It is no doubt that WordPress is one of the most popular open source blogging software there is in the market. However, as popular as it is, there is a question of just how much people know about the functionality of WordPress. Just how many WordPress users know what an API key is and what you need it for? It can be quite confusing especially for newbies to find out where to get an API key and to know exactly when you need it. If you have been having a hard time regarding WordPress and API key, this article may be just what you need to ease your confusion.
The first thing you need to know is that there are two sites of WordPress; WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com enables you to register and start a blog that will be hosted on the WordPress.com domain. The URL of the blog takes the form of myblog.wordpress.com where my blog is the blog name that you have chosen meaning that it is a sub domain name. WordPress.org on the other hand is the site that enables you to download all the files that you need in order to install and also run a self hosted blog. In this case, you have your own domain and the blog will be named as www.domain.com.
So, where exactly does the confusion set in? In the case of WordPress.com, you get an API key once you register. However, even if you are running a self hosted blog with installation help from WordPress.org, you still need an API key to be able to access some of the plugins that you might need from WordPress.com. You thus need to register at WordPress.com to get an API key. The API key is thus account specific and not blog specific.
Whenever you are creating a self hosted blog, you get to set login details and to have a user name and password. Note that the resources for self hosted blogs are acquired at WordPress.org. To access your self-hosted blog, you need to login to the dashboard of your blog through your domain using the login details you got at registration. In case you need to use some plugins like Akismet, you will need to register at WordPress.com and get other login details that are different from your blog’s. For all the blogs that you have registered on wordpress.com, you will use the same API key regardless of whether they were hosted on wordpress.com or on self hosted.
There are times when you can login to your self-hosted only to find that you need to download some plugins from WordPress.com. In such a case, you are redirected to WordPress.com global dashboard where you have to login. The login window is similar to that of your self-hosted blog but the URL is different so make sure you do not enter your blog’s login details here to avoid confusion. After logging in, you can access the needed plugins using your API key. However, in the case of self-hosted blogs, API key is only needed to download plugins.
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