Comments on: Picking a Platform for Your Blog

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:08:58 +0000

Thanks everyone for your comments. Of course, there will always be a personal opinion factor in these discussions. In truth, I don't think you can go really wrong with any of the top three.

By: Kerry Dexter

Kerry Dexter — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:43:24 +0000

I am on blogger, have been for nearly four years now. Sorry to hear folks think there's an unprofessional look -- to me it is clean and does what I want it to do. My blog is professional in both text and image content, and in intent.

By: scribbler59

scribbler59 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:11:00 +0000

I absolutely agree on your assessment on Blogger. For me, Blogger blogs tend to look unprofessional and also cookie cutter-ish due to the limited templates. However, there's not a steep learning curve for beginners, so for a personal blog, probably ok. Who knows though, with Google behind them, these negatives could change.
Of the three, I ended up going with Typepad -- I think it was because I thought Typepad would allow for the growth I anticipate. I'm not 100% sure if that was a right decision for the right reasons. I'll keep you posted as I grow.

By: Jomama

Jomama — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:50:21 +0000

@John - only 5,000 posts? Sheeyooot--that means if I post every day, then I will hit the limit in 13 years and 8 months--assuming I don't have any drafts sitting around eating into that number! I just started writing this blog this year, so I'd better get a move-on finding an alternate place to host!
Hah--like I post every day. With my current rate, I think I have at least 20 years of capacity left. By then, I'm sure we will all be hosting the content in our brains and broadcasting through neural-publishing implants...
I agree--useful analysis. I did get my very own domain name, to keep options open, but so far I am happy on Blogger. Your comparison had confirmed for me that I am fine where I am. Then again, I don't have any ambitious goals, other than having a place to write and publish, so my requirements are not stringent.
I have already used the import/export function, to change the underlying blogspot address. The first one I picked at 11:30 at night was not that catchy.
One gotcha to that--I did several "test" imports, then deleted all, and re-imported when I was ready. While all the text and pictures came through OK, the embedded links to prior posts all still pointed to the first blogspot address. I thought I would be clever by editing the XML file to replace OLDNAME.blogspot.com with NEWNAME.blogspot.com. Then I deleted and imported one last time--and all my links broke.
The search and replace trick worked, but I had test imported so many times that the link that should have read:
"http://www.seekingmylife.com/2009/04/barley-vs-smaug.html"
now reads
"http://www.seekingmylife.com/2009/04/barley-vs-smaug_890.html"
The random number appended at the end will have to be fixed manually.
If anyone knows a way to search all the hyperlinks in a blog site for easy review in list form--that would REALLY be handy.

By: Elizabeth Kricfalusi

Elizabeth Kricfalusi — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:44:40 +0000

Thanks for the info, John and Jennifer. I don't think the XML spec would be a big selling point to most of the people who visit my blog, but it's good to know. Jennifer, that's a good point about search engine rankings because of the Google connection. But I come up at the top, or near the top, for several of my postings (check "facebook unhide friends"), so good content still rules. :)

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:28:27 +0000

Nice, thorough analysis, Elizabeth.
Like John Faughnan mentioned, there is an XML specification to be able to move the Blogger data. That's a good thing.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I have a feeling that Blogger-created blogs get higher search rankings than non-Blogger-created blogs because it's owned by Google. From what I've seen in my web statistics, I get a dramatically higher amount of visitors to my blog on Blogger than I did when I hosted WordPress on my own server.
Regarding your comment on the lack of templates on Blogger: I agree with that. Some of the templates, in my opinion, aren't even visually appealing. However, if a person has some HTML/CSS skills, s/he can customize the appearance of the blog. That said, it's a pain in the neck to make the coding changes to customize.
Another advantage of Blogger and WordPress.com is free off-site hosting, which helps keep costs down. If all someone wants to do is create a blog for something simple, like portfolio work that doesn't require any user downloads, why spend the money for server hosting? Blogger and WordPress.com do the trick for free.

By: John Faughnan

John Faughnan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:37:42 +0000

Here's a big Blogger feature.
Thanks to Google's Data Freedom group there's an XML specification for exporting and importing a blog. You can actually MOVE your Blogger data.
I don't think any other service has an analogous form of data freedom.
This doesn't mean anyone (except Blogger) can import this XML, but it's a fully open spec.
Great credit to Blogger for this.
On the other hand, there's an undocumented 5,000 post limit of sorts! The Blogger dashboard can't go back beyond 5,000 entries.