The Bloggers With The Most To Say
My blogs future: Blogger or Wordpress AND how do I make register it.
So I am loving the whole blogging thing and really want to have a www. without blogspot in it. I want to figure out a few things. First of all should I stay on blogger or should I go to wordpress. Wordpress seems to have a lot of options like retweeting blogs and "liking" blogs and sharing them. Can you do that on blogger and I'm just missing out?? What is the difference? Then how do I register? I need someone to give me the dumbed down explanation because I understand NOTHING about buying the name and registering it and hosting. Those are all foreign terms.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nick Tabick on -
I really should sit down and write the definitive guide for this stuff. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow... >.>
Anyway, the decision to go with Blogger, WordPress.com, or similar (assuming you're staying with a commercially-hosted solution) is up to you. I recommend you sit and take some time getting familiar with the interfaces of any and all options you're considering and pick the one that feels most comfortable to you. You're the one going to be staring at it, not us, so you should be thoroughly comfortable with the tools you have available to you.
As far as the social aspect of Blogger, I'm not intimately familiar with it as I spend the majority of my time supporting WordPress, so someone else might be better suited to answering that part of your question.
"Easy way out": One of the benefits of WordPress.com is that for $15 per year, they'll register the domain name and point it where it needs to go. Blogger offers a similar service for approximately $10 per year (though I believe it is free if you already have the domain, as the $10 covers registration). Choosing one of these options is akin to a one-stop shop - they take care of the domain management and hosting.
Involved: You can get the domain name and some hosting and set everything up yourself. Unless you have the time to sit down and really figure out what you're doing (or don't know anybody willing to do it for you), you probably don't want this option. You do get a wider variety of options with this method, though, from CMS software (self-hosted WordPress) to the themes/plugins in use to the rest of the experience.
Side Note: 1&1 is having a free one-year domain sale, or at least is as of this writing. If you hurry, you can take advantage of it. No, I don't use 1&1 (though I have in the past), and I don't get any kickback from that link, nor am I paid to put it there, but I figured you might want to save a few dollars. (I'm not sure when or if that offer will expire, so by the time you read this it may even be invalid.)
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Permalink Reply by Nycole on -
If I go with something like the WordPress $15 a year can I then eventually change to hosting it on my own and doing more involved process? I'm not there time wise or even content wise to have so much to start with. I also don't have a design all picked out that I'd run out and put on there.
Do you know of any step by step websites? What is hosting? Like what is the difference between having wordpress/blogger host and have godaddy or somewhere host it? If I have someone design a page for me can I only use that on a website hosted through somewhere like godaddy or can I use it on wordpress/blogger.
I blog for fun not a business but I would like it to look a little nicer and get more involved in the future. For now its just my learning experience (may I say I'm not doing very well at this stage lol)!
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Permalink Reply by Alex Weisman on -
Here is the low down on running your blog on blogger/blogspot or Wordpress.com versus hosting your own. Blogger and Wordpress.com both have their own servers that they host your blog on (along with the blogs of every other member). If you decide to host your own there are many hosting companies like GoDaddy, Blue Host, JustHost, etc. Each of these companies can register a domain for you and provide you with space to host your blog. You then have to install software like Wordpress or Joomla to create your blog. Most of these hosting services provide an automated install of this software so that people with little or no knowledge of how to do a manual install have nothing to worry about.
Now, lets run down some differences in services. Blogger/Blogspot seems to offer the most functionality for free however you can't have your own domain for free. Wordpress.com is, in my opinion, a much more powerful platform but the free setup is slightly more limited than Blogger. If you host your own Wordpress blog, you can tap into ALL of the features of the Wordpress platform. The cool thing about going self-hosted is that the interface that you see on wordpress.com is almost exactly the same as what it would look like on your site. All of these options have access to lots of free themes/templates.
As far as networking and followers go, it really doesn't matter what platform you are on. The most common widget that people use to allow people to follow them is the Google Friend Connect widget. This should be built in to any Blogger/Blogspot blog and it can be added to any wordpress blog. To add this widget to wordpress you just have to set it up and copy the code from http://www.google.com/friendconnect. In the social bookmarking front, there are themes that have this integrated into them and there are also widgets and plugins that can be added to your blog to include social bookmarking links.
I have helped a few people set up self hosted wordpress blogs and I am happy to help you out. I also run two self hosted blogs myself (http://icewolf08.com and http://bloggerstock.net/blog). I am not really a theme designer, though I can do basic theme work. I have helped a few people out with blogger, but I am slightly less proficient at that than I am with self hosted options. So, feel free to drop me a line or ask questiosn right in this thread. I hope that my explanations above make sense to more people than just myself!
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Permalink Reply by Robert Fitzsimmons on -
Wordpress has a lot more options so I'd always reccommend it over blogger. You can register a url and redirect it to whoever is hosting your blog now.
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Permalink Reply by jaminicole on -
And their support is awesome, and it's more user-friendly, they're always developing new features...I love WordPress.
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Permalink Reply by Nycole on
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I think my biggest confusion is what does hosting mean? What is the difference of wordpress/blogger hosting my site and godaddy or someone hosting it? I can use the same domain name with any of them right? Is it about space? Design? I just do not get what hosting means. Sorry I feel like a total website idiot, but honestly I AM! I have no background or training in it what so ever and it all seems like Foreign Language 101 lol!!
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Permalink Reply by jaminicole on
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If hosting confuses you, it's best to let blogger or wordpress host for you and don't bother with the other stuff. At least, that's what I did because while I get the difference, I can't explain it!
Basically, setting up your domain name through wordpress is easy. You set up your regular yourdomain.wordpress.com account, then go to upgrades, pay $15, pick a domain name, click a few buttons, and there you go. yourdomain.com. I don't know how it got done, but I know that if you click jaminicole.com, it goes to my site.
It also redirects people. Since my homepage was jaminicole.wordpress.com for upwards of a year, people had that bookmarked. So when people still type in jaminicole.wordpress.com, it still goes to my site, but wordpress takes care of the redirecting.
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Permalink Reply by Alex Weisman on
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If you use blogger or wordpress.com they host your site on their server. If you buy a domain from them, your blog still resides on their servers.
Self hosted (through someone like GoDaddy) means that your site resides on the third party server. You will have more control over the files and documents on your site. If you wanted to have a standard website and a blog you could do that. The Bloggerstock site is a great example of this, a website and a blog. Ultimately, self-hosting provides much more flexibility.
Also, it should be noted that the term "self-hosted" is kind of a misnomer. To be truly self-hosted you would need to run your own server. However the term refers to using a hosting package purchased through a provider like GoDaddy and installing software like wordpress on the site.
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Permalink Reply by floreta on -
I've done both blogger and wordpress but wordpress is definitely where to go with your own domain! More versatile and has an SEO plug in as well, if you're into that kind of thing.
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Permalink Reply by David Spinks on -
Personally I much prefer wordpress and would recommend that you switch over.
I've been on wordpress.com for over a year now and it's been great. I'm actually trying to move over to a self hosted wordpress blog soon so that I can customize it even further.
The difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org?
Wordpress.com:
- free to use, $15 or so/year to use your own domain name without the .wordpress in there.
- Limited amount of widgets. You can add basic text widgets, a flickr widget, a categories widget, and a bunch of others. If they don't offer it though, you can't add it.
- No software required.
- No hosting required.
- New like and reblog options.
- Very basic analytics to show you your traffic.
Wordpress.org:
- It's free to download, but you have to pay for hosting services. Most popular hosting services make it very easy to install wordpress now. You won't even have to download the software. Most hosting services are anywhere from $6-15/month for a basic blog. I use fatcow. Another good option is BlueHost
- Highly customizable. You can download free, or premium templates from a number of sites like elegantthemes.com and many others.
- Access to plugins. Plugins are just features that you can install on your blog, like a new comment system, or a rating system within your posts.
So if you're still pretty new to everything, I'd recommend doing what I did and start off with wordpress.com. When you're ready to switch to wordpress.org, it's extremely easy to transfer over all of your posts and pages.
Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.
David, Scribnia.com
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Permalink Reply by Barbara on -
As a person that uses both (self hosted wp for my main blog and blogger at work) I recommend Wordpress all day. It has more options, it looks more custom and in my opinion it is easier to use.
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Permalink Reply by Nycole on
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Would it be easiest to get a domain through blogger and get to use that for awhile because people will get use to the domain and then if I choose Wordpress move it all over in a few months. I'm concerned that I dont have enough time to make paying a monthly fee worth it. Not that its that much at all though.
I can move a blogger hosted domain to wordpress later right??
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