Blogger, specifically for the ease of adding images to the blog. Wordpress is great and I do use that for many of my business blogs. However, if this is going to a blog in which several people contribute, Blogger is a great option.

Tess · #6 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008

Hi Sundi,
You could actually use potentially any blog program (that you install/host on your own domain) by creating a robots.txt file with instructions to the spiders *not* to index. These are usually used selectively on sites, page by page or file by file (rather than for the whole site/blog) but by placing the file at the top-level of your blog's folders you'd effectively 'hide' the whole thing.

Here's more on that.

#7 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008

Yet another vote for a privatized blogger account. They're really easy to use. I actually think wordpress' strength is more in website/community development than blogging, but I've heard others who hate it, too.

My Office Zilla · #8 (**permalink**) 07-02-2008

OK...Thanks ladies! I finally went with Blogger - I wasn't really the happiest with it and it took me THREE days to find a template I liked, but I'm there now and commited!

I saw something in other services that I don't see here - or maybe they call it something different. I want to be able to add tags to my posts. My thought is this...If one of us wants to invite someone to read the blog - say I invite my mom, who isn't part of the side of the family authoring the blog - it would be convenient for her to just enter a tag for me in the search and be able to see just stuff for me rather than reading all the posts by other authors not related to her. Is this possible or am I expecting too much for F R E E?

I also don't know how to tell if the template I selected has a search - called a widget, right?

Make it a great day!

My Office Zilla · #9 (**permalink**) 07-02-2008

I think I may have answered my own question. I just put up my first post and saw you can add tags to every post and that, on the Blogger bar across the top, there is a search option. The other services I'd looked into had a spot on the menus I could add tags and they would appear in a drop down.

I do have other questions though:

Does anyone want to enlighten me about other widgets that might be cool to add?
Can I add this blog to my Blogline feeds even if it isn't being hit by search engines?
What happens to the current posts if I want to change the template for a holiday or something?

Can you tell I don't know anything about blogs? I guess this is a great learning ground for me in case I decide to do one for MOZ! :p

Thanks for your help!