selling on wordpress

  • luxgood · Member ·

    Is there any leeway regarding selling on wordpress or is it strictly a no no.

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    Strictly a no-no unless your’e part of the VIP blogger program. You can search for “Advertising” and “commercial blogs” and also refer to the terms of service.

    If you really want to sell stuff through your blog, you’re best to download the WordPress software from wordpress.org and host it yourself. Way cheaper than the VIP program.

  • nosysnoop · Member ·

    Here’s the link:

    http://wordpress.com/vip-hosting/

    You need 500,000 pageviews a month to be considered. It used to be 100,000 a month but *cough* not anymore.

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    You also need $250 a month. I think you can probably find hosting elsewhere cheaper.

  • drmike · Member ·

    There’s a very slim bit of leeway but as a general rule, but the current answer is no. If the point of your blog is to sell stuff, then the answer is no though. There’s a CD review site hosted here where the blogger does detailed reviews of every CD that they post about and a link containing an affliate link is included. But we’re talking about very detailed reviews. Not “Here’s a CD. It’s very good. Here’s the link to buy it.” posts.

    I do 100k page views a month. I wonder if I should apply…

  • luxgood · Member ·

    Thanks for all your responses – i do enjoy blogging on WP but would have liked a little flexibility to sell some of my stuff now and again. One part of me sees the sense in keeping it free from commercialism and advertising-the other part would have liked to have had some scope to test the water.

    any way the rules are there and i will abide by them.

  • drmike · Member ·

    Just for reference though, there are other WPMU sites with different policies. You can find a list of them here.

  • crazyknittinglady · Member ·

    I’m a new blogger on WordPress and was perusing this link for curiosity (I don’t sell anything on my blog but like to know these things for future reference) – if I sell things on another website am I allowed to include a link to that website on my WordPress blog, or is this also against the terms of service?

    Thank you in advance…

  • timethief · Member ·

    @crazyknittinglady
    Here is the FAQs on the subject of advertising http://faq.wordpress.com/2005/12/08/adsense/
    You can place a single link to your website in a text widget in your sidebar. Happy blogging! :)

  • drmike · Member ·

    Agree with the single link to the page hosted elsewhere.

  • htstore · Member ·

    Okay! I read the link above. I have ONE more question! LOL Don’t want to break any rules!

    I wanted to write my journey on the hills and valleys of opening a store, marketing it for a charity that I wish to support.

    There is no selling on the blog itself, but I do offer pictures for visuals for my explanations with links. I don’t know about you, but I’m a visual person myself! I talk about how to setup the store, how to handle product, how to word ads, etc. I’m doing this for informational purposes mostly, because I have had alot of friends mine ask, “How do we start this also?” Since I’m a newbie I figured a journey with my failures and victories, frustations and WOO HOO’s would be helpful. LOL Kind of like a journal in that aspect also! I wanted to also educate people about the “cause” of the ministry the ‘experimental’ store will be supporting.

    I know – WACKO idea, but I wanted to try!

    Is that major rule breaking?

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    That sounds like a perfectly permissable business blog, of which there are many at WP.com. But pictures of merchandise accompanied by an offer are blog-deleting territory, from what I’ve seen. As long as you steer clear of that kind of thing and stick with “trials and tribulations of retailing”, you should be okay.

  • drmike · Member ·

    Best bet would be to send in a feedback and get approval or not directly from staff. No matter what we say, they have the final vote over the issue.

  • bombthesystemmusic · Member ·

    I just read the TOS link listed below, and it says nothing about not being able to sell stuff through wordpress.com… I could’ve missed it, but I don’t think so.

  • timethief · Member ·

    Generally speaking wordpress.com blogs are non-commercial blogs. WordPress.com blogs cannot be used to conduct business transactions and/or to drive traffic to commercial sites. Advertising is restricted. Only a discreet link to your business in the sidebar or an About page is permitted either on the About page or in the sidebar.

    The purpose of a wordpress.com hosted blog cannot be to drive traffic third party site(s).The two important threads to take note of when it comes to “business blogs” are found here http://wordpress.com/tos/ (particularly take note of the paragraph in purple) and here http://faq.wordpress.com/2005/12/08/adsense/

    If you require clarification on specifics please be sure to follow drmike’s advice. Contact Mark in support through a feedback (button on top right hand corner of any blog page) or by sending an email to support at this domain.

  • drmike · Member ·

    Best bet would be to contact staff directly as none of us can offcially respond to you as this is a policy issue and none of us can act as offical reps of Automattic.

    It is in the ToS though. They’re refusing the content as ‘unwanted’.

  • masterclasslady · Member ·

    DRMike: Do you have the link for the CD Review site you mentioned? I would like to contact the owner. Thanks

  • drmike · Member ·

    Afraid not. I saw it a year ago and didn’t think anything of it so I didn’t make a note of it. Never seen it again.

  • masterclasslady · Member ·

    Thanks anyway, drmike. I’ll probably come across it eventually.

  • The topic ‘selling on wordpress’ is closed to new replies.