Preface

I've been hanging out on Zhihu a lot recently (mainly answering questions to earn points to see if I can level up~), and I often see newcomers asking questions like how to build a personal blog, and then there are a bunch of template-like answers below: nothing more than various cloud hosting recommendations, or a bunch of blog architecture recommendations. To be honest, although there's nothing wrong with these, and they can all be used, for a newcomer who knows nothing (similar to me in the second half of last year), it's impossible to choose the most suitable solution for myself from this pile of information (advertisements?), and besides, those solutions are not complete~.

想着自己虽然也写了不少有关建站方面的文章，不过大多是针对某一个或者几个技术点，貌似还没有从头开始全面的介绍过”从无到有”建站的各种方案和技术的选择(传说中的新手大礼包？)，那就写一篇”从无到有”独立个人博客建站指南吧，一来，希望能帮助那些想建站却毫无头绪的朋友；二来，也算是全面梳理一下目前自己建站方面的知识点，看看有哪些疏漏，然后查漏补缺，毕竟，建站是”真·家庭数据中心解决方案”最重要的部分之一。

Note: This article does not discuss specific technical details, but only sorts out the principles.

Choose a general direction (very important)

由于众所周知的原因(懂的都懂，不懂的就不用在意了)，对于想要搭建个人博客的朋友，最好是一开始选择一个大的方向：博客主要是面向国内用户还是国外用户，因为根据选择的不同，后续涉及到的建议方案内容也不同。不过不管选择哪个方向，第一步都是购买一个心仪的域名，这个就看个人喜好了，不过相对来说”.com”域名可攻可守，国内国外都行，而一些地域性的域名(比如”.jp”)，国外搜索引擎收录的时候优先级就不如”.com”，而且某些时候因为政治因素还可能造成访问问题，所以要慎重。

注1：域名的选择不是乱选择的，当然，如果只是自己搭个博客自娱自乐到无所谓，啥名都行，但是如果稍微考虑长远一点，比如打造个人品牌甚至以后的商业品牌，那么域名的选择上还是要稍微花点精力研究下，关于如何选择合适的域名网上有很多文章介绍技巧，我就不多说了，不过有一点心得是，如果能选择到”你的网名.xxx”之类的域名，那么有个附带的好处是：你在推广网站的同时，连自己也一同推广了。。，而如果你的网名不是那种耳熟能详的英文名，比如：James，Robert，John之类，你就会发现，随着你的网站排名变高，你的网名的搜索排名也越来越高，最后到第一，虽然没啥用，但是自己搜自己网名就出现自己的博客，那种感觉还是蛮爽的：），从某个角度来说，其他使用和你相同网名的人都算被你打败了(自娱自乐)～～。

Note 2: It is not too important to choose a domain name provider because domain names can be transferred, but the transfer process takes several days. If you are targeting the domestic market, you can directly purchase the domain name from the cloud provider you plan to use in the future, so as to avoid wasting time and effort. However, if you are targeting overseas markets, it is not recommended to purchase domain names from domestic providers. It is recommended to purchase directly from overseas providers, or transfer the existing domain names to overseas providers for management.

Domestic

If you are mainly targeting the domestic market, then personal registration is the first thing you need to face. Generally speaking, for individuals, the most convenient way to register is to buy a cloud server from a cloud provider (Tencent Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, etc.) (the cheapest type that can be registered is fine. The lowest-end Tencent Cloud that can be registered seems to be a lightweight server. Because I use this, it must be the lowest-end that can be registered). You can get a registration code (Tencent calls it a registration authorization code, and Alibaba calls it a registration service code), and then register at the website provided by the cloud provider, such as Tencent Cloud:

Each cloud provider has its own corresponding registration link, so I will not go into detail one by one. One thing I want to mention is that if you have any questions about registration, you can directly call or ask the corresponding customer service department of the cloud provider online. They will be very enthusiastic to help. After all, registration means that you are a potential major user.

In addition: Regarding the filing process and matters needing attention after filing, I have also mentioned it in another article. If you need it, you can refer to the following link:Summary of filing knowledge pointsI have hidden some sensitive parts, but the parts related to filing are released directly.

Facing abroad

If you are mainly targeting overseas markets, then it will be much more flexible and you don't need to register. Depending on your budget (rich people can do whatever they want, or you can do it for free) and the way you choose to build the website (see the next section), there are many options and you can choose what you want.

Blog site building method selection

After choosing the general direction, you can choose how to build a blog. Generally speaking, the recommended blog building methods are divided into two categories: dynamic blogs and static blogs. In theory, each has its own advantages and disadvantages (why do I say theoretically? I will explain later).

Dynamic Blog

Taking WordPress as an example, its page content is not fixed, but is dynamically constructed based on client browser requests using server-side scripting languages and databases. Therefore, it can provide personalized content and interactive experience (for example, displaying related articles, comments, and recommended content based on user preferences).

Main advantages: It has a large user base, rich technical information, and complete plug-in support. Even newcomers can easily expand functions through plug-ins. It is very suitable for beginners, and it provides comment function and full-text search function by default.

Main disadvantages: Because it requires database support, it can only be installed on the server, which invisibly increases the cost of use; you have to worry about security protection yourself (such as being attacked by DDOS); the default loading is slow (content is dynamically generated), and it does not support CDN cache well, so it needs to be optimized, etc.

Static Blog

Taking hexo as an example, based on the node.js environment, its pages are generated in advance and will not dynamically generate content based on different user requests (semi-dynamic effects can be achieved through some means).

主要优点：不需要服务器(可以直接托管在支持构建node.js环境的托管商的云上)；不怕DDOS攻击；对CDN缓存支持好，可以实现全站缓存，所以访问速度快。

Main disadvantages: There is no management backend, so publishing, updating, and backup are all rather troublesome; comments, full-text search, and other functions are not supported by default and need to be implemented by yourself; it requires a certain level of manual work ability and is not suitable for newcomers who do not understand code at all.

“动” VS “静” 如何选择

In essence, both have their own advantages and disadvantages and are suitable for different fields. It is hard to say which one is better, so you must first confirm your needs and the effects you want to achieve before making a choice.

For newcomers to build websites, I think WordPress may be more friendly. After all, many newcomers do not understand code at all (such as me). WordPress has a backend that can be directly logged in for management, supports a variety of plug-ins, and supports simplified Chinese by default. Basically, newcomers can quickly master basic skills through learning. In addition, for personal blogs, it is very important to support the comment function: if you post an article and someone comments on it, it means that your article is useful to others, and others can also give direct feedback, which is a very pleasant feeling. In addition, the full-text search function is also very practical, so that others can quickly search for the content they need on your blog. As for other shortcomings, such as slow loading speed, DDOS attacks, etc., there are corresponding solutions, which just take some time and are not a big problem.

So what scenarios are static blogs suitable for? If you just want to display your own content, such as your resume or your study notes, and don't care much about the comment and search functions, or if you have coding skills and can write the functions you want yourself (or want to learn and write while building a blog), then static blogs are very suitable. The key is that it saves trouble. You don't need to prepare a server. You can just find a place to host it and put it in the cloud. Then again, there are ways to achieve comment and search, but it's a bit more troublesome. Does it need to be the same as dynamic blogs?

Domestic blog site building (important)

现在来谈谈前面我为什么说”动态博客和静态博客理论上各有优劣势”这个问题，这个问题其实很关键，很多朋友因为不知道”理论上”和”实际上”的差别，造成最后博客搭建完都运行了一段时间又不得不关掉；或者本来是wordpress，最后没办法又迁移到静态博客上(博客内容迁移是很折腾的一件事，没大的理由谁愿意折腾)；或者是本来搭建在国内服务器，后来不得不搬到国外服务器之类的浪费时间、精力，影响心情的行为。

1. Domestic individual registered entities cannot open forums

Ordinary friends may think that this has nothing to do with you, since you don't run a forum, but in China, anything with comments is a forum. Therefore, with this rule, the comment function of WordPress (or other dynamic blogs) is useless. Of course, if a personal website has no traffic, no one will care about it, but if it is discovered, it will be required to make corrections.

2. There is no easy-to-use and free code hosting platform in China

Actually, gitee can host static blogs, but it requires real-name registration, and custom domain names and automatic deployment are charged. Under the current audit intensity, can your personal blog articles be spared? Originally, I wanted to write articles as I pleased when I set up a personal blog, but now it is still subject to audit (every new article must be audited), and I have seen many people online saying that their blog articles disappeared. Of course, I have never actually used it, so you can also try it. Or you can choose to pay, which Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud both have, but I have not studied it because it requires payment.

From the above two points, dynamic blogs cannot comment, and static blogs do not have a good hosting platform. They are equally good and their advantages cannot be brought into play. Overall, it can be considered a draw.

Therefore, if you are targeting the domestic market, are willing to register and have already purchased a cloud host, then it doesn’t matter whether you choose a dynamic blog or a static blog. Anyway, the cloud host is ready-made (a must), and you can install whatever you want. The main feature is to be willful~, of course, a dynamic blog (taking WordPress as an example) is still simpler (in my opinion), because it is not very convenient to manage a static blog directly deployed on a VPS: the normal logic is that after the local blog is created, it is pushed to the code repository, and then the VPS directly pulls it from the code repository. However, domestic gitee is not convenient, and the connectivity of foreign github cannot be guaranteed. Directly deploying the blog on the VPS requires considering the problem of scheduled backup, which is far less convenient than a WordPress backup plug-in to complete the data migration of the entire site. Therefore, I still recommend WordPress for domestic website building, but you can’t comment.

Foreign blog site building

如果个人博客主要是面向国外，那可选方式就很多了，也可以按照自己的心意随意选择”静态博客”还是”动态博客”。

1. Choose a static blog

If you want to use a static blog, there are many options that support free hosting of static pages: github pages, Vercel, Netlify, cloudflare pages, etc., and the last three all support continuous integration using github as the warehouse. In terms of access speed, Vercel is said to have the best domestic access because it has a Hong Kong node, but the speed problem can also be alleviated in other ways. In general, the cost of using a static blog abroad is the lowest (good news for freeloaders).

2. Choose a dynamic blog

If you want to choose a dynamic blog (such as WordPress), then you need to purchase a VPS. There are many online tutorials and various foreign VPS suppliers (including Tencent Cloud and Alibaba Cloud's overseas servers). You can choose according to your needs.

其实，对于搭建动态博客而言，也并不是只有是买”国内云主机”、还是买”国外云主机”这两种方式可以选择，至少从现阶段而言，还有第3种选择，也就是本博客主推的”家庭数据中心”解决方案：对国外建站而言，可以结合cloudflare的tunnel技术打通内网直接建站，也不需要备案，然后内网随便用个nas也好，利旧闲置设备也好，用docker搭一个wordpress就可以了，只不过国内访问速度不咋地；对国内建站而言，如果家庭宽带有公网IP(公网IPv4或者公网IPv6都行)，且有备案域名，是可以直接将家里的主机作为源站的，结合CDN直接进行发布的(具体还要看当时的政策，这个变化很快，不好说)。

Preparation before you start writing

Think before you act, be targeted

当大部分新人花了大力气把博客搭建起来，然后看到大大的”hello world”之后，往往迷惘的应该就是怎么开始这个问题了(我自己就是，从搭建起wordpress到写下第一篇文章，起码过了一个月)；也有很多朋友刚搭建起博客，一般的常规操作是记录自己搭建博客的过程，使用什么主题，怎么优化之类的操作、或者记录在不同框架之间迁移博客的步骤，这些其实都没问题，但是这些内容写完之后呢？可能就不知道该写啥了，这种类型的博客不在少数，所以在正式开始之前应该对博客相关的一些问题有一个大概的考量。

Blog route

这个最好是从一开始就规划好：技术类？影视类？情感类？笔记类？当然，随心所欲类也可以，总之，最好是一开始就定好路线，因为有了这个路线，后续组织博客的站点布局、随后的学习和写文章、以及以后可能的seo优化才能有的放矢，比如，我的很多文章都是围绕”家庭数据中心”这个核心思想在写，因为我这个博客主要想hold住的概念就是”真·家庭数据中心解决方案”。

From the time I started blogging to now, I have revised my website’s categories, links, and layout several times. Each revision has caused a big blow to SEO. So, if you can set the big framework right from the beginning, you won’t need to make big changes later, which will be very beneficial in the future (in fact, everyone who knows a little about SEO knows this, but newbies don’t think so much when building a website. I suffered from this. As my understanding of SEO deepened, I revised the big pages three times).

Note: In theory, this should have been thought about earlier, because choosing a dynamic blog or a static blog is also related to the route chosen for the blog.

The appearance and layout of your blog

This is actually the first practical problem that a newcomer must face when building a website.

It took me one month to build WordPress and publish my first article. What did I do during this month? I was studying basic concepts, including but not limited to: what is a menu (including top menu and sidebar menu), what is a category directory, what are pages, what are articles, what are custom links, and the pile of files in the theme file editor. These things are boring to learn, and the most important thing is that I don’t know what they are (for example, a category directory, I always thought it was just a page with some links~).

Once the above concepts are clear, you can start learning the blog layout of those excellent bloggers. The most efficient way is“抄”Learn from others. Learn from others' themes, layouts (this is very important), useful plugins used by others, etc. The most important thing is the layout. The layouts presented by excellent bloggers are fixed after countless changes. They must have their own unique features. Using this layout to design your own blog can help you avoid many detours. Of course, you can't copy it completely. In the end, you have to make adjustments based on the route selected for your own blog.

Choose the right image hosting solution

Image hosting is very important for blogs. Generally, many new bloggers like to upload images directly to the media library of their blogs. This has a big problem:
1. As the number of articles increases, there are more and more pictures, which makes the blog more and more bloated, and it is inconvenient to migrate the blog
2. The blog is also responsible for the storage and access of images, which indirectly reduces the response performance of the blog. Of course, this can be alleviated through CDN caching.
3. Pictures and blogs are not separated, and some security policies are not convenient to configure (the access policy requirements for blogs and image hosting are different)

Therefore, it is best to determine the image hosting solution from the beginning (such as using chevereto to build your own image hosting). It is troublesome to modify it in the middle (such as migrating images from the blog media library to an external image hosting). Moreover, the migration of the external image hosting itself is also troublesome (especially when the image hosting domain name needs to be changed), because it involves modifying the image links in the WordPress database articles. Although it is not troublesome, it is better to have less trouble than more. It is best to choose the most suitable solution from the beginning and use it all the time. Less trouble is the best way.

Advanced requirements (access acceleration and DDOS attack protection)

Regardless of whether the final blog is for domestic or overseas use, and whether the VPS is used domestically or abroad, once the blog is built, it will face the same problems: access acceleration and DDOS attack protection (DDOS attack protection is only for dynamic blogs).

Access acceleration

Domestic website construction:

If you set up a blog on a VPS and directly point the access domain name to the public IP of the VPS, the access experience in this way will definitely be very bad:
1. Cloud servers have corresponding upstream bandwidth limits (usually 3M or 4M). Although it is more than enough to run a personal blog with low traffic, its scalability is greatly limited (what if you suddenly become big and powerful~)
2. Cloud servers are all regional (you normally buy the one closest to you, or buy the one that is cheaper during promotions). The access experience from other regions is definitely not as good as that of the same region.

So at this time, you need to use CDN (Content Distribution Network). Put the website content on CDN for acceleration. When visitors from all over the country visit, it is equivalent to your website being located in the same area as the visitors, so you can achieve local access, and the speed is of course faster. If you choose the CDN provided by the supplier of your VPS, CDN to your VPS belongs to intranet access, which is not subject to the upstream bandwidth limit of the cloud server itself (the upper limit of the cloud server bandwidth is for access to the external network, not for the internal network), which can indirectly upgrade your server to unlimited upload bandwidth. Moreover, CDN traffic is generally cheaper, for example, Tencent Cloud is 20 yuan for 100G/year, which is still very affordable.

Overseas website construction

If the VPS is purchased abroad (or an overseas node of Tencent or Alibaba) or directly hosted abroad and provides static page services, you can directly use the CDN service provided by Cloudflare's personal free plan, which is more than enough for general personal sites.

Can you have your cake and eat it too?

其实”一定程度上”可以。

Domestic website acceleration abroad

For example, if you want to build a website in China but want overseas users to access it quickly, you can choose the acceleration area of the registered domain name:

不过我没搞懂的是，如果想”真·加速全球”应该怎么买区域流量包，难道全部买一遍？这方面我没有仔细研究了，毕竟我没怎么用，应该是有解决办法的，就是看价格问题了。

Foreign website construction accelerates domestic

This has to do with the website building method you choose (dynamic or static), the hosting provider you choose (only involves static blogs), and the CDN manufacturer (such as cloudflare).

For example:
1. If you choose a static blog and Vercel as your hosting provider, then when you use a custom domain name to publish your blog, the speed of accessing your blog in China will be faster than choosing other hosting providers (Netlify, github pages, etc.). This is because Vercel has a Hong Kong node.
2、如果选择了动态博客的，并且选择了cloudflare作为你的CDN厂商，那么正常情况下，可以通过一些优化手段(比如通过合理的设置缓存规则或者基于worker的优化方式(每天有10万次请求的免费额度)。
3. If you choose a static blog and the access experience is not good, you can use it in conjunction with cloudflare.

为什么是”一定程度上”可以兼得？

In fact, neither of the above two ways is perfect:
1. Domestic website construction accelerates overseas

It only solves the speed of accessing your blog from abroad. However, your blog itself is based on a registered domain name, and the content you publish still needs to follow domestic regulations. For example, the content cannot involve sensitive content, and cannot have functions that are not allowed in China, such as comments, etc. You may also face the problem of low priority in foreign search engines (because it is a domestic IP).

2. Building websites abroad to accelerate domestic development

能使用的办法都是网络”正常”时候才能有效的，遇到”不正常”的时候：比如国内开大会、或者特殊事件、特殊时期，则访问效果也就无法保证，打不开都是正常的。

Therefore, you can try to have both, but don’t rely too much on one. You still have to choose in advance whether you want to focus mainly on domestic or foreign markets.

DDOS attack protection (dynamic blog)

Why do I single out DDOS attack protection? Compared to other security issues, DDOS attacks are the most technically inefficient but most effective, and the cost of attack is also very low: just mindlessly send an http flood attack to the homepage of the website, and the source addresses come from all over the world. The following is the data of one of my attacks.
The total number of requests is 651 million, and the peak number of requests is 171 million/second:

Therefore, this is also a question that friends who choose dynamic blogs must consider. How to carry out basic protection? We should also discuss it separately for domestic and foreign website construction.

Domestic website construction

If you are building a website in China, you can only go to your VPS provider to find a DDOS protection solution, such as the DDOS protection provided by Tencent Cloud:

However, for personal blogs, most people are unlikely to buy these, and most people will use CDN, and will not directly resolve the source site address for access. Therefore, if they encounter a DDOS attack normally, they will most likely use the CDN traffic to resist it. Fortunately, CDN traffic is not expensive, and it is enough to cope with a small-scale attack occasionally. You can also set a certain threshold to directly shut down the CDN service, so it is still acceptable for general personal blogs.

注：现在腾讯新推出了”edgeone”，就是”边缘安全加速平台”，是一个一体化式的安全加速解决方案(感觉类似于cloudflare)，但是具体如何我就不知道了，毕竟是收费的，我积极性不太高，讲道理，一个三级域名一个月9元的价格也不算贵，就是不知道能做到cloudflare的几层水准，等我有空的时候花9元的巨款去尝试下。

Overseas website construction

If you are building a website abroad, then you don’t have to worry about it. With Cloudflare’s free plan, if you set it up correctly, it can block DDOS attack traffic of more than 99%. Cloudflare also has a basket of other security optimization functions. We will talk about this later when we have the chance.

Ask yourself again: Do you really need a personal blog?

其实吧，我还是想说，独立个人博客并不适合绝大部分的人，这其实才是正常的，每个人的性格、喜好都不一样，对同一件事的态度就也不同，所以大家一定要慎重，毕竟折腾独立个人博客要学很多东西、浪费很多时间，甚至花费很多金钱，有这些时间和金钱花在其他的爱好上也许能收获更多的快乐，至于有关”当下个人博客存在的意义”这个话题，我在另一篇文章(The significance of personal blogs today, from the birth of my blog) has been discussed in the previous article. If you are interested, you can take a look. I will not repeat it here. I will just briefly talk about what you have to pay and what you can get from building an independent personal blog.

Contributions (may include but are not limited to the following items)

1. Money

Money to purchase domain names, money to purchase VPS, money to purchase acceleration and security features.

2. The time cost of learning knowledge

The time it takes to learn a lot of technologies that you may have never heard of before (and you may have to keep learning).

3. Time cost of operation and maintenance

The time spent troubleshooting, learning related technologies, and handling problems (including attacks)

注：时间成本也是成本，毕竟俗话说得好”时间就是金钱，我的朋友！”。

Harvest (may include but not limited to the following items)

1. Systematic summary of the knowledge learned

博客不是本地的笔记，随便写几句自己看得懂就行，毕竟还是可能有人看的，这种情况下，不提前梳理好就发出来，也是扫了自己的面子，所以一般还是会尽量梳理得有条理才发出来，这样无形之中就是逼自己对相关知识点做了系统性的总结，然后会发现：”好记性不如烂笔头”这句老话好有道理。

Additional benefit: When you do the same thing in the future, you can directly refer to the articles you wrote before without having to search the Internet again.

2. More rigorous logical thinking

In fact, many times, when I start to write an article (including this one), I only have a general idea, and I can’t think of the details at all. However, as the writing process progresses, a lot of content and ideas will naturally appear in my mind. If I am not clear, I will look up relevant information myself, and then continue to move forward. Over time, your logical thinking will be exercised and your on-the-spot reaction will become faster.

In terms of work: for pre-sales, it means that when pre-sales engineers communicate with users, they can set traps and guide user needs in a more organized manner and respond to user questions quickly (the classic representative line is: This is a good question!); for after-sales, it means that after-sales engineers can quickly locate the fault point and quickly find a way to deal with the fault.

从生活上体现：就是辩论或者吵架水平的提升，证明之一就是在和同学进行”技术性”吵架的时候赢的次数明显增多，因为寥寥几句话就发现了对方逻辑上的弱点，然后一击致命～～，总之好处多多，嗯，忽然想到一张图：

3. Personal business card (for showing off)

This is actually quite practical. Imagine a scenario: you go to a job interview with others, and others can only introduce themselves through resumes and conversations, but you say: just search my online name on Google or Bing, and the first thing that comes up is my blog. The level is immediately different, okay? It’s exciting just to think about it. However, this depends on whether your online name is too common or not. This is very important!

4. Your own pure land (excluding domestic website building)

In this day and age, there are not many places where you can speak freely (without being too arrogant) without your posts being deleted or your account being blocked at will, so cherish every opportunity you have.

5. Commercial value (not relevant to 99.99% people)

This is an ideal situation. If a personal blog is well done, one can create his own brand or grab the rankings of some valuable keywords through SEO. It is not impossible to monetize it, but most people should not even think about it.

Independent personal blog is not the only option

Actually, to be honest, building an independent personal blog is still a very troublesome thing. Take WordPress blog building as an example: starting from choosing a domain name, to VPS, to building, to designing the layout, to optimizing access, to various security configurations, and to finding ways to solve problems when they occur, and also worrying about the subsequent SEO promotion. . . For some friends who just want to simply record their lives and study notes, these are completely meaningless investments (except for those who like to toss). For these friends, some ready-made blog hosting services, such as wordpress.com, wordpress.org, www.blogger.com, etc. may be the best choice. Although the style is a little low, it saves a lot of trouble. After all, the key to measuring whether a blog is good is whether it can maintain a long-term and continuous high-quality output of high-quality articles, and whether it is an independent personal blog is not that important.

Final Thoughts

When you have accumulated a certain number of blog posts, you need to consider the issue of SEO (it is best to plan it from the beginning). For independent personal blogs that are not well-known, search engine traffic is a very important source. However, in China, Baidu is basically the only one that controls the market. It is very difficult for personal blogs to rely on Baidu for traffic. They can only rely on posting articles on large platforms to attract traffic (in fact, the traffic they can attract is very small). The inclusion of Google and Bing is much fairer. As long as you do some basic configuration of site SEO, it is still easy to be included. However, the final ranking depends on your content, which requires time to study.

Another question: It seems that Google's efficiency and weight in indexing domestic IP sites are not as good as those in indexing foreign IP sites? Under normal circumstances, if you use foreign IP to build a website, most of the traffic should come from Google (for example, I sometimes get close to 90%). For blogs that use domestic IP to build a website, I have seen some bloggers say that only a small amount of traffic comes from Google. This makes me speculate. Or is it related to using .cn domain names? I can't confirm this either. After all, the sample size is too small and it is difficult to judge. If you know, please leave me a message.