Reason to Avoid Free Blog in Blogging
It is because Search Engine Optimization (SEO) things. From my own experience, no matter how hard we try to optimize the free blog, it is surely will be finally defeated by self-hosted blog. As you may already aware that i have telecommunication blog which hosted in one of greates free blog providers, blogspot.com. I already did hard work to optimize it to look great in eyes of search engine. I thought that my hard work already give a great result – that telecommunication blogspot blog get top ten rank in some of keyword, and it receive PR 4 in six month. It seems perfect, right?
If you agree, my telecommunication blog result is some of blogging success, let me tell the next stories about that telecommunication blogspot blog. The PR may be a great success but not if we consider of the SERP. I aware of it after compare the SERP with my friend telecommunication blog which in the same niche with my telecommunication blogspot. My telecommunication blog SERP seems really bad when i do the comparison. My friend blog beat my telecommunication blog almost in all of my telecommunication blog greatest keyword. And please note that my friend telecommunication blog is 6 month younger (i think it is even more younger than that) from my telecommunication blog.
So, where is the difference — The difference which make the oldest blog with more post and more SEO hard work is beaten like that?
The answer is simple. My friend blog use self-hosted blog with WordPress as blog platform. Yeah – that’s the only answer why his new telecommunication blog beaten my old telecommunication blog. He can easily beat my blogpost blog because he can put any SEO plugin easily which I do not have in blogspot platform. In here, I do not tell how search engine calculate it – i do not believe that someone know how search engine calculate SERP anyway – i only tell how i experience the difference between free hosted blog and paid hosted blog. And yes, the comparison is apple to apple.
Conclusions
Own domain self-hosted is always far more better from free blog service (such as blogspot.com and wordpress.com.) in term of search engine optimization (SEO). Believe me! I already experienced it. I do not use any calculation – no one know how search engine calculate SERP by the way – I just use my common sense when face real experience about it. So, if you want to get highest result in SERP, always use own domain self-hosted blog.
That’s all update this time, wait for next update !
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You can use free and reliable blogs if you’re still on the learning curve and not that serious yet with blogging. Otherwise, its a must to use Wordpress.
Yup, self-hosted wordpress blog is for serious people.
I always recommend WordPress Self Hosted whenever possible. My wife uses blogspot and I am having an hard time get her site optimized for SEO. I can’t wait till the end of the month. I will be migrating my sites to another host and I will be hosting her site on there as well.
Yeah, for better result in SEO, it is natural that blogspot move to self-hosted web hosting.
In a search engines eyes they see a real domain as a more serious site. By having a dot blogspot or dot wordpress URL you are basically telling Google you aren’t serious about your blog.
It is no different than putting a down payment down on a car, or house. It lets the bank know you are taking the loan seriously. This person would be least likely to let their loan fail than someone who makes no financial commitment.
A person who doesn’t put a downpayment has no problems of letting the car get repossessed or the house foreclosed because they aren’t really losing too much.
Hem… you may be right. Surely blog with own domain and self-hosted look more professional and serious.
Yes, free blogs should be avoided but Free Blog Help should not.
Good joke Gabe!
Free blog help shouldn’t be avoided at any condition!
Hahaha… i forgot to mention free blog help above as excluded. Yeah — free blog help should visit each day.
I do agree with you and have a post about this going in on Monday morning on my own blog after reading Ileane.wordpress.com and her 11 positive things about having a free online blog which is a good article about the pro’s of using a free blogging service. I am definitely pro setting up your own self hosted blog, unless you are just a casual blogger.
I already read ileane posting and she have point when she said that wordpress.com can be use as starter for new self hosted site. But — in the end — self hosted blog is the real deal.
I was on a free blog for about 2 years and I know what are its disadvantages. Believe me, it creates a bad impression on your readers!
Yeah, almost all client directly ignore when know it is a free blog.
It gains PR 4 because blogspot in one of site that belongs to Google. Just simply like that. Lots of people have been discussing this over years. I have no experience on free platform because I always choose the smartest thing for me.
Yeah — it may be. Blogpost is Google service anyway. Yeah — you are smart to never try free blog.
thanks for the information that is very good because I always try to improve the quality of my blog via a free blog to no avail, maybe I’ll follow the advice you gave.
You should move from blogspot.com for better result.
Free blogs can be used for people who don’t have money or people who are not serious about blogging… but they never support us!
Or for some serious blogger that not intend to make money from it.
I do agree with you Dana ..
But regarding the free blogs ..
It’s a Heaven for the Newbies
And a Kingdom for the Dons
But i my self regret that i did not start from self-hosted blog back then.
Once you are feeling serious I think it’s a great idea to move to a self hosted blog rather than something through blogger or another free blog option. It gives you a lot more freedom and customizability, but I also think it’s a waste for someone who is just starting out.
I spent a few months writing on a blogger blog, it wasn’t spectacular, but it got a fair amount of hits. SEO is great, but people seem to see it as the only way to get traffic. Actively promoting your blog through social networks, comments on other blogs and guest posts can land you decent traffic and produce plenty of loyal readers.
As far as people disregarding a free blog, I think it’s all about the look. If you’re blog looks like a premade, popular cookie cutter design that blogger offers, it might turn people away. But if you can make your free blog look good and provide great content, there’s no reason people wouldn’t read your blog. Any reader who cares that much about hosting, isn’t the kind of reader I’d want.
It think that there are no waste in start a blog by use self-hosted. You surely learn much by just use it.
Yup — you surely can get a lot of traffic trough social networking or by commenting — i already did it exactly. But — beside it consume much my time, my blog surely defeat by same quality blog only because this blog use self hosted blog.
No — i do not think it is only about looks. It is also about seriousness, credibility, reputation, and money. Readers may still read your free blog but advertiser surely choose another blog which is self hosted. But of course, a free blog which has outstanding popularity is an exception — but i rare see this kind of blog.
The waste in starting off self hosted is the loss of money. The majority in the blogging world are failures, for one reason or another. So far I’ve spent less than $200 on my blog, but if I had spent that money and lost interest in 2 weeks, I’d be sorry I wasted my time and money. At least with a free blog, you lose only time. (For some perspective, I’ve wrote about 5 different blogs, my current one is the only one I stuck with, the others would have been a waste if I hadn’t used a free host.)
To your second point, again, when you’re just starting out and using comments and social media to promote your blog, you have a lot of time since you have little administrative worries, you pretty much write and promote through free methods till you can expand (at least that’s what I did). I admit, a free hosted blog of similar caliber to yours would be much less popular, but that doesn’t mean everyone should buy a domain and a year of hosting when they start a blog as a knee jerk reaction to reading a success story.
For your third point, if you’re worrying about advertisers your first month, you’re way ahead of yourself. For one, advertisers don’t care if your blog is self hosted but has nothing but a home page. Any quality advertiser wants you to have page hits, good design and content. Self hosted will help you get this, but when you’re one month in(or more), you don’t have anything an advertiser wants.
Besides that, you mention seriousness, credibility, reputation and money. The first three can be attained with a free blog, though it may take more work. As far as money, I have no idea what you’re talking about, someone could look at my blog and have no idea how much was put into it, I don’t see how it has an effect on loyal readership.
In the end, popular blogs are self hosted because they offer more creative freedom, options, databases, mailing lists, etc. Choose your hosting based on your needs, not your expectations, at least when you first start.
Yup, i got you point but i beg to differ. You can have self hosted by just $1 a year (of course there is limitation in it), but i think it is enough to start a self hosted blog. And if you bore — you can sell it or just park it — or you can just leave it. Only $1 a year, right?
. Btw, that’s right you will not regret if abandon the free blog but you may regret it when you really serious of it.
Again — i get your point. Honestly, i do your way — this blog’s first time expenses is from my free blog (my blogspot blog exactly). But later, i aware that if my blogspot blog start directly in self-hosted blog, the earning should at least two times then current earning. That’s why i said i regret it.
Nop — i do not worry about advertisers in first month but i worry about my blog future — worry that i can not get the optimum advertiser even my free blog already become a great blog because of free blog things. And you right that if you only blog for one month than free blog is enough.
Yup, it can be attained with free blog but there is some physiological thing that it is hard to take serious of free things — other people (reader and advertiser) also hard to take serious about free blog and it make that credibility and reputation also hard to attain. As for money, i mean earning — it is surely clear enough base on my reply about advertisers.
And you can have all of those benefits for cheap as i said before. There is self-hosted packet that cost only $1 per year — and you can always upgrade or move to better web hosting if you become serious.
And in the end, i understand all of your reasons, and i think it is right. And i just give another point of view here.
customization, that is one thing i hate with free blog, you have no control over it, you cannot customize most of the config… all the defaults are yours.
Yup, since it’s free, the control will be at provider fully.
In fairness for those who are using Blogger, your idea is not always the case. In fact, the are lots of ProBloggers that are using BlogSpot. If you will just check out the latest comparison between Blogger and WP (February 2010 update), you will see that some WP users are now thinking of the reverse idea- using Blogger again.
We should talk about percentage here.
I think lots of your readers would love to see that. Why don’t you show us a reference of the stats?