Should I be blog mistress of my own domain?
December 21, 2013 1:13 PM Subscribe
I have a couple of blogs on Blogger (and want to start a third one), and I've had a few people advise me to move them to their own domains. Should I, and if so, where should I move them and how?
It's going to be a huge amount of work to move the blogs to their own sites (i.e., one of them has nearly 400 posts on it it; the thought of fixing all the internal links makes me cringe), and I don't want to do it unnecessarily. So I'm asking for advice on three fronts:
a) Should I move the blogs? What are the pros and cons? I have been happy with Blogger, but maybe there are things I don't know I'm missing or downsides I'm not aware of.
And, assuming you're in the "move them" camp:
b) Where should I move the blogs? What hosting service would you recommend?
c) What tips do you have to make the process as quick and easy as possible?
It's going to be a huge amount of work to move the blogs to their own sites (i.e., one of them has nearly 400 posts on it it; the thought of fixing all the internal links makes me cringe), and I don't want to do it unnecessarily. So I'm asking for advice on three fronts:
a) Should I move the blogs? What are the pros and cons? I have been happy with Blogger, but maybe there are things I don't know I'm missing or downsides I'm not aware of.
And, assuming you're in the "move them" camp:
b) Where should I move the blogs? What hosting service would you recommend?
c) What tips do you have to make the process as quick and easy as possible?
Yeah, you can assign a custom self-purchased domain name to your Blogger website, and Blogger will fix all the internal links for you. Go that route -- it's definitely the simplest.
Unless you have a specific reason you should move, it's best not to -- you'd likely be moving to a Wordpress site, paying for hosting, where you're responsible for making sure things are working. It's a big leap in site maintenance effort, which should be avoided unless you see some true benefit from the change.
For that matter: why do you even want your own domain name? It won't necessarily bring you readers, unless you're doing media appearances promoting your website where it helps to have something succinct to put on business cards. Otherwise, if it's a vanity thing, go ahead, but there's no inherent value in a domain name unless you're trying to build a brand or business. One of my wifey's highest-traffic blog is still {blogname}.blogspot.com.
One caution about switching to a custom domain name at Blogger: it messes up your Pagerank and search findability for several months after it's done, and even then things don't feel quite the same. If you're relying on Adsense as income, switching a URL will have an impact on that, even though the blog stays at Blogger. This is first-hand knowledge based on several blogs we've done that to. This is why the one high-traffic blog is still at blogspot.com .
posted by AzraelBrown at 3:10 PM on December 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Unless you have a specific reason you should move, it's best not to -- you'd likely be moving to a Wordpress site, paying for hosting, where you're responsible for making sure things are working. It's a big leap in site maintenance effort, which should be avoided unless you see some true benefit from the change.
For that matter: why do you even want your own domain name? It won't necessarily bring you readers, unless you're doing media appearances promoting your website where it helps to have something succinct to put on business cards. Otherwise, if it's a vanity thing, go ahead, but there's no inherent value in a domain name unless you're trying to build a brand or business. One of my wifey's highest-traffic blog is still {blogname}.blogspot.com.
One caution about switching to a custom domain name at Blogger: it messes up your Pagerank and search findability for several months after it's done, and even then things don't feel quite the same. If you're relying on Adsense as income, switching a URL will have an impact on that, even though the blog stays at Blogger. This is first-hand knowledge based on several blogs we've done that to. This is why the one high-traffic blog is still at blogspot.com .
posted by AzraelBrown at 3:10 PM on December 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
The compelling reason to maintain control is because in the grand scheme of things, most Internet companies are short-lived. Most any user of Blogger would be aghast at my suggestion that things could change, but in reality Google discontinues products or modifies them in key ways on a regular basis (remember Froogle?). Who would have thought in 1993 that AOL would not be king of the Internet 20 years later? Or in 2000 that Yahoo! was going to be struggling? Or that Myspace would virtually vanish, taking lots of interesting content with it?
All these services are fantastically easy to use. That is their power. But in handing over responsibility to someone else for your stuff, you are also potentially handing over its fate as well. Controlling the namespace that people use to access your content means that if you at some later date have a disagreement with Google about something that happens on your blog, Google can stop providing you service, but you can also move that elsewhere and be on your way. It is a small step that can be a massive enabler, just like cell phone number portability was.
posted by jgreco at 4:59 AM on December 22, 2013
All these services are fantastically easy to use. That is their power. But in handing over responsibility to someone else for your stuff, you are also potentially handing over its fate as well. Controlling the namespace that people use to access your content means that if you at some later date have a disagreement with Google about something that happens on your blog, Google can stop providing you service, but you can also move that elsewhere and be on your way. It is a small step that can be a massive enabler, just like cell phone number portability was.
posted by jgreco at 4:59 AM on December 22, 2013
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posted by COD at 1:54 PM on December 21, 2013 [1 favorite]