The travel parts come along
Your map of where you've been, trips with their routes and stays, your flight log and every story widget work on your domain just as they do on your free blog.
Your own domain
Start free on you.wroteabout.com. When you're ready, give your blog an address of its own, like www.annatravels.com. Your stories, map, trips and flight log all come along, with nothing to rebuild or move by hand.
Why your own domain
A name people remember, an address you can share anywhere, and a home for your travel stories that goes where you go.
annatravels.com is easier to remember, say out loud and print on a card or in a photo book than an address with our name in it.
Links to your stories point to your domain, so what you build up in search builds up there. Your sitemap is there too, to add to your own Google Search Console.
The domain belongs to you, not to us. If you ever leave, you point it somewhere else, and the address people know still leads to you.
Add Google AdSense or another ad network with its ads.txt, and choose how search engines treat the links in your stories.
Your logo and favicon, a menu of up to seven links, a welcome banner on your home page, your own footer and your own CSS, with no WroteAbout branding.
Add Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager or any other tracking code, and the check an affiliate network asks for to approve your site. Paste it as they give it.
Why it's different here
A website on your own domain usually means choosing hosting, installing software and keeping it all updated. Here you connect the address and carry on writing.
Your map of where you've been, trips with their routes and stays, your flight log and every story widget work on your domain just as they do on your free blog.
No servers, software updates or plugins. Pages are served from Cloudflare's network around the world, and the https certificate is made and renewed for you.
You write and change settings on WroteAbout, as now; your domain is for reading. There's no second login to look after, and the ad code you add there never comes near your account.
Readers see your blog on your domain, and everyone who gets your new stories by email keeps getting them. Comments and following work as before, on you.wroteabout.com, for readers signed in to WroteAbout.
Switch when you like
No need to decide now. It's the same blog on either address, not a new one to build, so moving is a setting, not a project.
Write, publish and find your readers on you.wroteabout.com. Nothing is lost by waiting.
Old links keep working: anyone opening a page on you.wroteabout.com is sent to the same page on your domain. The redirect is a permanent one, which tells search engines about the move. Expect some ups and downs in search for a few weeks.
Remove the domain and your blog is back on you.wroteabout.com at once. That address stays reserved for you, and your logo, ads and other settings stay saved for next time.
Leaving altogether? Download all your data, every story and every photo, and point your domain wherever you go next.
How it works
You don't need to know how websites work. If you can change a setting at the company you bought your domain from, you can do this.
In Settings, type the address you want, with www. or blog. in front, like www.annatravels.com.
At the company you bought your domain from, add one record (a CNAME record, in their DNS settings). We show you exactly what to type.
We keep checking until it's connected and make the https certificate. It usually takes a few minutes, sometimes a few hours.
Want annatravels.com without the www to work too? Forward it to your www address at the company you bought it from. We give you the steps for Namecheap and GoDaddy, and a message to send any other company's support.
Price
You buy and renew the domain itself at any domain company. Everything on our side is included:
For now we set it up by hand: write to hello@wroteabout.com with your blog's address, and we'll help you get started.
Yes. Buy one from any domain company, then connect it here. If you're still choosing, we have step-by-step help for Namecheap and GoDaddy.
Yes, once annatravels.com forwards to your www address at the company you bought it from. It takes a minute, and we show you how.
They keep working. Readers who open a page on your free address are sent to the same page on your domain.
Changing address can move you up and down in search for a few weeks. Every old page is sent on to the same page on your domain with a permanent redirect, which is how search engines are told about a move and carry it over. Nobody can promise rankings, but this is the way to keep them.
Yes. In Settings there are three boxes: one for each page's head (where most analytics, ad and site-check code goes), one for the start of the page (like Tag Manager's second piece) and one for the end (code a company wants in the footer). Paste the code as the company gives it.
The domain stays yours. Your blog goes back to its free address with everything in it, ad code switches off there, and your settings stay saved in case you come back.
You do, at the company you bought it from: the domain is registered with them, in your name. We look after the connection and the https certificate.
Not yet: they come from WroteAbout, in your name. Readers' replies can come straight to your own inbox.
Free to start. Your own domain whenever you're ready.