How will Google's rebranding of Blogger affect blogs?

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   Baileybearposted 13 years ago

   I saw some articles about Google rebranding Blogger in the coming weeks.  What affect will this have on current blogs.
   
   When people say, it's 'best to have own blog' what exactly do they mean by this?  Have a domain name?  Use Wordpress?

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      Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      They mean it's best to have your own blog, as opposed to writing on a site that's owned by someone else.
      
      The main reason is that if you write on a site owned by other people, there is always the risk they'll go out of business - and you may have no warning.  You could lose your whole blog overnight.
      
      That happened to bloggers on Today.com, who sold the domain name to the Today Show. The transaction was kept secret for business reasons - and the very day the sale went through, they closed the site down.
      
      We've all regarded writing on Blogger as an exception, because none of us can imagine Google going broke or selling the site any time soon.  However, Yahoo closed down its Geocities sites.  Just because Google is going to rename Blogger doesn't mean the URL will change, I hope - but it's just another reason why it's always good to use your own domain name from the start.

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         Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         by your 'own blog' you mean have your own domain name?  How do you have your own blog if need to use a platform to blog on?

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            celebritieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            you can go to namecheap.com or godaddy.com and get a domain name and then go to hostgator and get hosting with a easy wordpress.org install.
            
            You can find free information on the codex.wordpress.org site.

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               Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               have got a domain name. 
               
               To clarify, even with own domain name, if Google shuts down Blogger, the blogs just disappear without warning?
               Wordpress is different in that one needs to install the software & pay someone for hosting it? 
               Blogger appealed as easier to use.  A host will set up Wordpress pretty much ready to go?
               cPanel looks scary.

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Your domain name is just an address - it doesn't hold any information, it just points people to your blog.  Your blog content is housed on the computer that belongs to your host, whether that is Google (for Blogger), Wordpress.com, Weebly or a paid hosting service like Hostgator.
                  
                  Imagine if your blog was saved on your own computer, and you switched it off.  No one would be able to see it, would they? 
                  
                  In the same way, if the company goes out of business and shuts off their computers, your blog disappears.
                  
                  If you had your own domain name, bought from another company, your "address" would still exist, it would just have nothing to point to.  So, if you kept a copy of your content, you could open a new account somewhere else and rebuild your blog, then point your domain name to it.  You might be off the air for a few days, but your readers would still be able to find you, because you're still at the same "address" as far as they're concerned.
                  
                  But if you were just using a domain name provided by the company (e.g. whatever.blogspot.com), that would disappear too, because it's owned by the company.   You could rebuild your blog elsewhere, but you'd have to choose a new name and you'd have no way to tell your readers where you'd moved to.

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                     Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     so the most impt thing is to have own domain name & keep a backup copy if want to revive it if using free service?

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                     Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     so what if your server goes broke/shuts down?  Do you have a backup of your wordpress all ready to run?  Once it's set up, do you not have to deal with the cPanel etc?  (all looked like too much technical stuff to learn)

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                        Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        That's always a risk.  Yes I have backup copies so I can reload it if necessary.
                        
                        Once your blog is set up, you rarely need to use cpanel again. I do use it now and then to do more complicated stuff - however I built a blog for a friend on Wordpress, and she has never needed to touch cpanel since.
                        
                        You have your own domain name and you're keeping a backup of your blog in case of accidents.  So I'd say you're fine to stick with Weebly, unless there's another reason you want to move.

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         brimancandyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, that is like when Yahoo took over Geocities. I had two websites with them, and when yahoo dumped geocities, my pages went with it, and I lost a following of over 10,000 readers. I do have my own blog, but it is nowhere near as nice as what I had on Geocities. Plus, I haven't done much with it.

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            Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            how did you feel about that?  Not motivated to get 'own' site?

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               brimancandyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I thought about getting Geocities pro when it was $4.95 a month, and then they dropped that too. That would have included keeping my site, but since I wasn't making any money off it, and working full time, I really didn't wan to put in the effort. I suppose if the site was earning me money I might have kept with it. But, I wasn't so I just let it go.
               
               Glad I did, because if I had went with the $4.95 a month Yahoo would eventually have dropped geocities, and I would have lost my sites and all the money I spent making them. So it was a good decision.

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                  Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  I'm more of a hobby writer.  I've just figured out how to export a copy of my blog in a format that it can be moved elsewhere if required.

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      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I hope when they rebrand Blogger they put 301 re-directs in place else many of us will lose all backlinks we have to those blogs.

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      Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      here are some interesting comments by people who have used Blogger & Wordpress
      
      http://pulsed.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog … ebate.html

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         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Don't confuse Wordpress.com with Wordpress.org. Wordpress.com is a blogging site pretty much like blogger but with different functionalities as your link showed. Wordpress.org is the software that sets your own site up, hosted by whoever with your own bought url.

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            Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            thanks for clarifying

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            Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            here's a link about wordpress.org & wordpress.com
            
            http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

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               Baileybearposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I don't like the cons of wordpress.org

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Most of the "cons" are exaggerated:
                  
                  "You need a good web host, which generally costs $7-12 a month, or thousands of dollars per month for a high traffic site"
                  
                  I have six sites running on a Hostgator account which costs me about $4 a month all up. Only really big corporations would need to be pay thousands a month for hosting.
                  
                  "Requires more technical knowledge to set up and run"
                  You can get very technical with Wordpress.org if you want, but if you're happy with the basics, there's very little difference - they are fundamentally the same program, after all.
                  
                  "You’re responsible for stopping spam"
                  Wordpress.org and Wordpress.com both stop spam automatically using a system called Akismet.  The only difference is that on Wordpress.org, you have to set up Akismet yourself when you set up the blog.  It's not difficult.
                  
                  "You have to handle backups"
                  You can set up a plugin to do that for you, or you can just export a copy every now and then and save it on your PC - it only takes a couple of clicks.
                     
                  "You must upgrade the software manually when a new version comes out"
                  Wrong.  A link pops up at the top of your dashboard telling you there's a new version.  Click on it and then click "upgrade automatically" and it's all done for you.
                  
                  "If you get a huge spike in traffic (like Digg or Slashdot) your site will probably go down unless you have a robust hosting setup"
                  Never happened to me.
                  
                  The big "con" of using Wordpress.org is the initial set up of your hosting.  However, once you've got the initial setup done, you'll very rarely have to go near cpanel ever again - practically everything can be done from your Wordpress dashboard.  And on the rare occasions you do need to use cpanel, your host's support team should be able to talk you through it, provided you choose a good host with live chat that works (that's why I like Hostgator).

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   atulhostposted 13 years ago

   The blogs which are not updated from a long time, will be suspended.

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