It’s been 5 years

Woke up to this notification from WordPress. I had no idea. Well, it’s good news. Five years is a lot of time but I have frankly not counted the days on here. It happened fast.

How it happened

I was in 10th standard. My board examinations had just finished. There was a rumor that the Mathematics question paper has been leaked and everyone will be asked to appear for a re-exam. It was a big thing back then because I had prepared nicely for the exam and it had gone well. So appearing for a re-exam when I had no idea the leak has happened before the exam seemed unfair. Luckily though, the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) recognized this. The leak was limited to a region in the Indian capital New Delhi and the re-exams were to be held there only.

After this was clear, I had a lot of time. A LOT. I wanted to own a website. A place where I can publish my thoughts. I started roaming around the internet to see if what I wanted made sense. It did. I came to know about a Google product named “Blogger.” I came to know about WordPress. I also came across a few others such as Wix.com.

I started comparing them and the more I looked at it, the more it became clear that WordPress is the right choice. Blogger wasn’t updated for ages and Google has a bad reputation for killing its products when its mood isn’t right. Wix.com was too much customization.

What I wanted was a sweet spot between just the right amount of customization and writing. I did not want to set up a site myself. But I did want to customize it to my needs. The main focus was the content I would put up on it. So WordPress seemed good on this. I created an account, picked a theme, and yeah. It was done. I just had to click on “add new post” and publish it. It was over really quickly. Claps for WordPress for that. It’s super easy for newcomers. I always thought starting a blog or a site is a lot of coding and work but nope. It actually wasn’t.

I still do not own the domain. I have been using the free plan ever since my first login to WordPress. I don’t feel the need to go paid just now. My only worry is the ads that visitors might see on the site. I have absolutely zero control over what ads WordPress shows to people stumbling upon my blog. I have been using adblockers for ages now so I don’t know how the experience is for people who don’t use one. Maybe I will buy a personal plan in the future that will eliminate ads and nuisance. It’s not a promise. I will see to it.

Site address

I have also recently started to ponder whether to change the site address from “astrosanjeet.wordpress.com” to “spacesanjeet.wordpress.com”. I have seen an option on WordPress where I can do this change. But I am hesitant. Will it cause problems? Will it be smooth as renaming a file? I don’t know.

The main reason behind this is that I have social handles on Twitter and Instagram with the same name, “spacesanjeet.” I also have Discord and Pinterest accounts with the same name. So I thought it would be nice to have my blog address having the same name.

Any suggestions? Have you ever tried to change your site address? I would go ahead and do it if I can get confident responses. It’s not urgent and it’s not even required. But I want to. Let’s see.

A big thank you to everyone sticking to this blog and giving it a read. WordPress is the most relaxing place on the internet for me. If you have ever read, liked, commented, or shared my blogs, I know you. Your presence is felt. Thanks a lot. Have a great day ahead! 👋

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