This is a pretty major announcement. Existential, possibly, even, for this site.
It's time for another reset. The Online Photographer has been on TypePad since 2007, and on the Web since November 2005. Unfortunately, we will not quite celebrate our 20th anniversary here: TypePad announced yesterday that it is closing down at the end of September and that all content will be removed from the Web. Including all of TOP. For me, it's a lot of content and not much time. Jeez.
So I'm starting by making fresh backups of everything and will immediately begin the task of building anew on a different service. Whether I can export the old content over or not is something I do not know. They certainly didn't give us a lot of notice...at least not specifically; the handwriting has been on the wall for a while now. I probably should have done something by now, but, you know, hindsight is 20/20. (Ironically, 2020 is when I should have done something. Let's move on.)
I'm leaning toward relaunching on SquareSpace (or perhaps Hostinger or Wix)* and am now actively looking for professional help with that. I would welcome your comments! Not something I know much about.
Does anyone know a good SquareSpace or Wix site designer who might be available, um, soon? I've tried and failed to build my own SquareSpace site in the past.
Dangerous pivot point?
This is a "dangerous opportunity," as John F. Kennedy used to say in his speeches. He said it was the translation for "crisis" from the Chinese. I'm told that's not quite correct. The Chinese word for crisis is wēijī (危机), the first character (wēi, 危) meaning danger and the second (jī, 机) meaning a turning point or inflection point.
But it's time. Maybe this will be good for me. This old site had gotten clunky, ineffective, and kind of fusty—it's not responsive, and there's zero SEO. Basic functions have been deteriorating. For one thing, simply loading illustrations on to the site has gotten extremely problematic and frustrating in recent months, soaking up a lot of time and leading to regular frustration.
Can't say I'm happy with the short notice—awkward time for this to happen, since I'm also in the run-up to a medical operation with a long recuperation period—but maybe we'll be okay.
Any advice, information, opinions or thoughts?
—Mike, the mostly incompetent TOP IT guy
*I've made multiple attempts to come up to speed with WordPress and it's just too complicated for me. I'm an "old dog" in the Learning Tricks Dept. The simpler this can be, the better. Also, I know a lot of people like the idea of Substack, but affiliate links can't be used in emails, so I'm leery of launching on anything that's basically an email newsletter. I'd like to continue as a classic, plain, old-style free blog.
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My thinking would be Substack. I'm not sure how they handle images though. The ability to monetize some of your posts though would be huge though. Just my cheap two cents.
Posted by: Josh Hawkins | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 05:36 PM
...I'd like to continue as a classic, plain, old-style free blog..."
Then you might reconsider Wordpress. It does quite well as a blogging tool.
There are two Wordpress paths: Wordpress.org and Wordpress.com. From Google's AI:
Also, an internet search for "convert typepad to wordpress" returns many articles.
Posted by: DavidB | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 06:22 PM
Have you looked into Substack? Maybe move to a newsletter model? You could get subscribers. Some free posts for the masses and some posts behind a paywall. No idea about the financials but I’ve followed and subscribed to a few on Substack.
Posted by: Aaron | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 06:27 PM
My expertise in this area is very out-of-date, but my advice, for what it’s worth:
By all means stick with a website (weblog, “blog”) platform. That’s the best way for search engines to find you.
Find a provider that makes it easy for readers to comment because engagement with your audience translates into clicks on affiliate links.
Kirk Tuck (one of the few other sites I regularly read) uses Google’s Blogger. He seems to have had a number of problems with it lately, but it is probably going to be around for the long term. I would recommend that you talk to him about his experience since I suspect I’m not the only member of your overlapping audiences.
If you really are intent on preserving your posting history, try to contact Typepad customer support (assuming it still exists), and ask for assistance in archiving your content.
Bad break. But a lot of stuff is constantly breaking on the Internet.
Good luck.
Posted by: Chris Kern | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 06:28 PM
Hey Mike,
That sucks. I've been looking around for a place to do anything internet forward as an aging (soon to be obsolete) photographer and I keep coming back to SquaresSpace. It does have a blog tool so maybe ...
Hopefully, you'll figure all this out and land on your feet - upright with no major bruises!
Again, I'm right there with you on the loss of photographic intellectual capital disappearing.
I natter on ...
Ed
Posted by: Ed Kreminski | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 06:36 PM
Yikes! That's a BUNCH (capitals) of work. Sorry to hear this. No idea how to help either, sorry.
Good luck.
Peace and all that,
Dean
Posted by: Dean Johnston | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 07:32 PM
I read the news about typepad and thought of you… yikes! That’s not a long time…
I wouldn’t go to substack but there are competing services. See this page for some options.
https://leavesubstack.com/
Maybe some of them allow affiliate links? Remember also that these services aren’t just email newsletters, they are also blog style websites…
I know you don’t want to go to Wordpress but here is a guide for moving there from typepad
https://firstsiteguide.com/move-movabletype-and-typepad-to-wordpress/
There are more guides like this one out there too
I don’t think wix supports importing so I’d scratch that off the list.
But it looks like squarespace does:
https://5help.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205632287-Importing-Movable-Type-or-TypePad-blog-posts
Posted by: Ben | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 07:35 PM
Yes, seek professional help. Make and secure a good backup of your database ASAP, and update as you get closer to D-Day. You lose your DB, and you lose everything.
I would highly recommend WordPress which has a long history as a blogging platform, excellent authoring experience, and most importantly enjoys a HUGE population of yeoman web-designers. A WP guru can easily create a stock WP installation, with perhaps a half-dozen convenience and security modules for SEO, image handling and Spam control.
WP hosting can be very minimal for a low-traffic website, and you can gain a huge security boost by putting CloudFlare between your host and the World Wide Web, which also costs almost nothing.
Your main expense will be with the export-import, but I'm quite sure it will be easier to go from Blogger to WP, than to Square Space. Do NOT scrimp here, and make sure your professional has experience and a track record.
Your existing website has minimal requirements for the front-end appearance. That alone removes $1,000 or $several,000 from your expense. You can always make it prettier as a secondary project later on.
(I've been a web developer since we were inventing the Internet. My prejudice is for Drupal, which is extremely robust and secure, but it has higher development costs, and far fewer programmers. With WP, if you have a falling out with your developer, you can find a dozen waiting in the wings.)
Posted by: Tom Stermitz | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 07:41 PM
I saw the typepad news on a news site today, and immediately thought of this site. I know you said that you have had trouble learning WordPress, but there is a WordPress importer for typepad content. I don't know the details, but it would allow the archive to move over.
Posted by: James Ziegler | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 08:00 PM
I don’t know how much or if you care, but wix is an israeli company which, at least early on, was supporting the genocide in Gaza. I would go with Squarespace, personally.
Posted by: Alex Buisse | Thursday, 28 August 2025 at 08:27 PM
I have no suggestions on where to go, just where not to go: Substack. The site has a major problem with scores of white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi and holocaust denier newsletters on hosted on it. Because the site takes a cut of subscription revenue, this meant that Substack is willingly making money off extremists. This is not a place that TOP should be associated with, Mike.
Posted by: William Lewis | Friday, 29 August 2025 at 05:37 AM