Avoiding Blogger.com
More and more often I am seeing sites using blogger.com for their blogs and I have to ask myself why even bother? I would say at least 10% of the submissions to the 9rules Network are from Blogger sites and although I understand the service is free so many people just like to get it up and running, using it for anything besides a personal site makes no sense to me.
If you are going for the problogging angle you definitely want to try your best to look professional. First step is the domain of your site. Anything that goes http://x.blogger.com/ or http://x.blogspot.com/ basically puts you out of the running right there. Maybe you could get an account with WordPress and pray that they add domain redirection in the future like TypePad.
If you are doing the porn/spamming route (not saying porn is spam, but when you do porn professional sites are almost not even required) then a blogger account won’t hurt your image at all.
With Blogger you are unsure if your site is going to live the next day because you don’t own the domain. You don’t really own the content and customization is limited to the features that are offered. Why even bother?
It’s just disconcerting running across a really nice site with great content and see that it’s on Blogger. That usually won’t stop me from reading it, but it’s just another hurdle the site owner has to jump to get me to stay.
Subnixus shares his thoughts on the issue.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Web Tips
11 opinions for Avoiding Blogger.com
Gary Miller
Nov 29, 2005 at 5:00 pm
One has to wonder is it the Blogger “software” that you object to or the blogspot.com URL? Curious minds and such…
Scrivs
Nov 29, 2005 at 5:07 pm
Maybe I have just seen too many bad Blogger sites in the past and now I am tainted, but really would you trust a free service with something you are trying to make a living out of?
Gary Miller
Nov 29, 2005 at 6:55 pm
I see your point, Scrivs, but I think the Blogger platform works pretty well for what it is. I personally have my blogs hosted away from Blogger and just use their system to create them. I’m not sure how much of the info is still at Blogger, but I do know that I have all the posts, archives, and sitefeeds on my hosting server. I have pretty much tweaked the template to my liking. I have also played with WordPress a bit and I like it. I just wanted to get the ball rolling while I tried to learn the craft.
Thanks you guys like you, Darren, Nick, and the host of other Pro Bloggers I’m learning something new everyday.
Kyle
Nov 29, 2005 at 9:10 pm
Just a note, I know Matt’s said that TLD’s are a priority for wordpress.com, so they’ll be there shortly. In fact, there’s even a FAQ for it.
I do agree though, I dislike blogger blogs. Don’t know if it’s some unfair prejiduce, but they just seem like “lack of effort” to me.
Lea
Nov 29, 2005 at 9:26 pm
I think you are reading too much into it - sure, pros will look at it and sneer, but ‘other professional bloggers’ isn’t our market (well, perhaps except for ‘blogging’ blogs like this… :)). Our market is joe public.
I find it likely that your average joe will approve of a ‘blogsomething.com’ subdomain, they will look at it and go, ‘ahh, blog, ok I know what I am dealing with’ and read the content with more confidence. If they are more confident, they are more likely to click those income-generating links.
So for a blog aimed at the average user, these addresses just fine.
There are reasons not to - the arguments about control are strong negatives - but ‘it doesn’t look professional’ probably isn’t true in general.
IMHO
themaxx.ca
Nov 30, 2005 at 2:14 am
Because of the steps involved in getting a domain, hosting, building your own template or even installing a pre-made one is out of reach to many. That means, anyone who wishes to start a blog but lacks the required skills for setting the whole thing up will end up on blogger.com and similar sites. Right now, wordpress.com has that coolness to it that people who despise blogger.com end up opening their accounts there. But wait and see. We’ll get tired quickly of these same looking blogs hosted on wordpress.com just as well.
Chris Mitchell
Nov 30, 2005 at 3:02 am
I’m surprised at your blanket snobbery Scrivs. Yes, there are thousands of bad blogs on Blogspot but there are some gems too - Quick Online Tips (pchere.blogspot.com) runs on Blogspot and is an excellent blog - it has over 1000 Feedburner subscribers too. I reckon they must be making good money. Certainly it’s great content. It’s not about the tools, it’s about the execution. It doesn’t matter how much you spend on hosting, design, domains etc if you don’t know what you’re doing. Plus new bloggers should be encouraged to worry about content first and web design etc second. Blogger still offers the quickest way to get started.
And no, I’m nothing to do with Quick Online Tips. Or Blogger, for that matter…
Scrivs
Nov 30, 2005 at 2:23 pm
Snobbery? Nothing like that at all. I think if you just want to write for writings sake then blogger would suit you just fine. However, if you wish to take things to a more professional-level I don’t see it’s service as being viable. That’s the point I am trying to make.
Jamsi
Dec 1, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Domain name and webhosting packages are cheap as chips these days. Domains cost $6.99 and hosting packages from as low as $3 a month. If you want to get into professional blogging, this is the only way to go about it!
It also gives you a good excuse to learn how to setup wordpress, and exercise your HTMl and CSS skills! Something ever pro blogger should be skilled in!
Chris Mitchell
Dec 1, 2005 at 10:46 pm
@scrivs: Nice to get a reply! My previous post showed there are people running professional sites using Blogger as their backend. So I don’t think your argument stands up. Certainly having your own hosting etc gives you more flexiblity - I’m not arguing with you about that. My point is simply that you *can* run a decent, professional blog and make money using Blogger and people are doing just that. (I assume making serious cash from your blog is the definiton of professional here). Clearly most professional bloggers prefer and advocate getting their own domain, hosting, WordPress etc - but none of those are *necessary* to making money from blogging. It’s a widely held belief that you need all that stuff but that doesn’t make it true.
Scrivs
Dec 1, 2005 at 10:51 pm
I do think running the software for the backend is one thing and using the software for your backend and frontend (urls and whatnot) is something else. In the case of spike magazine and some 9rules members it actually works out because they put forth the effort to keep the domain and make the site their own so in those instances I admit to having no beef.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: