It has taken the better part of a month to get this self-hosting/Wordpress learning curve down. I’m still learning, but in bits and pieces I’ve managed to get everything moved over from my old blog, which was no easy feat because it was hosted on Typepad. I used to like Typepad, but since deciding to switch I have since learned that TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL. So today, I am going to tell you all about why TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL and in this post I will say TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL a bunch of times and I will link it to TYPEPAD as many times as I can because then maybe if someone who wants to start a blog researches TYPEPAD, my TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL post will rank high on search engines and people will see that TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL and they will say, “DAMN! TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL so I should stay far away from TYPEPAD because TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL! I know that to be true, because this blogger said that TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL and it was a real bitch to get all of her content moved over from TYPEPAD (who is the DEVIL) because TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL).”  Breathe. That damned TYPEPAD makes me go all mental. You should also hover over all of the links to the DEVIL because then you will see additional reasons why you should stay away from TYPEPAD.

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL:

1. TYPEPAD takes your shit and tries to hold it hostage like Libya.

Because the makers of TYPEPAD are backwards, TYPEPAD uses stupid coding to store your posts, comments, links, images, etc. What this means is that if you decide to switch from TYPEPAD to another platform, the coding doesn’t jive with the coding of the new platform. If I were going from…say, Blogger to WordPress, there is the equivalent of the EASY BUTTON which makes it, well, EASY to move all of your content over. Just click it and switch it. That same button on TYPEPAD does not say “EASY” –  it says “I AM TYPEPAD AND I AM THE DEVIL SO YOU WILL HAVE TO WALK THROUGH THE RINGS OF HELL TO GET YOUR SHIT AND MOVE IT OVER TO WORDPRESS BECAUSE YOU ARE STUPID FOR SELLING YOUR SOUL TO ME, BITCH!” So then you start Googling stuff like Typepad + exorcism and quickly learn that you either need to be a computer coding genius or PAY a computer coding genius stacks of fat cash to migrate your blog away from TYPEPAD.  Which then scares the snot out of little non-computer coding dweebs like me because we are afraid that we might break the Internet if we attempt to do it ourselves.

2. Typepad makes you pay for what you can do for free on other blogging platforms.

When I first started my old blog on Typepad 3.5 years ago, at the time it seemed like a smart move. I’d used WordPress (not self-hosted) for and blog the year before that and I wasn’t too impressed because it had limited options. The same went for Blogger. For a “nominal” monthly fee of $8, I could get Premium Typepad and have lots of customizable semi-WYSIWYG design freedoms. It was worth it to me. Then Blogger and WordPress hired very smart people and leapt LIGHT YEARS ahead of Typepad. Because TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL, they changed their background coding crap, but instead of getting better, they got crappier. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE THE DEVIL. Now you can do far more on WordPress and Blogger FOR FREE than you can on PAID TYPEPAD.

Now, I’ve gone several steps above free blogging and have transitioned into paying for self-hosted blogging powered by WordPress, and I use a paid theme called Thesis. It’s a mouthful, I know, but if you’re serious about blogging, this really is the way to go. You’ll have to purchase Web hosting and a domain name. I use HostGator, who is The Awesome. They will even migrate your blog FOR YOU - unless your blog is on TYPEPAD, because that is just how much of THE DEVIL TYPEPAD IS. It is ridiculously easy to install WordPress into your HostGator account. Then if  you really want to ramp up what you can do with your self-hosted WordPress blog, you’ll pay for and install the Thesis theme available from DIYthemes.com. What this means is POWER in your hands. And TYPEPAD is still THE DEVIL.

3. Typepad uses stupid image coding.

If you upload an image into a post, other blogging platforms will basically keep the integrity of whatever file name you gave it. They’ll code it with something like your post name/date/and the image name. Typepad doesn’t do that. They change up the coding to this string of ridiculous numbers and FOR WHAT? For no other reason than because they are THE DEVIL and they want to screw with you. So if you decide to migrate away from TYPEPAD, your photos stay hosted on TYPEPAD even if you manage to get your blog posts moved over. I dug through the Internet and found some surprisingly easy instructions for getting my posts, comments, and links properly transitioned over. My old embedded photos even showed up and I was all “I’M SO SMART!” Then I looked a little closer and Typead said, “NO YOU’RE NOT, ASSHOLE, BECAUSE I AM THE DEVIL AND I OWN YOU.” My photos showed up here on The Smartness, but they were still hosted on the old Typepad blog. In other words, if I were to have closed down and deleted I’m a Smart One (which I fully intend to do soon), my pictures here would then show up as empty boxes because according to the Internet, they don’t exist anymore.

I found some instructions for how to download your TYPEPAD images into a folder on your computer, change the coding, then upload them back into WordPress. I tried, but it was above my technical expertise levels and I almost had an aneurysm. Several times. Thankfully, I have a coding computer genius friend who was able to do it for me , and even he had to go through some trial and error to get it done. I will pay him in Cherry Bomb Big Ones because he is awesomesauce, unlike TYPEPAD who is THE DEVIL.

4. TYPEPAD does not provide you with a way to do a 301 redirect to your new blog.

So – say you’re like me and you’ve muddled out a way to migrate your content by yourself (or you paid someone a ton of money to do it for you). Now you basically have two blogs, each with the same content: the old one still hosted on THE DEVIL and your new shiny sparkly blog. Only now, your new blog is the low man on the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) totem pole, and your old blog is still sucking in lots of traffic because it’s been in cyberspace longer.

Put another way, say someone does a Google search for “unicorn rainbow fart” (you can do this exercise with me if you open up a new window or tab). Go ahead – do a Google search for “unicorn rainbow fart.” The first hit you get will be a blog post written by me two years ago titled “This post brought to you by happy happy joy joy.” This is the post in which Reproducina the Rainbow-Farting Unicorn made her first appearance. Except it is the version of this post that is on the Typepad blog and NOT the one that is here on The Smartness. The version of that same blog post is buried under pages and pages of other hits that turn up from the same search terms. The Smartness version doesn’t show up on page one of the search results unless you do a search for “unicorn rainbow fart the smartness,” and even then it still shows up a few entries below the one on the Typepad/DEVIL version.

This is bad, bad, bad. When you migrate to a new platform, you don’t want people to go to your old blog; you want them to find the sparkly shiny new blog. There is a neat little thing called a 301 redirect, which is a nifty little piece of coding trickery that you put on the old blog that will automatically redirect a reader over to the same content on the new blog. EXCEPT TYPEPAD DOESN’T LET YOU DO THAT BECAUSE THEY ARE THE DEVIL AND THEY OWN YOU AND WANT TO KEEP YOU HOSTAGE. Bastitches. 

5. NO REALLY – TYPEPAD IS THE DEVIL AND THEY TAKE HOSTAGES AND THEY ARE EVIL MEANIES AND THEY SUCK. I REPEAT – DO NOT USE TYPEPAD.

You will do the world a favor if you help me spread the word that Typepad is the devil. All you have to do is help boost the SEO of this post. If enough people do it, it can get pushed up to page one of searches about Typepad. How can you do that? Easy – Tweet it, Facebook it, Stumble it, etc. See all those little button thingies down there at the bottom of this post? Click one (or all) of them to spread this post around the interwebs. If you’re a blogger, consider even just quickly linking to this post – the more links a post has, that’s the higher it climbs in SEO. You will be a like a superhero because you SAVED SOMEONE’S LIFE. Seriously.  I am a gangsta and this is the equivalent of me popping a cap in Typepad’s ass. Or at least giving them the middle finger.