Should I Move Off Of Blogspot? YES!
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A very common question I see bloggers ask is should they move off of blogspot. The simple answer is YES! If you really want to brand your blog and make money with it, you need to get off Blogspot. With that being said, I myself have several blogspot blogs. However, any blog I want to make money with all are .com.
Whats the Big Deal?
A new blogger may be thinking, what is the point? Wouldn’t it make more sense to stick with a free blog, instead of paying money for something else? Here are a few reasons why you shouldn’t think twice about moving off of blogspot.
Ownership and Branding
You never really own your Blogspot, Google does. They have the power to shut you down if they want to, just by suspending your blog.
You never see any of the big make money online bloggers, or any huge bloggers in general with blogspots. You don’t see John Chow Dot Blogspot or The Huffington Post Blogspot, do you?
Transferability
You can’t really sell your blogspot blog if you wanted to. You could figure out some way around it I’m sure, but it still wouldn’t have the value that an established .com would have. Some people are “weary” of just exchanging links with someone on a blogspot, why would they consider buying your blog?
Customization
With your own domain and hosting you can customize your website however you want to. There are thousands of WordPress themes and hundreds (thousands?) of WordPress plugins to make your blog function however you want.
Blogspot has some themes, very few already installed to choose from.
Affordable
Lastly to have your own domain and web hosting it is really affordable. A domain only costs about $6-10 depending on where you get it. Hosting can cost as low as $4.99 to about $10 per month. Use our Blogging’s Best Buys to find great deals on domains and hosting.
There are many reasons to jump on off the Blogspot wagon, with little reasons to stay. If you are asking yourself whether or not you should move off blogspot, I hope I convinced you.
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15 Comments on this post
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David Hobson said:
I cant believe people even consider using free blog services like Blogspot. The benefits of hosting your own blog far out weigh any free service out there.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:12 pm -
Jennifer said:
Seth Grodin uses Typepad so that is one example of a top blogger not owning their own blog.
You are right though, I would love to move off blogspot. I only used it at the beginning because I didn’t know anything about setting up a blog. Now I think I know enought to do so but it just seems like so much work to deal with all my links that are already out there. I feel like I would lose so much by changing URLs.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:19 pm -
The Linkback Project said:
WordPress standalone on your own domain is so simple, even a caveman could do it.
July 9th, 2008 at 5:13 pm -
AffiliateObsession.com said:
I think that if you are not already established as a blogger, you could make a better impact without a free service.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:17 pm -
Blog for Beginners said:
Blogspot is good for those who are just about to experience the beauty of blogging but as one progress further, self-hosted WordPress is far more superior and a better option, so to speak.
Yan
July 10th, 2008 at 5:45 am -
app said:
When first starting out, most people are not sure they want to take the risk and invest any funds into their blogging experiments. Even seasoned veteran bloggers often don’t want to invest in a domain name till they know if their idea is a good one or not.
Services like Blogger are the perfect solution, since they are free, they host the blog for you, and it is quite easy to set up a blog and jump right in and start posting.
Sure, there aren’t that many default templates available for the newer type of Blogger blogs, but who says you have to use their templates? And who says you have to use the newer type? Why not go classic? There are actually a lot of classic templates you can use available from 3rd parties. You could also opt to make your own, either classic or new style, basing it on a pre-existing template, tweaking and altering it to suit your needs and style.
Unlike some other blog hosting services, such as WordPress.com, Blogger doesn’t forbid you from using javascript, nor do they forbid you from having your own ads. They even make it easy to add your own adsense ads.
Speaking of ads, they don’t force you to carry their ads like some other services do. They don’t stick their banner ads all over your blog, taking advantage of your visitors and content to line their own pockets without compensation to you.
And when you are ready to invest a little cash into your blogging experiment, you can use your own domain name, depending on where you get your domain name from and what type of forwarding services they provide.
And when you are ready to invest a little more cash, you can pay for hosting and move your blog quite easily, especially if you have been using a classic template. You can still log into Blogger and post, and it will be published to your web space rather than on blogspot. The Gene Expression blog (gnxp.com) is a perfect example of a well respected science blog that uses Blogger to post to their own server.
For someone that just wants to blog and not have to learn about how to be a webmaster as well, blogspot hosted blogging is great. You don’t have to learn how to install software, or how to upgrade it, and you don’t have to worry about learning your way around cpanel, or how to backup a database. It’s all taken care of for you. You don’t even have to learn how to use an FTP client.
How often do you hear about wordpress exploits being discovered and how everyone must upgrade now? When is the last time you heard the same about Blogger? If an exploit is discovered, Google fixes it. You don’t have to lift a finger to apply a fix to your blog.
You don’t have to worry about bandwidth limits if your blog becomes popular. Or your server getting killed should something you post make it to the front page of digg. Your blog will be there, standing strong through it all, with no surprise bill at the end of the month for exceeding your bandwidth quota.
And should you decide midstream that you would like to switch to your own hosting, with your own domain name, and use wordpress, you can import all your posts from blogger to wordpress.
Can you sell a blogger blog? sure…it’s quite easy. Transferral isn’t as hard as you think. Remove all your ad codes, invite the buyer to join your blogging team. Make him an admin, demote yourself, he removes you from the blog’s team, it is now his and you walk away. He can move it to another server, buy a domain name for it, import the content to wordpress, whatever he wants. All the posts and traffic are now in his possession.
So blogspot isn’t as bad as some make it seem. Until your blog starts earning enough to support itself, it is a solution that just makes sense.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:13 am -
Hendry Lee said:
I remember reading in Seth’s blog that he would like to move off Typepad if he has the chance to start over… so definitely this is a good idea.
While I encourage using own domain and installing WP/MT, I can’t force everyone to have the willingness to learn how to setup and manage their own blog software.
WordPress.com allows you to map your blog to your own domain. Blogger.com has an option to transfer files to your domain through FTP.
It solves some of the problems, but you don’t have 100% control.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:59 am -
Matthew Henrickson said:
Great point Hendry. Although he may be successful he’s very few on a .wordpress/blogspot/typepad. Another that comes to mind is Lorelle.
Jennifer, we started on blogspot, the sooner to move off the better. Think a year down the road with how many more links etc you will get. Then it will be even harder to move. I would suggest to at least register a domain and have blogspot redirect it to that. This way you will stay on blogger, but you can start to establish your own dot com.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:52 pm -
roffi said:
do you know Digital Inspiration blog (labnol.blogspot.com)? Its a great blog and the guy who owns it makes a huge amount of money from Google adsense.
Nothing wrong with blogspot.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:15 pm -
Montas said:
I still love blogspot, because it can rank high without many backlinks!
July 16th, 2008 at 10:38 am -
Bob King said:
Off the top of my head, two influential bloggers who use Blogspot: Echidne of the Snakes and Jon Swift.
Aside from me. I don’t know about others, but even though I have my own domain and hosting, I prefer having my blog on blogspot because of security; I’ve been hacked more than once. I learned to my cost that I had to be up on security issues. Well, I’d rather spend that mental effort on creating content.
Now, I could use hosted blogger – I used to do that – but I really need the abilities for formatting and adding items that blogspot gives. It’s pretty simple (and cheap) to have your own domain and point it to blogspot, though, and I think everyone should do that, starting out. OTOH, if you have a lot of links pointing at a blogspot address, it’s probably both too late and beside the point. That would apply to wordpress and typepad as well.
What I would actually suggest is a compromise: host your blog on blogspot, where your data is really pretty secure if you are in compliance with Terms of Service. Use your hosted domain space for a catalog store or other money-makers, and use your blog to refer to and draw from.
Bob Kings last blog post..Links for 2008-08-07 [del.icio.us]
August 8th, 2008 at 9:27 am -
Jess @ NBP/MomDot/MCC said:
U just might have Matt. LOL Still leary about the amounth of space I have on my computer. I’ll probably have to clear out all these darn pictures I have. *thinking*
Jess @ NBP/MomDot/MCCs last blog post..Would a few prayers for a friend.
August 31st, 2008 at 5:35 pm -
Ed said:
I am enjoying Blogspot, much more flexible than hosted wordpress, pretty nice theme, loads quite quickly. Money making mike’s mission and celeb-photo are on Blogspot and have been fr a long while and seem to be doing well. Maybe there is marginal advantage to hosting your own, but if content is king, who is hosting what and where is a moot point.
Eds last blog post..Porn spawns another funny quotes site
September 1st, 2008 at 1:31 am -
Matthew Henrickson said:
Why would you need to clear out your computer? :-p
Blogspot is not more flexible than a hosted wordpress. It may be easier to do a few things to start, but there is so much more of a variety than blogspot.
However recent themes for blogspot have impressed me, id easily choose wordpress.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:52 am -
Rob O. said:
A Blogger-based blog isn’t quite as restricting as it may seem. Our 2Dolphins site is a self-hosted blend of static (hand-coded) pages and dynamic Blogger-based blog posts. If you’re publishing via FTP to your own space, you are limited to the older Templates instead of the newer Layouts options within Blogger, but that hasn’t really hampered me much.
I wouldn’t mind making the leap to WordPress, but what I have works (has worked for 5+ years) and as a new Dad, spare time for web dev stuff is in short supply these days!
Rob O.s last blog post..September 2008 Blogtipping
September 20th, 2008 at 5:21 am