WordPress API Key Global Dashboard Confusion

Posted on January 19th, 2008 by Jeff

Knowing the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org

Obtaining an API key for a self-hosted WordPress blog can be very confusing. When you host WordPress on your own domain there are some plugins that require an API key that must be obtained from WordPress.com.

When I setup new blogs for clients I get questions about this confusion all the time. On my other blog, where I started blogging about and eventually, started this site, I have two posts about this:

How To Get A WordPress API Key

Get A WordPress API Key For The Akismet WordPress Plugin

Sending people to read those posts still creates some confusion, so lets try to clear this up one more time?

There are two different WordPress sites and the difference between the two to start is the .com or .org extensions. Again one is: www.wordpress.com (notice the .com on the end?) This is where anyone can register and start a blog hosted on the WordPress.com domain. Your blog will have a URL something like this: http://myblog.wordpress.com. The “myblog” part will be what you choose. This means that your blog is on a subdomain of the main WordPress.com domain.

The other site is www.wordpress.org. Again notice the .org extension and not the .com? This site is where you can download the files needed to install and run a self-hosted WordPress blog on your own domain. You can also find just about all the information you need here to use, customize and troubleshoot a self-hosted .

Now here is where it gets even more confusing for new . Even if you have a self-hosted on your own domain, you will still need to register and obtain an API at wordpress.com, Yes .com, to use certain plugins. Even if you are not going to setup and use a blog on wordpress.com! Registering at wordpress.com will generate an API key. This API key is not blog specific, meaning that the API is tied to you and your account.

Even more confusion will follow if you don’t pay attention here! If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog you will login to that blog’s dashboard through your own domain with the username and password generated when that blog was installed on your domain. But when you register at wordpress.com (to get an API key) you will need to generate a completely different profile, username and password. Again you will login to the wordpress.com Global Dashboard with a completely different username and password than that of your self-hosted WordPress blog!

Even if you have or had a blog hosted on wordpress.com you will use the same API key for all other blogs you start no matter if it is a self-hosted blog on your own domain or on wordpress.com. Again the API key is always the same no matter how many blogs you have and where they are hosted.

Yet even more confusion to watch out for!!! But first why even get an API key? Some plugins need an API to work properly like WordPress Stats and Akismet spam blocker. So say you are logged in at your self-hosted WordPress blog on your own domain, and you click the blog stats plugin option. This will take you to the wordpress.com Global dashboard. If you are not logged in to the wordpress.com Global dashboard, with a username and password different from your self-hosted blog, you will be asked to log in again. Confusion Alert! Confusion Alert! This login screen looks exactly like the the one you just used to get into your self-hosted blogs dashboard. You scratch your head and say “What? I already logged in”. Look at the address bar in your browser. Where are you? Are you on your self-hosted blogs domain or at wordpress.com?

People have changed passwords when unable to login to either the Global dashboard or their self-hosted blog because of this confusion. And then try to use the wrong password on the wrong site because the login screens look the same. So if you swear you know the right password and can’t login, look at the browser’s address bar and see where you are!

What if you want added a new self-hosted blog on your own domain and want to delete a blog on you once had/have hosted on wordpress.com? I am not well versed on the wordpress.com blogs but I suggest you keep it and use both. But if you must delete it, first add your new self-hosted blog at the Global dashboard on wordpress.com, then go into the blog’s dashboard hosted on wordpress.com and click Options, Delete blog. Don’t worry about deleting a self-hosted WordPress blog like that. it can’t be done that easily.

So now you should know the differences between wordpress.com and wordpress.org, the Global dashboard and the self-hosted dashboard and why you need to obtain an API key. If I confused you more than now than you were before please ask me more in the comment section below.

You don’t need an API key for self-hosted WordPress blogs, just if you want to use the plugins that require it. If a plugin requires it you will know when you activate the plugin.

If you need an API key, here are two posts on my other blog that will help:
How To Get A WordPress API Key

Get A WordPress API Key For The Akismet WordPress Plugin



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13 Responses to “WordPress API Key Global Dashboard Confusion”

  1. Tom // Jan 23, 2008 at 5:44 am

    I have a friend who wants to transfer his blog (hosted by wordpress.com) to a self hosted blog. Importing the files should not be a problem but how do you redirect ppl to the new blog on hisblog.wordpress.com? Is there a way he can do a permanent redirect on each of his former blog pages?

    Thank for the reply.

    Cheers

  2. Jeff // Jan 23, 2008 at 7:21 pm

    Tom, I don’t think WordPress.com offers a redirect to another domain, see this: http://faq.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/can-i-redirect-my-blog/
    and this: http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=16743&page

    But i think there is a way to buy a domain from WordPress.com and do a domain mapping option as talked about here: http://wordpress.com/blog/2006/10/24/domain-mapping-registration/

    But I think the domain mapping option is still limited to the same lack of options as a blog hosted on WordPress.com.

    Sorry but my WordPress knowledge is really focused on self-hosted WordPress blogs, which is the only way to go in my opinion.

    I suggest just start a new blog on his domain, make new full posts on it and post an excerpt and trackback on the old WordPress.com to funnel his readers to the new blog.

  3. Kathy // Feb 7, 2008 at 10:43 am

    Thanks so much for this tutorial. I appreciate that it’s written in layman’s terms with all the warnings. Most tutorials make too many assumptions about the reader’s prior knowledge. Kudos!

  4. skulpt // Feb 19, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    THANK YOU. For such a great blog software, Wordpress is totally clueless when it comes to their own site and usability. I’ve never been so annoyed with a site. They really need a disclaimer somewhere pointing you to the right direction if you’re on the .org site. Totally pathetic. What a bunch of idiots who designed their own site structuring. Even in the FAQ with APIs, they mention you need to register, but don’t provide a link to the page. DUUUUHHHHHH! Can you tell how annoyed I got looking for this? LOL

  5. Inavid // Mar 5, 2008 at 2:15 am

    Thanks share this great tutorial with us.You make my way easy.

  6. Ron Bramlett // Mar 15, 2008 at 9:32 am

    Hey this is really helpful! I needed an API key for some plugins and this was the first page I found via google. Thanks!

  7. Michael // Mar 27, 2008 at 6:48 pm

    Thanks for helping me clear up most of my confusion about getting an API Key of my own. You are the first site I found that explained it in depth. Especially about the need to have a different username/password for the API Key account than for the blog login.

    I have been moving an existing blog from one host to another as well as upgrading from 2.0.5 to 2.3.3. With that all done and running smoothly, I tried to install the WP-Stats plug-in, but ran in another set of problems.

    Since I was not the person that set up the original 2.0.5 blog, I didn’t have the password for the current API Key account that had been used when the Akismet plug-in was installed.

    So I got my new API key and found I couldn’t put it in as long as the old key was still in Akismet. I deactivated/activated Akismet but it still wouldn’t let me put in the new key until after I went into the options table in the database and blanked out the old API Key.

    Then I activated Akismet again and this time it took the key just fine.

    Next problem: I activated the WP-Stats plug-in and tried to put in the new key but got this error message:

    Error from last API Key attempt:
    The owner of that API Key (barrymartin) is not on the access list for this blog. When this blog was registered, tetesagehen’s API key was used. To add you to the access list, tetesagehen must visit this blog’s stats dashboard page and use the form at the bottom of that page.

    So I’m back to the same issue that I had with Akismet. I don’t have the password for tetesagehen, so am stuck again.

    How do I now get past this point.

    Thanks for all your help.

  8. Jeff // Mar 27, 2008 at 7:20 pm

    Micheal, first find the person who setup the blog for you and kick him in ass!

    Trying to completely remove the plugin and upload it again probably won’t help because the API for stats, I believe, are hosted and administered at WordPress.com.

    Either get tetesagehen to delete your blog from his dashboard or ask the WordPress.com admin’s do to it.

    I did find a thread about this here: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/159556 some had similar issues…

  9. D.O. // Mar 31, 2008 at 2:36 pm

    Thanks so much for writing this up man. It’s helpful even for those who aren’t necessarily “Geek Impaired”. Thanks again.

  10. IvanMH // Apr 1, 2008 at 5:26 am

    Hi Jeff,
    I had a similar problem as Michael, but I had access to “tetesagehen” account .. Michael If you can ask him to enter to his account and do step 2 and 4, you should fixed this problem. Wordpress’ instructions are incomplete:

    1) The owner of that API Key (barrymartin) is not on the access list for this blog. When this blog was registered, tetesagehen’s API key was used. To add you to the access list, tetesagehen must visit this blog’s stats dashboard page and use the form at the bottom of that page…

    2) Once (tetesagehen) add (barrymartin) to the access list, (tetesagehen) must upgrade (barrymartin) as administrator.

    3) Then (barrymartin) should go and activate the plug in and enter his api key. There will be no “error” messages anymore.

    4) the final step should be to ask tetesagehen to visit the blog’s stats dashboard page once again and click on the “leave the blog” icon. That should do it…

  11. sarah // Apr 19, 2008 at 10:13 am

    hello and thank you very much for this!
    every time i’ve tried to find help for this on the wordpress forums i keep seeing sarcastic comments from one moderator in particular about ‘read the instructions properly’ when there are clearly lots and lots of people who are very confused about this.

    Even though my mind is now completely boggled by your post, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this confusion - thanks so much!
    sarah

  12. JOEyGADGET // Apr 20, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    THANK YOU! Remember this confusion a few years ago, forgot how I fixed it, and your post helped me help a friend figure it out now. THANK YOU again! JOEyGADGET

  13. Terramel // May 14, 2008 at 9:22 pm

    Excelent post… I was looking to find a good post about API Keys.. I have for almost 2 years a blog hosted in wordpress.com (terramel.org) and now I’m opening a self-hosted blog (galacta.org)… I recently installed the plugin wordpress stats in the self-hosted blog and it required the API Key, so I put it there and when I was looking at my Wordpress.com hosted blog stats I saw an option to see the stats of the self-hosted blog… So I closed my eyes and tried to figure out what was happening and then I realized: “API KEY”… Then I went to google just to be sure about it and found this excellent post :) This is a masterpiece :D Thank you for this!

    Terramel

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