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~.

While I've written quite a few articles about website building, most focus on one or a few technical aspects. It seems I haven't yet provided a comprehensive overview of various solutions and technology choices for building a website "from scratch" (a legendary beginner's guide?). So, I'll write a "From Scratch" guide to building an independent personal blog. Firstly, I hope it can help those who want to build a website but have no clue where to start. Secondly, it will also serve as a comprehensive review of my current knowledge of website building, identifying any gaps and filling them in. After all, website building is one of the most important parts of a "true home data center solution."

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

Choose a general direction (very important)

For well-known reasons (those who know, know; those who don't, don't worry about it), for those wanting to build a personal blog, it's best to choose a broad direction from the start: whether the blog is primarily aimed at domestic or international users. This choice will influence the subsequent recommended solutions. Regardless of the direction chosen, the first step is to purchase a domain name you like. This is a matter of personal preference, but relatively speaking, ".com" domains are more versatile, working both domestically and internationally. However, some regional domains (such as ".jp") have lower priority in indexing by international search engines than ".com," and may even cause access problems due to political factors in some cases, so caution is advised.

Note 1: Domain name selection isn't random. Of course, if you're just setting up a blog for your own amusement, any name will do. However, if you're thinking a bit further ahead, such as building a personal brand or even a future commercial brand, then you'll need to put some effort into choosing a domain name. There are many articles online that introduce techniques for choosing a suitable domain name, so I won't go into detail. But one thing I've noticed is that if you can choose a domain like "your username.xxx", there's an added benefit: you're promoting yourself while promoting your website. And if your username isn't a well-known English name, like James, Robert, or John, you'll find that as your website ranking improves, your username's search ranking also improves, eventually reaching number one. While it doesn't really matter, it's still pretty satisfying to see your blog appear when you search for your own username. From a certain perspective, you've essentially beaten everyone else using the same username (just for fun)~~.

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).

Key advantages: No server required (can be hosted directly on the cloud of a hosting provider that supports building Node.js environments); not afraid of DDoS attacks; good support for CDN caching, enabling site-wide caching, resulting in fast access speeds.

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.

“"Dynamic" VS "Static": How to Choose?

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)

Now let's talk about why I said earlier that "dynamic blogs and static blogs each have their own advantages and disadvantages in theory." This is actually a crucial question. Many people don't understand the difference between "theoretically" and "in practice," which leads to situations where they set up their blogs, run them for a while, and then have to shut them down; or they started with WordPress but eventually had to migrate to a static blog (migrating blog content is a very troublesome thing, and nobody wants to go through that without a good reason); or they started with a domestic server but later had to move it to a foreign server, which is a waste of time, energy, and mood.

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

If your personal blog is primarily aimed at overseas audiences, then you have many options and can choose between a "static blog" or a "dynamic blog" as you please.

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.

Actually, when it comes to building a dynamic blog, there aren't just two options: buying a "domestic cloud server" or a "foreign cloud server." At least for now, there's a third option, which is the "home data center" solution that this blog mainly recommends: For overseas websites, you can use Cloudflare's tunnel technology to connect to your intranet and build a website directly without needing to register it. Then, you can use any NAS or reuse existing idle equipment on your intranet and build a WordPress site using Docker. However, the access speed within China isn't great. For domestic websites, if your home broadband has a public IP address (public IPv4 or public IPv6 is fine) and a registered domain name, you can directly use your home server as the origin server and publish it directly using a CDN (the specifics depend on the policies at the time, which change rapidly, so it's hard to say).

Preparation before you start writing

Think before you act, be targeted

When most newcomers spend a lot of effort setting up their blogs and then see the big "hello world" sign, they often feel lost about how to even begin (I was one of them; it took at least a month from setting up WordPress to writing my first post). Many people who have just started blogging typically document their process: what theme they used, how they optimized it, or the steps they took to migrate their blog between different frameworks. These are all fine, but what happens after that? They might not know what to write next. This type of blogging is quite common, so it's essential to have a general understanding of some blog-related issues before officially starting.

Blog route

Ideally, this should be planned from the beginning: technical? film and television? emotional? notes? Of course, whatever you like is fine too. In short, it's best to determine the route from the start, because with this route, the subsequent organization of the blog's site layout, subsequent learning and writing, and possible future SEO optimization can be more targeted. For example, many of my articles revolve around the core idea of "home data center," because the main concept I want to hold on to this blog is "true home data center solutions."

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“"copy"”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?

Actually, it is possible "to a certain extent".

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:

However, what I don't understand is how to buy regional data packages if I want to "truly accelerate globally." Do I have to buy them all at once? I haven't researched this in detail, since I haven't used it much. There should be a solution, it just depends on the price.

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. If you have chosen a dynamic blog and Cloudflare as your CDN provider, you can normally optimize your system through various means, such as setting reasonable caching rules or worker-based optimization (which offers a free quota of 100,000 requests per day).
3. If you choose a static blog and the access experience is not good, you can use it in conjunction with cloudflare.

Why is it that you can have both "to a certain extent"?

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

The methods that can be used are only effective when the network is "normal". When encountering "abnormal" situations, such as when there is a major conference in China, or during special events or special periods, the access effect cannot be guaranteed, and it is normal that the page cannot be opened.

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.

Note: Tencent has recently launched "edgeone," which is an integrated security acceleration platform (sounds similar to Cloudflare). However, I don't know the specifics of how it performs, since it's a paid service. I'm not very enthusiastic about it. To be honest, 9 yuan a month for a third-level domain isn't expensive. I just don't know how far Cloudflare's service level it can reach. I'll spend that huge sum of 9 yuan to try it out when I have time.

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?

Actually, I still want to say that independent personal blogs are not suitable for most people, which is actually normal. Everyone's personality and preferences are different, and their attitudes towards the same thing will also be different. So everyone must be careful. After all, setting up an independent personal blog requires learning a lot, wasting a lot of time, and even spending a lot of money. You might gain more happiness by spending that time and money on other hobbies. As for the topic of "the significance of personal blogs in the present day," I will discuss that in another article (…).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)

Note: Time is also a cost; after all, as the saying goes, "Time is money, my friend!"

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

1. Systematic summary of the knowledge learned

A blog isn't like a local notebook where you can just write a few sentences that you can understand yourself, since there's always someone else who might read it. In that case, posting it without organizing it beforehand would be embarrassing. So, I usually try to organize it as systematically as possible before posting it. This forces me to systematically summarize the relevant knowledge points, and then I realize how true the old saying "a bad pen is worse than a good memory" really is.

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.

In real life, this manifests as an improvement in debating or arguing skills. One example is the significantly increased number of wins in "technical" arguments with classmates, because I can quickly identify their logical weaknesses with just a few words and deliver a fatal blow. In short, there are many benefits. Hmm, suddenly a picture comes to mind:

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.