A couple of weeks ago, we moved Dave Kurlan’s blog “ Understanding The Sales Force ” off of Google’s Blogger product and over to HubSpot. Dave is an active blogger, runs a successful sales consulting practice here in the Boston area and is also the author of a book called “ Baseline Selling ”. [Side note: If you’re involved in sales or are running a company with a sales force, you should check out his blog].
In any case, in this process of moving Dave’s blog off of Google’s Blogger, I learned a lot. I am now even further convinced that most businesses should not be using the “yourcompany.blogspot.com” alternative for hosting a blog on Google.
Top Reasons Why Business Blogs Shouldn’t Be On BlogSpot.com
1. Google Doesn’t Need The Help: Lets assume you have a company website (you do have a company website , don’t you?). This website is probably on its own domain (example: yourcompany.com) By hosting your blog as a sub-domain on BlogSpot.com you’re basically depriving your primary website of any real search engine optimization . Instead, if you’re using blogspot.com, you’re kind of benefiting Google instead. Trust me, Google does not need your help to rank highly on its own search engine. Even if you don’t switch blogging platforms, please do yourself a favor and get your own “real” domain now. At least this way, if you decide to switch later, you won’t lose all the search engine optimization (SEO) that you’ve built up. See the next bullet for more details.
2. Domain Lock-In: Savvy technical people will tell you that the right way to move a website or blog from one domain to another is via what is called a “301 permanent redirect”. In lay person’s terms, what this means is that you setup a clean forwarding address from your old site to the new site. By using this approach, you don’t lose any of the search engine love you’ve pulled together. Guess what: Google does not let you do a 301 redirect from your old site to anywhere else if you’re using blogspot.com as your domain. Let me repeat this. If you currently have a blog that is something like mybusiness.blogspot.com and you build a ton of inbound links to the site, Google does not let you redirect that SEO value to a new site (like your company website). This is a Very Bad Thing. Not enough for me to call Google evil, but enough for me to at least think it.
3. Transferring Data Is Unreasonably Hard: Dave Kurlan (the guy whose blog we moved off of Blogger) is a prolific writer. He had over 130 articles authored on the Blogger platform. Clearly, we wanted to move his data over using an automated process. No problem, we thought, Google is nice enough to provide a programming interface to support this. In fact, they have multiple such APIs (application programming interfaces). As it turns out, neither of the versions of these interfaces that Google provides works completely. One version doesn’t let you migrate comments (an important part of many blogs). The other doesn’t let you move more than a few dozen articles – period. Basically, Google has seemingly made it intentionally difficult to migrate off of their platform. This is just annoying. We ended up writing a fair amount of custom code and jumping through a few hoops to get all of the data migrated over (which we finally did). But, this was much harder than it should have been, and we’re trained professionals (so please, don’t try this at home). If you’re not a programmer, chances are you won’t be able to do this yourself. It shouldn’t be that hard.
4. Mediocre Feature-Set: I just think Google’s blogging product (Blogger) is just not with the times when it comes to advanced functionality that is of value to today’s business bloggers . It doesn’t support things like article tagging, comment subscriptions and easy integration into other sites like Technorati. This is probably not such a bad thing for the millions of mainstream personal bloggers out there. But, if you’re a business blogger, and hope to be a power-blogger someday, I’d suggest that some of these missing features are important. Currently, I’m adding a new feature to HubSpot every week as my startup blog ( http://OnStartups.com ) becomes more and more popular. OnStartups.com has over a reach of over 3,000 people a day and is now in the top 1% of blogs on the Internet – as ranked by Technorati. I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve that I think will push the state-of-the-art for business blogging. You’ll see them at first at OnStartups.com, followed shortly by the blogs of our early clients.
So, in summary, though Blogger is free – it’s not really free. The value of your time is much more important. If you’re looking to
build a successful business blog
that will help you find more clients and grow your business, you should find a
professional
blogging platform that is designed for your needs. HubSpot has one such offering (it’s a piece of what we do). But, if all you need is a blogging tool, we’d recommend WordPress. If I didn’t have maniacal control over the HubSpot software, I’d likely be using the WordPress product for my personal blog.
If you’re on BlogSpot.com right now and need help getting off, drop us a line. Even if you don’t pick HubSpot, we should be able to help a bit.
-
Dharmesh Shah
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Gayla 4:03 PM on October 16, 2006
Awesome post! There's several discussions going on with this topic on several boards I participate in. It's nice to see some new opinions versus the same one's all the time.
Sheamus 10:00 AM on October 17, 2006
Useful post and valid point regarding business sites (including blogs). Looking forward to experiencing HubSpot!
George Yankowski 9:55 PM on December 13, 2006
Great post but, very depressing. Thanks for the food-for-thought.
Steve Dalton 12:28 AM on April 18, 2007
I'm on blogger, and your "you can't leave and take your SEO" really worries me now.
Roman Bosak 11:36 AM on June 07, 2007
As Simple Filipina said those facts above are very depressing for people like me and she who are trying to make some little bussines on the BlogSpot. I will also need to move somewhere else or start to use my own domain name. Thank you for that info and experiences.
Hitesh Sharma 6:20 PM on July 27, 2007
The article is really informative. I didnt know about this side of coin till I read this article. Infact I have speeded up my efforts to get a proper website for myself.
Book Lover 2:37 AM on August 23, 2007
Thanks for the info. Hope I'll soon be able to get my own domain.
ColorStruck 3:37 PM on August 26, 2007
I wholeheartedly agree. I'm still on blogspot but I'm in the process of obtaining a domain name and web host company. My goal is to use Wordpress as the blog platform. This will probably be messy because yesterday's repeated attempts to import my blog into Wordpress (just as a test) were disasterous.
Thanks for the article - it lends credence to my plans.
Scoot 4:15 PM on September 14, 2007
I'm a Realtor and can't afford anything more than free right now. But will probably make a change in the future. Good blog I'm getting the feed!
Mia duLac 9:01 PM on September 21, 2007
Indeed interesting your post, and worrying also!! Afortunately, I have begun with my blog not too long ago, so I still have time to migrate with all my stuff to WordPress (I hope). Thank you for your advice.
Symbian 8:18 AM on October 04, 2007
Thanks for the information. Didn't know about this before.
Karthik 6:04 AM on October 15, 2007
Thanks a lot. I didnt know about this. Anyway as this is free, I got to accept limitations. Karthik Bangalore, India.
Sam Chapman 2:37 PM on October 19, 2007
I wish I had know this when I started my blog two years ago, but now it ranks on page 1 and I can't stop using blogger.
Chungyen Chang 6:17 PM on October 23, 2007
Wait, what if you just buy out a .com domain name and have it redirect to your blogger? Postsecret, one of the largest websites on the web, does that.
Scott Andrews 7:27 AM on November 23, 2007
I actually want to migrate two blogs off of blogger. http://aspirenow.blogspot.com and http://arriive.blogspot.com. For the simple reason that you listed #2, 3, and to some extent, 4, above. In addition, I need to redirect my http://arriive.com to www.arriive.com (or vice-versa) and the same for AspireNow. I need low cost help to accomplish this: time-frame - by early Jan 08. thanks!
KelaniNichole 4:29 PM on November 27, 2007
Actually, if you choose to point your Blogger blog to a subdomain on your site as described in Blogger Support (http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373), you can ditch the .blogspot URL without loosing the value of your links (in other words, your traffic will still end up in the same place). Good point about no subscriptions to comments, but I still think Blogger is a very relevant tool. Although I am quickly falling in love with Wordpress, I find Blogger's WYSIWYG is much easier to use and prefer the admin interface of Blogger and its integration with all my other Google tools. Blogger is easy, and that's O.K.
Milo Felipe 8:45 PM on November 27, 2007
I have three blogs hosted at Blogger. All of them use their own domains and not the *.blogspot.com url. Should I be worried?
Jeff Dowler 4:14 PM on November 28, 2007
I have one of my real estate blogs on Blogger and this IS a bit disturbing. It is not a main source of business as the others are, so I am less concerned, but unhappy nonetheless. Thanks for the info
Manuel Torres Laveaga 3:20 PM on December 19, 2007
I think is better have your own host, but if you don´t want to pay a cool option, is go to setting and Custom Domain with your domain name to your blog.
maybe help, a little
Mato 9:05 AM on January 04, 2008
Is it realy true that having Blogspot.com is bad for my original website?
Jack 6:25 AM on January 20, 2008
I am considering moving my blogs out of blogger.com because of this post... hmmmn.
jeff 12:47 AM on February 03, 2008
I have two blogs on blogspot (jbayselfcatering and boostyouroccupancyrate). I hear you but what I like is the rapid response compared with the sluggish experience when browsing blogs on wordpress.
bariles 9:33 PM on February 07, 2008
oh dear! i just started with blogger two months ago and now am getting worried if i stay too long with it. will buy my domain name anytime soon... question: what happens to my subscribers if i switch? Email to this noobie your responses pls! EMERGENCY SITUATION HERE!
Anonymous 9:54 PM on February 07, 2008
Bariles: You can minimize the lock-in risk of you get your own domain and point it to Blogger.
As for your RSS subscribers, you can use a service like FeedBurner (this way, if you move your blog in the future, you can keep the same RSS address). Of course, FeedBurner is owned by Google too. The best way to do this is to use a URL of the form rss.yourdomain.com (FeedBurner now gives you the ability to do this for free).
jeff 1:15 AM on February 08, 2008
Interesting thread! Somewhere, it could even have been here, I was encouraged to start a blog - any blog - just to get into blogging because it was so important for SEO. The advice was to keep it simple in the beginning and not to worry about pretty pictures and fancy graphics. That is why I went for blogspot that is easy to set up for a beginner and free. Comments?
Centro Mare Nostrum 6:44 AM on February 13, 2008
Great post. We will have to review out blogging strategy though....
rod' aflip 2:00 AM on February 18, 2008
Your analysis with regards to my site is very good and i really appreciate it.
I am entertaining the idea that blogger is really not a good one coz i could see other blogsites and it impresses me. Though i know this i am not prepared yet for other blog, but i am conscious of your concern. What is attractive to blogger is its Free..
schachblogger 9:47 PM on March 02, 2008
Important to consider: You won´t be able to tune your blog at Blogger or in a Wordpress MU environment with very useful SEO-related plugins. That will result in a very poor rating of your blog there. Don´t waste your time with that!
danakom 2:35 AM on March 08, 2008
I think we will have new strategy...
Stevie 2:25 PM on March 13, 2008
@ jeff and all the others who use Blogger because it is free:
As mentioned above it will be really annoying,
a) ifyou can't move your SEO value to another site / domain and
b) if you can't change anything in the source code of your blog.
Although you might be a beginner at the moment. When you blog for a while, you'll get into this stuff and want to change something in the design (graphics, layout, ...). But of course, at the beginning you don't want to spend money for your blog.
What I recommend you:
Look for free webspace that supports PHP and MySQL. Sorry, I don't know any international freehosters, but in Germany you may have a look at kilu.de (will show just a small ad banner on your site) or bplaced.net (includes even no ads on your site!). Auf meiner Seite stevie-o.de finden sich auch einige deutsche Artikel über Kilu und bplaced, z.B. www.stevie-o.de/2008/02/23/kostenloser-webspace-mit-php/
Second step is download a blog software and upload it to your webspace. I can recommend wordpress.org, but there are alternatives like Serendipity (s9y) as well [some people say, using Wordpress is like surfing with IE ;-)]
After uploading you have to call a certain .php file (e.g. domain.com/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php or yourname.freehoster.com/wp-admin/install.php ...) and just must do what this site says to you.
That's all. Now you can start blogging, add plugins, personalize your blog, etc.
Later when you are more confident with blogging you can change anything in the blog (code, design, ...) you want. And if you want to move to another webspace (or domain), just upload all your blog stuff there and redirect from your old webspace to the new one (by using 301 redirect the search engines will replace your old blog URL with the new one in their index and therefore you almost won't loose any SEO value).
For Wordpress & co. you'll find a plenty of documents and instructions in the internet. But it's really almost as easy as I desribed above.
For example I use bplaced (free webspace without ads) using Wordpress and just pay 0,19 euros for my .de domain. I could also use stevieo,bplaced,net and pay nothing at all ;-)
I'll be glad to see you on my German site www.stevie-o.de if you're interested in this kind of stuff.
jeff 9:04 AM on March 14, 2008
I am not a computer fundi, just want to benefit from blogging in a small way. Also, I don't want to start a war here.
danakom says "b) if you can't change anything in the source code of your blog....". You do have access to your source code in Blogger. I have seen it, but it looks like I don't want to see it. Admittedly, what you can customise will be limited.
On the point of using WordPress. I regularly go to two WordPress blogs and find they are very sluggish in response (because of bloat?) in comparison with Blogger.
shohreh 10:22 AM on March 29, 2008
shohreh,rasht,coon,kos
Gen 7:25 PM on April 03, 2008
this is such a great website u have, very informative and loved to keep coming back here ur new post, take care and good day!
wwe superstars 9:18 AM on April 14, 2008
I dont know i should feel about this, as i have just started blogging on blogger and planned for a 301 later, but it cannot happen. Huh...
cosmetics addict 1:01 AM on April 30, 2008
Thank your for the information sharing with us.
steve 1:28 PM on May 06, 2008
Great, but I have not found where, how, what to install to use Hubspot's blogging tool...
Allan 5:59 PM on May 13, 2008
Good posting - I switched off of blogspot because of my inability to customize the look and feel of the comments section - which is another area where you are stuck.
Allan 6:00 PM on May 13, 2008
Good posting - I switched off of blogspot because of my inability to customize the look and feel of the comments section - which is another area where you are stuck.
Charles Bradford 2:12 PM on May 29, 2008
I am a happy Hubspot customer and am considering using Hubspot's bloggging software for our corporate blog (or possibly Wordpress). I am, however, concerned about losing the blog if we ever leave Hubspot for whatever reason.
Anonymous 2:18 PM on May 29, 2008
Charles: Regardless of which platform you pick for your blog, our advice would be to ensure you have control of the domain of the blog.
This gives you the most flexibility long-term of transferring your SEO authority should you ever decide to switch.
So, running on Blogger is OK, just make sure you have your own domain (like blog.mycompany.com) instead of mycompany.blogspot.com.
Of course, we'd be thrilled if you wanted to use HubSpot for your blog (and it's part of the core product, so no additional fees).
Fernando Cassia 2:08 AM on June 02, 2008
At least one complaint about blogger is no longer valid.
1. You can make a blogger.com blog appear with your own domian name.
The "how to" is detailed here
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373
2. You CAN subscribe to blogger comments now.
In fact, you can do so since late 2007
http://buzz.blogger.com/2007/10/subscribe-to-comments-by-email.html
Best
FC
argan oil 9:20 AM on June 05, 2008
i like blogger, it serves me well for what i want to do, i understand your points, but if you want simplicity, functionality and reliability then stick with blogger after all its made by google :)
Jenni McKay 6:09 PM on June 06, 2008
I currently host my company's blog on Blogger (www.perceptivitystudio.blogspot.com) and after reading this, am trying to figure out the best way to switch over to my website domain (www.perceptivitystudio.com). I can either: A) create a subdomain on my site (blog.perceptivitystudio.com) and redirect it to my Blogger page, or B) create a subdomain on my site and through the Blogger link by Fernando above, enter that subdomain in the 'Custom Domain' option in Blogger. Would either of these options work better or worse for improving my SEO for my actual domain in lieu of helping Google?
satel group 7:24 PM on June 13, 2008
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The Success 1:48 PM on June 19, 2008
Nice post
Can you help because I am still on blogspot. 4 months a go one of my site has been delete by google for nothing reasons.
Should I chane to another address?
Dominican Vacations 12:03 PM on June 21, 2008
How can i have a blog added to my site ?
Boston Bachelor 5:07 PM on July 08, 2008
Interesting info on Blogger. Guess I'll stick with WP for now.
Freebiz4u 4:50 AM on July 09, 2008
Is this true for weebly. They let you create a backup of your site content. My blog freebusinessservices.weebly.com is about free stuff for business I dont use blogger mainly because I wanted to start with a newer blog service. What happened to Googles mission - to do no harm?
Chris 9:09 PM on July 30, 2008
Good post! I've long been a fan of self-hosted WP blogs. So much customizing available to you! I tried Blogger and thought it was so limited, hard to customize, and that something about not having your own domain hosting your blog. A business needs to capitalize on its own domain name and a blog with a URL blog.mydomain.com is a great way to do it.
mr dinar 10:20 AM on August 12, 2008
Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =)THANX FOR MAKING SUCH A COOL BLOG
Wesley Kramer 2:19 AM on August 24, 2008
Received phone call from Hubspot employee. As I stated during our call -- very professional and courteous. I applauded their follow-up. Here. Here.
Chetz Yusof 11:23 AM on September 08, 2008
Thanks so much! I had a bad headache on whether to use blogspot or using the a paid hosting for my blog. I thought I wanted to save some money and use the free service as I just started out blogging. But I guess it's better to start my blog right the first time.
Thanks again for the info.
Chetz Yusof
ChetzTV.com - Win The Battle
Blog on my quest to make money online
chinkee 4:41 PM on September 17, 2008
I have all ready own a site... universe4you.org
but not able to activate it ... lack of knowledge!... i want it to have like a website and for blogging too..
Pls. guide me if you can.. suggest me any link to get guided.... or suggest me in e-mail.
Minnesota Web Design 12:37 PM on September 18, 2008
I definitely agree with this article. If you have an important blog and you want to be viewed as a professional (not to mention the increased control, functionality, and more), you need to get your own domain and your own blog/blog software (Wordpress is awesome).
Snodson 4:24 PM on September 18, 2008
Perpostuas, obsurd, and down right mutanous. Treason!
Free RSS Backlinks and Widgets
earthlingorgeous 6:07 PM on September 18, 2008
I am actually thinking of buying my domain but is it that really difficult migrating all your content? I'm worried.
Question? How does a blogspot blog get locked?
Thanks for all this info.
Heather 3:20 PM on September 30, 2008
Thank you for the great information. I had a feeling that when Istarted on blogger a year agoI would probably regret it.
Emee 2:21 PM on October 08, 2008
Interesting no mention of Typepad. What do you guys think of Typepad?
Biztrader.com 2:54 PM on October 11, 2008
I was thinking about setting up a blog with blogspot.com before I came across your website in Google. This information is very helpful.
Tressa 4:43 PM on October 18, 2008
Hi
Loved your article, if only I'd read it sooner. I do have a website, but wanted a blog, and found it too hard to create a blog from scratch, or using a web based program. Blogger was my choice, as I am familiar with it, and it looks nice.
I totally understand what you are saying and eventually will probably move my blog off, but it's a cheapman's solution.
Ralph Lyon 7:46 PM on October 24, 2008
Good information. Thanks for your perspective.
savings 2:35 PM on October 25, 2008
Your analysis with regards to my site is very good and i really appreciate it.
I am entertaining the idea that blogger is really not a good one coz i could see other blogsites and it impresses me. Though i know this i am not prepared yet for other blog, but i am conscious of your concern. What is attractive to blogger is its Free.
Santanu Hazra 4:31 AM on October 26, 2008
but my website is in a blig also.so what to do then?
www.earneasily.org
Chris Morin 5:11 PM on October 28, 2008
WOW... I've just spent about 3 hours on your website listening to the lesson on SEO reading everything.. tweeking my website..I knew A BUNCH of this stuff as I do this for other people but not all of it. I do have one maybe ray of sunshine for you... I at one point "moved" my blogspot over to WordPress.. the free version and it copied most everything pretty easily so I wonder if you could do that.. import to free WordPress and then load that onto your domain name? I'm not a techy at all but just wonder if it might work. I'm terrified of doing the WordPress thing but you've convinced me in the article that it's crucial. I have been commenting my brains out leaving my .blogspot blog on them... you'll notice I didn't do that here! Thanks so much! I'm going over to subscribe to you now! I think you are my new hero!
Chrissy
Philadelphia Marketing 6:09 PM on October 30, 2008
Good article. I've setup a number of client blogs on Blogger and without exception, recommend they create a cname entry (blogname.companyname.com) in DNS to point to their new blog. I've also reluctantly put my corporate blog there thinking that in time I could move it to WordPress. While I've not yet looked at the importing side of the equation, Blogger in Draft http://draft.blogger.com/home offers a quick export of your existing blog.
Plant Health Clinic 8:10 AM on November 03, 2008
Nice information Dharmesh, could you suggest a few tips on how to promote a blog. Thanks - Shawn
Kathleen 3:52 PM on November 04, 2008
Hello and I need to say: what an awesome posting! You explained in more technical terms, what I have been trying to educate my clients and potential clients about for a long time. Free blogs are great for anyone BUT business. I use WordPress self hosted platform for, not only my blog, but my whole "website". Two birds with one stone. (Even with hosting costs, a blogsite is more cost effective than a website). Thanks again for a much better and more impactful explanation than mine has been.
For suggestions on excellent hosting for your self hosted blog, as well as design choices, check out my site.
Kenny Beck 11:01 PM on November 05, 2008
Dharmesh, thank you kindly for your informative article on Blogger. I had no idea. I like their templates and the ease of use of the gadgets, but gadgets hasn't been working for several days causing my self lot's of angst. I have been on Wordpress for a while but only have a couple of articles posted there. Basically I've been roaming around, trying to learn an find the best places to do all thing. I built an extensive website on Uber and after being saved for thirty more days, unceremoniously they exited without a whimper, leaving me in quite a quandary (I wasn't able to move my site and they didn't say they would do it like that, oh well). I have rebuilt my site and additional one. It's for something I have a lot of expertise in, the Entertainment biz. I can't retrieve any of my Uber pages, about 20 or so (I think) which was heavily full of content. Of course I own my URL's but I have spent a ton of money on the web, with some unscrupulous individuals over the last few year that I decided to bite the bullet and learn to do it all my self. I was a complete novice when I started, but have learned a lot and the site was pretty good, received a lot of good comments etc, not a lot of traffic, but at that point I really wasn't looking for it then. As I said I rebuilt it with more focus in a lot of lessons I learned here, from you guy's, so when it comes to blogs, content, meta tags and everything else I fully ready to launch what was my focus all along, an international performing artists website. Funny I do have some folks that contacted me then and still do because they want to be a part of my idea. I'm really talking about sponsors and other businesses that want to do business and be associated, you probably have my whole deleted Uber site on you server as I used your tools many times (especially the web grader). Sure would appreciate access to them, but that is not my main reason for writing to you. There are really two other reasons. One: Moving my blogs from Blogger. 2: I have a number of the businesses who want to do business with the site (they remember it and appreciate the whole concept and where I was going), so they want to join me in creating a joint traffic juggernaut with Superstarcase.org being the headliner and their organizations being attached to it. Henceforth I'm ready to find the best vehicles for traffic mongering I can, all over the world and keep costs reasonable. They are quite diverse, and all relate to the entertainment business. Most are close personal/business associates, who bow to my integrity, honesty and plan. I would love to integrate my business with you guys and your knowledge, expertise and straight forward approach. My main partner, has acquired a percentage of the India franchise from me and we have lot's of folks, all over the world, wanting to be a part. Because of my ethics, I won't let them, yet until I identify sources of integrity like yours, who will be a benefit to us all. Can you entertain the thought. I have been building Superstarcase and it's relative parts and associations for a while now, because I believe it will be able to generate quite substantial sums and be a great benefit to artists all over the world. There are two parts; one foundational, one commercial.
Thank you for your consideration. One more thing, I believe Superstarcase.org could become, monumentally instrumental to Mozilla Firefox and their battle to retain and acquire loyal users (re: Impact Mozilla). Once again, thank you and I'll be waiting to hear from you.
Sincerely yours,
Kenny Beck
www.superstarcase.org
My MX record is being changed so the new sites should be up by tomorrow. I'm just completing a few tweaks. KB
Melissa Williams 1:11 AM on November 07, 2008
Wow! Well, I have my business blog on wordpress but I also blog on blogger. I link my blogger to my wordpress. I'm really new at this so I'm not so sure of what I need to do now. Thanks for this information.
Melissa B. Imbo 3:52 AM on November 07, 2008
Wow! Well, I have my business blog on wordpress but I also blog on blogger. I link my blogger to my wordpress.
I'm really new at this so I just read the headlines and if some page says something should not be done, I just obey, I don't think.
I'm also trying to find my brain. Has anybody seen it?
Thanks for this information.
Melissa B. Imbo 3:52 AM on November 07, 2008
Wow! Well, I have my business blog on wordpress but I also blog on blogger. I link my blogger to my wordpress.
I'm really new at this so I just read the headlines and if some page says something should not be done, I just obey, I don't think.
I'm also trying to find my brain. Has anybody seen it?
Thanks for this information.
Carolyn C 7:34 AM on November 08, 2008
Ok, guilty as charged. I've got 2 blogs on blogger both for business. Gulp, looking at costs to move today. Did you say you could help?
Jigantus 4:09 PM on November 09, 2008
Great info, things I never knew to consider. Thank you!
William 3:03 PM on November 11, 2008
Enjoyed the article, very informative. I've been with Blogger for a while. I've got my own domain which i basically use blogger to point to my regular domain. Is this ok? anybody?
freetorich 9:19 AM on November 13, 2008
hey, it's make sense... thanx for the post.. Based on your opinion, what is the best free domain blog?
Free PPC Traffic 8:24 AM on November 15, 2008
5. Once your blogger becomes popular, they can lock or suspend your blog anytime. Goodbye popular blog :)
Deb 12:40 PM on November 18, 2008
Interesting info. I was thinking about starting a blog using Wordpress however, was informed that typepad has more functionality.
What are your thoughts?
Ben Baumann 12:32 PM on December 06, 2008
I have 2 challenges to this post:
1- It does not address the value of establishing links from your blog site to your main corporate site.
2- The author does not describe how he knows that the domain "love" does not transfer from the hosted blog to main site.
I operate a blog about
Jesse 9:13 PM on December 09, 2008
One thing I do need to ask about this is the fact that once you purchase a domain through google.. does that effect the same way since you bought it from google? What about the SEO you got for the blogspot account.. After you purchase a domain with google for your blogspot account it redirects to the .com domain.. Isn't that correct?
Thanks for the help
Ryan 6:36 AM on December 15, 2008
Sorry don't agree. Success comes down to content and traffic, thats whats the search engines and readers care about. Who cares about a self hosted domain? My experiences are that Bloggers server has been consistently reliable and the ease and practicality of the software is perfect; simply write and publish, not having to worry about iffy servers and design aspects. I have enough trust in google.
office space 9:55 AM on December 15, 2008
I'm a Realtor and can't afford anything more than free right now. But will probably make a change in the future. Good blog I'm getting the feed!Thanks P
Steven Paul Matsumoto 11:44 PM on December 26, 2008
As many have all ready stated this is bitter sweet information. I found out after starting my blogger account that I had wordpress available through my web hosting service. I have found Wordpress to not be as intuitive as Blogger, but agree with your points as I have experienced them first hand.
If you can help I would appreciate it as I plan to make some substantial changes in my business in 2009.
Rob Schatz 6:17 PM on December 30, 2008
Can you still get the Google juice w/out having a blog on blogspot.com?
Jonathan Rick 9:22 PM on January 03, 2009
Dharmesh,
Excellent post. One year ago, I offered similar reasons in a post titled "Should Blogs Be Independent of or Integrated in Their Host Organization's Web Site?"
In short, "Why build and drive people to an entirely new site when, by integrating the blog into your already developed site, you can centralize your traffic?"
Mike Abrams 12:20 PM on January 05, 2009
I posted this as a link on my twitter account and its already been retweeted. Key information. thank you!
Rev. Fr. Jessie Somosierra 8:25 PM on January 15, 2009
I have several blogs listed to blogspot and wordpress. This post have put me again into a position to rethink on moving to my oen domain. Thanks
Strategic Internet Marketing 3:36 PM on January 17, 2009
This one is funny... even though this topic is talked about so much, there are still business people who maintain a blogspot blog. As you explained really well above, it is not such a good idea if you are thinking strategically (long term). Hopefully lots of business people will learn read this post and choose the right path...
Narek Gabrielyan
Strategic Internet Marketing
Android Blog 5:32 AM on January 23, 2009
I think this article was mostly relevant at the time it was written.
Now blogspot do have tagging or comment subscription, and allow to easily add gadgets to your page. And there are tons of them.
As your the transfert to another domain, it is now included.
In the settings / publishing menu, you can choose to host on another domain.
I don't know what happens next, but it looks like it is taken into account now !
wendy soucie 10:55 AM on January 23, 2009
If you do move your blogger blog to your domain - is there greater value in usin blog.mydomain.com or mydomain.com/blog
Lets say your domain is Google rank of 5 and your blog has been up for abt 1 year or less with 4,756,434 rank on Technorati
Album - Internet Marketing 4:51 PM on January 23, 2009
Those are all valid points. I find wordpress a lot more useful in terms of using it as a business blog, but you're right there are a number of reasons why you shouldn't use a free blog tool for a business blog. My main reason is that I don't want to be married to it, marriage is scary. ;)
P.S I think website magazine did an article similar to this.
Beth Smith 10:37 AM on January 29, 2009
For anyone with excellent feedback...I would appreciate it.So recently, I was doing research for an article that I am writing about email marketing. I was researching private companies that offered services that are the most affordable to businesses owners. I came across a private company in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania called Phase 2 Solutions, LLC. Some of the services they offered flabbergasted me, in comparison with others. I thought I would like to share this company with other marketers because I had never heard of it before and was wondering what other people may think before I submit my article.
They provide an email blast service for $25, which they design and distribute it to up to 2500 of your contacts. Compared with other services, it seems as though it is the best deal around. Any feedback would be great that I can use for my article.
www.phase2solutions.net – Company website
www.sendemailblast.com – Email blast website
Ann Evanston 10:27 AM on January 31, 2009
I am always trying to tell my clients these things, not I will just send them to this blog! Great resource to help new business owners! Thank you!
Ann Evanston
www.warriorpreneurs.com
the Warrior is Within You
Eric 10:32 AM on February 12, 2009
Blogger simply rocks. I love hubspot. However, remember one rule about GOOGLE. #1 Google Love Google.
Jack Munt 9:23 AM on February 15, 2009
I accept much of what you say. Of course, one big drawback of WordPress for the business blogger is that it doesn't support ads at the moment (accept some ads that pay them, not you. So you can't directly moneterise your WordPress blog. They say they plan to give us the option of ads 'in the future'
HelenGr 5:27 AM on February 19, 2009
I believe that choosing blogging service is a matter of taste only. I have two blogs:
misstechie.wordpress.com
and
Social Juice 8:29 AM on February 19, 2009
Blogger is simply favored by Google. If you want favor with Google then use Blogger. Otherwise you handicap yourself.
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Mary 7:20 PM on March 04, 2009
Oh dear,
I heard from the start about the wisdom of your own domain. Now after reading this, I must get on with it. I have 2 Blogspot blogs & a Wordpress one...only fairly new, so it's perfect timing.
Thank you,
Mary
Melissa 6:36 PM on March 05, 2009
I have multiple free blogs on Blogger and Wordpress too. I recently got a blog through my domain, which I noticed helps with credibility as well. Hupspot hits it on the nail again!
Michael Perrault, P.E. 10:09 AM on March 10, 2009
When I signed up with Hubspot, it was suggested that I use Hubspot to host my blog. I thought that using Hubspot instead of my company website was counter to SEO. I decided to launch my blog page, using wordpress, on my site. I guess my intuition was on focus!
Ron Chism 10:45 AM on March 10, 2009
It's depressing that the guy who wrote this article offered to help people move their blog, but when I called him AND emailed, he never got back to me.
I emailed an assistant of his, and called him, and he said he placed my note on the person's desk. It's been two weeks.
If anyone here knows how to move a Blogger blog to HubSpot or anywhere else, please contact me, because it's pretty clear that the guy who wrote this post (I think he's the head of HubSpot) has no intention of getting back to me--for some reason.
Feels REAL bad.
riya 8:45 AM on March 16, 2009
this is a wonderful article..we too moved from blogspot to wordpress for our business blogging. blogspot is sexier and more user friendly to use in a way, but there's much more to wordpress which only becomes obvious when you really start using it...many get carried away by the simplicity of drag and drop etc of blogspot!
MaxCash Title Loans 8:29 PM on March 22, 2009
I usually install wordpress into my domain name. I agree 100% with this article. Another good way to get fast SERP is using PRlog.org. I wrote this article for our title loan business Car title loans online.
Here is another trick I used for our Las Vegas business. Title Loans Las Vegas. It works for car title loans. Just some tips.
Steve Chipman 11:51 PM on March 23, 2009
The other great thing about WordPress and its global plugin developer community is that with the ever changing Web landscape, there are always new and relevant plugins -- such as those for Twitter profile interaction.
Linda Sherman 3:12 PM on March 24, 2009
Cogent explanation of something I have been telling people who ask about blogging platforms choices. I first noticed that when I tried to get traffic rankings on blogspot sites it was usually impossible. That was a really bad sign. Thanks. @lindasherman
Michael Husodo 12:05 AM on March 27, 2009
This blog is excelent, i like it, so i want to read more and more and more....
http://invesmentbussines.blogspot.com
Allen 5:04 AM on March 31, 2009
I have a blog on blogger and its ranking for the keyword Symbols For Buddhism and i am getting some revenue also.
Allen 5:09 AM on March 31, 2009
Sorry, i have given wrong blog address in above comment.The keyword is Symbols For Buddhism
feed the donkey! 3:22 PM on April 02, 2009
Was just going to start with blogger. Now I have to rethink.
Thanks for the info!
jonny 4:53 PM on April 04, 2009
Yeah well you must be wrong about it because you can now buy a custom domain through your dashboard so now what do you have to say about it ? also im a WordPress coder but blogger has a drag and drop based widgetized interface where WordPress doesn't
Denver Colorado Airport Transportation 8:55 PM on April 04, 2009
Wow great article I set up a blog spot account just to see what business I could generate for my Colorado airport transportation site and is does link them togather but Content is king.
Swashata 12:03 PM on April 05, 2009
Well its 2009 and things are much better now since 2006 :)! Atleast we can submit to technorati, sumbit feeds and do some other SEOs! Yeah but we should be using a custom domain
Enlightenment 8:11 AM on April 06, 2009
I just got my regular website graded and my blogspot domain graded and the blogspot one was much lower. I know of no way to put a site description or keywords on my blogspot post.
Eleanor Prior 1:31 AM on April 10, 2009
It is kind of funny, I am working with a client who doesn't have a blog, and have convinced to her that her business needs a blog. Her web designer wants her to use Blogger after I had suggested Wordpress. This just reinforces what I told her almost word for word about why she wants a WordPress.org blog
Cambodia culture 3:12 AM on April 20, 2009
i started blogging with blogger but when I decided to get serious with it and I wanted to have some more things on my blog that Blogger can't offer, I moved over to Wordpress for the same reasons you've mentioned.
Moving from blogger to WP can be daunting esp. for a non-techie but WP has a great and supportive community
I've posted a guide on Moving From Blogger to Wordpress. Hope this could be helpful to Blogger bloggers itching to move to WP. :)
Justin 7:50 PM on April 20, 2009
Great article. Our blog is actually Blogger and it makes me wonder if that is why our site isn't as easily found as some. Definitely going to look into it. Thanks.
seo pro 2:33 AM on April 21, 2009
Although WordPress is great- I can not stop thinkung that you just want to promote yourself (Or HubSpot)...
But I think that negative list is the most wrong way...
bank expert 6:36 PM on April 24, 2009
Interesting post. But i thing blogspot is best tool for newbie.
Kimberly Nasief-Westergren 8:13 AM on April 25, 2009
Wow. Fantastic information. We are in the process of retooling our website, and revamping our marketing strategy. Looked at Blogspot quite a bit, and I had no idea that we'd just be throwing our SEO out the window! Thank you!
Chris Twellman 3:38 PM on April 30, 2009
Dharmesh, any chances that you could provide an update to this article. A lot of changes have been made sense you originally wrote this and I think that you may be steering some the wrong way.
daniel Sheehan 10:49 PM on April 30, 2009
Hi Dharmesh,
Do you know if Wordpress allows you to set up a 301 redirect?
Atul Chattterjee 3:53 AM on May 01, 2009
Hi Dharmesh, could you let us know if there is any website which allows for hosting and a clean 301 transfer later.
a1380 5:41 PM on May 03, 2009
I have 1 Blogger blog, but quickly purchased my own domain name, so not to have that ugly tag name behind it. I'd like to do the same with wordpress soon. I've just started my new business blog on wordpress called "So, here's what..." about online presence & marketing consulting. I totally agree with not using blogger for business, I will admit that I find blogger a little more user friendly, also free and easier to manipulate html, but I did try and switch over once before to wordpress, and it was a no-go. Come visit me on my new page sohereswhat.wordpress.com, I'm just starting out with a client or two, but hoping to pick up business very soon.
Ann Evanston 9:40 AM on May 06, 2009
I love this article. I am ALWAYS telling my clients to stay off blogger and your reasons coupled with mine are great!
Just to add one of my concerns: most people do not realize that they also do not control the bar on the top that says "next blog" nor do they think about what "might" appear. What if one of your clients clicks on that and associates the next blog with you? Ouch!
Ann Evanston
http://Warrior-Preneur.com
The Warrior is within You
Ryan-internet marketing strategy 11:18 AM on May 06, 2009
Blogspot is great for adsense, especially if your using the classic templates. The problem, however, is control. If for whatever reason, google does not like what your doing, say bye bye to all your hard work.
Luis Mauricio 5:49 AM on May 07, 2009
FYI: Blogger Feed URLs, including comments-only feed:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=97933
Paul Sherland 2:17 PM on May 12, 2009
I use blogger with Google Analytics. I've also looked at WordPress, but it doesn't seem to have the WYSIWYG simplicity that blogger provides. I'd rather spend my time creating content than worrying about how to post it. Great article though!
Eric Graudins 8:17 PM on May 24, 2009
I agree with everything that's been said about the benefits of using self hosted Wordpress for a business related blog.
And to those who say that wordpress sites are slow compared to Blogger sites:
Don't blame Wordpress for that. It's most likely that the slow sites are installed on overloaded servers with very cheap hosting plans.
Some of the wordpress templates can also be V-E-R-Y slow to load.
cheers, Eric G.
Chris 4:59 PM on May 25, 2009
I wanted to get my own domain. Rather than using blogspot. I feel like it's to late for me to switch now. I have already built up so much with my current websitehttp://watchtelevisionforfree.blogspot.com/
I have actually started getting traffic from major search engines.
Now Blogger won't let you use any type of redirect. So let me ask. If I were to move. Could I place a link saying "our site has moved"? What affect would this have on traffic?
Raif 12:14 PM on May 31, 2009
Business blogger, it is not just Blogspot, a subdomain on any of the free blogs might make him lose some value.
steve Garfield 4:06 PM on June 01, 2009
Wow! I love all the comments on this post. I wanted to chime in here and say "Leave Blogger Alone!" They were one of the first blog platforms and I've used them since day one. My main blog, Off On a Tangent is hosted there, and if I wanted I could use the blogger software to easily point to my own domain name instead of the blogspot domain. So for everyone who wrote in to ask if they shoudl be worried, the answer is not. Don't worry. You're fine. The blogger team is working hard to add new features. Over hte years I've found blogger to be stable and reliable. It's also very easy and fast to make new posts. Also, you can embed anyting into a blogger post, while some other free blog solutions tend to strip out HTML and code.
Yay Blogger.
richskrenta 11:13 PM on June 04, 2009
yes ... that's true but i don't have much money to buy web hosting .. hiksss :(
so sad ...
you can follow me at
carpet steam cleaning 12:26 AM on June 11, 2009
that's good
Denver Airport Transportation 6:02 PM on June 11, 2009
Well I have been using blogger on Google for 4 months and at first it took awhile to see it on the SEO and then wow. After 4 months it is only a wow factor when I post a new topic.
Theresa Minnette 11:09 PM on June 14, 2009
Hmmm, So what about this.... I use blogspot, but the page has a third tier domain Temecula Wedding Photographers>
So does that help with SEO for my original www.theresaminnette.com domain?
Nigeria News 4:28 AM on June 15, 2009
I have a blog on http://christonline.wordpress.com and also need to move it to my domain. Thanks for this piece
Brandy 8:15 PM on June 16, 2009
Blogspot works great for our business blog as it is coorelated with Google. They work great together.
Wisnuth 3:47 AM on June 17, 2009
Dear Mr/Mrs. -Dharmesh Shah, thank you for your article in blog.hubspot.com. I am using blogger to manage my blog Business Line
. So in your summary, you said that blogger is not really free.. could you explain to me deeply, why blogger is not really free and give me advise how to manage my blog.
Thank you.
Best Regards
Wisnuth 3:48 AM on June 17, 2009
Dear Mr/Mrs. -Dharmesh Shah, thank you for your article in blog.hubspot.com. I am using blogger to manage my blog Business Line
. So in your summary, you said that blogger is not really free.. could you explain to me deeply, why blogger is not really free and give me advise how to manage my blog.
Thank you.
Best Regards
Allen 1:34 PM on June 17, 2009
I share the same views your blog. It is very interesting and very informative. Nice blog keep it up!!!
scorpio 4:19 AM on June 19, 2009
You have a fantastic blog about online business opportunity to work at home. I am also having a blog like that and I have my own free indian classifieds website for getting good traffic.
Indian Free Classifieds
Shipping Directory
Part Time Jobs
Allen 3:30 AM on June 21, 2009
I chanced upon to view your blog and found it very interesting. Great ... Keep it up!
Alexey 1:48 PM on June 25, 2009
the platform of the blog does not effect the popularity and its success, the only way to make blog attractive for readers is to make unique and interesting content, it will make leads from other sources to it such
Peter 11:43 PM on June 27, 2009
Very good article. I'm personally using Wordpress for my blog, arguably the best open source blogging platform out there...for business there is no reason not to use your own domain name either.
John Dufresne 3:44 PM on June 28, 2009
I too use wordpress.
Another excellent post and look forward to more.
Thanks.
John Dufresne
The Bloggers eStore
haily 9:22 AM on July 13, 2009
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haily 9:23 AM on July 13, 2009
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Elvin Sumalpong 4:45 AM on July 25, 2009
This post help me so much.
I am a blogspot user.
Vintotin 4:49 AM on July 25, 2009
This post makes me realize more about this blogspot thing...
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Work by Internet 2:48 PM on July 27, 2009
Thanks for sharing website blog tips.
Why is WordPress any better? 12:46 PM on July 28, 2009
I read your post on blogs and saw you like wordpress. Don't you still have domain lock in and issues transferring data from WordPress. And, on wordpress they put ads on your blog. With google/blogspot you get the dollars from the ads...We're trying to make this decision now & I'd like to understand better why you are such a fan of wordpress? Others?
michael 2:35 AM on July 30, 2009
I am using a free wordpress blog I dont think it is a such a big thing that you use it from there site, however for SEO purposes I do place backlinks from there to me, if it is better to actually have these links on my site I dont know... because you are telling google my site is updated all the time in having it on wordpress you are telling them that wordpress updates all the time... Either way my links to my site are on theres and I think that is all that counts. Good Post though. Thanks !
haroon 8:46 PM on August 01, 2009
very helpful article. I am a newcomer to the web but because of such talented professionals learning fast.
Thank you buddies
Christopher 1:25 PM on August 03, 2009
Very useful, I will bare that in mind!
Website Design 10:43 PM on August 09, 2009
Great article. This gave me plenty of ammunition to talk one of my customers into moving their blog off of blogspot.
Thanks.
Greg 12:44 PM on August 11, 2009
Thanks for the information. I never liked that my received no google pagerank.
Looks like I should move it to my company site.
Thanks