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HOME BASED BUSINESS FORUMS - home based business > Marketing Discussions > Blog Marketing > Why Host Your Blog @ Blogspot Instead Of Hosting On Your Own Domain


Why Host Your Blog @ Blogspot Instead Of Hosting On Your Own Domain
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FreedomFire
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Mana: 
 Posted: Sat Apr 7th, 2007 11:17 pm

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Here's a question that was posed to me recently....with my answer.... which I think everyone here can benefit from.
I see many blogs hosted at blogspot.com like yourdomain.blogspot.com instead of having it hosted at your own hosting. I also see so many famous bloggers still just host their blogs at their blogspot or typepad hosting and never seem to have their own domains.

Does that work better for SEO reasons? I'm sure those blogs, including your blog which is not hosted on your own server point links back to other websites you own. But would it be better to run a blog on a blogspot hosting or whoever is not your own and to point links to other websites you own elsewhere than create a directory within your domain?

Or did you just leave it at blogspot because you hadn't owned your domain when you launched it?

I am trying to find a reason why people continue to host their blogs at blogspot or typepad or whatever and stay as their subdomain instead of buying own domain to host it at their own hosting. My guess was maybe for SEO reason, maybe it's good to leave it hosted at the blogspot and point links to your other websites? 

And here's my answer................

To answer your question about why I host my blog http://Best-MLM-Resources.blogspot.com at blogspot instead of my own domain....here's a few off the cuff comments.

- First....for everyone it's a personal choice often based more on convenience, ease, website development expertise, time management, comfort zone, etc. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to take advantage of this avenue. Keeping it simple is OK.

Since I offer others advise, tips, ideas, etc daily on lots of areas of network marketing (not just blogs...and not just on my blog).... I always choose and use the simplest example.


Folks relate better to that than some rocket science approach. It's the best starting point...everyone can do it...and everyone can grow from there at the pace best for them.

I do go over the "more advanced" ideas etc. but always use the simplest as the foundation an education and decison are built from. If I tried starting everyone at a higher level many would be lost right from the get go. This way....they can begin at the best level for them whatever that is. For blogs....it's something like Blogger.

- Using your own domain and building a directory has it's advantages. If that's what one prefers...go for it. But is your purpose to get high visibility for your blog website? Your main domain site? Or what?

The main advantage of the blog in my opinion is the links IN the blog. Not the Blog itself. Not just the "menu" links either. The blog itself will be indexed. Each individual article will be indexed also...with the links it has embedded in it. I embedded targeted key word links as well as domain name links in my articles. This creates a link strategy with those sites, raises SE spider visibilty (spidered when you ping directories like Technorati), raises PR via link relevancy, lists articles in SEs by targeted keywords or phrases, and so on. The domain doesn't make that big a difference to all this IMHO really.

Case in point....look at http://Broadband-Nation.blogspot.com [not MLM related....my consulting business] Look through the archives. Google some keyword phrases covering article titles. Do the same for Yahoo. You'll find these articles listed pretty high...most have links embedded to my Telecom consulting services...all have the main page menu and links also readily visible on the article page. That's visibility with a targeted market viewing it. I get lots of sales from folks visiting the articles listed in the search engines....more so than folks just happenstance going directly to the blog itself.

And....none of it is hurt in anyway by being a Blogger site and not my own domain.

God Bless,
Michael



 



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vern
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 Posted: Mon Apr 9th, 2007 03:28 am

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Hi Michael,

If this is the case, I would say that probably hosting would be a more
advanced strategy and if I caught the gem that you're sharing here is
that the right content articles which you have posted with the keywords
you're targetting at brings in more visitors than ever and eventually
converts to both leads and then sales.

Good strategy and a good way of keeping things simple for even the
average joe. Please do add on to my comments if you have anymore
to share.

Vern



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jschuman
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 Posted: Mon May 7th, 2007 01:45 pm

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I think Blogger is adequate for most people. Here is one downside to a blogspot blog. Hosting it with Google gives them control. I personally had over 20 blogs cancelled without warning about 18 months ago.

I was putting PLR articles in them and was only posting an average of 1-2 times a month. Some of them were over a year old and Google shut them all down. I only found out when I went to add a post and they were gone.

I still host 3 blogs on Blogger and I like how quickly I can set one up and start posting. In terms of social marketing they are not as good as several blogs I have on WordPress, but a WP blogs is harder to set up and the average person would not be able to do that.

No matter where you host your blog they are here to stay for sure. To compete online in today's economy you must be blogging in my opinion.

 



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 Posted: Tue Aug 7th, 2007 11:08 pm

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That's pretty much my point Vern.  Plus add in the new upgrades to Google's Blogger....such as labels (automatic Tagging) and it's not only simplier for everyone but also more efficient and effective.

So why try to teach everyone to drive a Lamborghinni when a Honda will do the job just as well?

BTW, I did have an issue once in my 2 1/2 years....Google flagged me for review on being a blog spambot (auto set up blog stealing content...nothing originial and not a "real" person posting.  Basically set-up for Google Adsense traffic).

Of course I wasn't a blog spambot ..... and it only took following the simple directions they gave to reinstate (all in a few minutes).  Just enter in a few letters in a submission box to show I was a real person.  Otherwise....no problems and almost 450 articles since I started the blog.

God Bless,
Michael



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PostIt
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 Posted: Tue Aug 21st, 2007 11:23 pm

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I enjoy using blogspot as I believe that Google as it's simple and easy to set-up and I don't have to be a network admin to get it up and running in a few minutes. I also use other services besides Google for my blogs as I like to diversify. I've never ran any blogs on my own domains.



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 Posted: Thu Sep 27th, 2007 05:48 pm

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Blogger is so easy to use it just  saves you a lot of  time which is of
course precious. I would always recommend using blogger  instead
of using your own domain because of it is easy and requires no technical
knowledge.



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johndilbeck
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 Posted: Sat Oct 6th, 2007 06:40 am

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I used to be a real believer in blogging on blogger/blogspot.

In December 2005, I had two dozen blogs and was doing quite well, until they started closing me down for being a splog.

I am not a computer, robot, or cyborg; to the best of my knowledge I'm a human.

Yet, I'd get blacklisted, go through the process of getting reinstated, get whitelisted, and then turn around a few days later and be blacklisted all over again.

My experience was not as easy as Michael's.

So, I spent a year moving all my blogs off blogger/blogspot onto their own hosted domain using mostly WordPress. I build some sites using other tools, like Mambo.

After testing it for well over a year, I closed most of my blogs. Now, I'm using a couple of primary blogs - one powered by Userland's Manilla and the other by WordPress - and another dozen secondary blogs on a variety of services.

I even re-opened my blogger account last month and started posting there again.

You don't know what it's like to be getting thousands of visitors and then have the spigot shut off overnight. (I hope you don't.)

It has taken over a year to recover from it.

Now, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't really matter which platform you use for your blogging. They all work pretty well as long as you write decent content. I still prefer the ability to customize my WordPress blogs  and try out plug-ins when I want, but that comes with the added responsibility for managing and updating the code, as necessary.

I'm getting about the same results from posts made to a WordPress.com blog (hosted by them) as I am from a WordPress blog (hosted by me). I've tested dozens of sites to see how they compare.

You can see for yourself.

If you Google "act on your dream," johndilbeck, or "John Dilbeck," (without the quotes) you can see how each of these phrases ranks across the various tools I've tried.

Now, I know that nobody is searching for those phrases (too often), it provides a level playing field test for all the platforms I've tried. When I search for the specific key phrases I do target, I can see that there isn't a huge difference between blogging platforms. All of them rank fairly well. I was surprised to see how well Apsense is ranking for some terms since I've been using their service for only about a month.

So, if you want control of all aspects, it makes sense to self-host Wordpress on your own domain - this gives you total access and control, but adds additional responsibilities for administration and upkeep.

If you want to just get into the game as easily as possible, try Blogger/Blogspot and WordPress.com. They'll handle all the background admin and updating, but you won't have the control over your blogs.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket!

I will never host all my blogs on one service ever again. I'm willing to put forth more effort and money by having a variety of blogs on different services so I won't lose all my traffic if somebody - or some algorithm - begins to dislike me.

Even if Google starts to dislike me, it won't cause me the troubles it once did, because now I use a variety of traffic building techniques and I'm no longer totally dependent upon the search engines for my traffic.

The recent changes to Blogger are great. It's much easier to set up a blog and you can modify the appearance by using the page elements and don't have to modify the templates directly. That's great, even for an oldtimer like me. Labels allow for tagging and that's a good thing.

However, rather than pure blogging, I'm leaning more towards business networking sites because they provide the ability to blog as well as meeting like-minded people. As I said before, Apsense is ranking much better than I expected considering I've only been a member there for a month or so, whereas I've been a member or owner of other sites for years.

Now and then, I post identical content to all my sites to see how they rank for the same content.

And finally, for every blog I have, I try to have at least one Squidoo lens that syndicates the blog's RSS or Atom feed. Syndicating my RSS feeds on Squidoo and Feedburner work very well for me.

I just wrote a lens on blogging on Apsense that has good information on RSS syndication, no matter what blogging platform you choose. You can see it at:

http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-blog-on-apsense/

(Moderators: I don't think that link is against the rules. I think it adds to the discussion on blogging. If you disagree, please remove the link and let me know. I'm trying to play by the rules as I understand them.)

What's my bottom line on all this?

I don't have one.

Do what makes you happiest and works the way you want to work.

If you like blogger better than WordPress, go for it. Vice versa? Do what feels best.

I used to recommend MySpace, but don't since they started redirecting links with no warning. Now, I'm concentrating my business social networking on Apsense and Merchant Circle.

Just don't put all your marketing eggs in one basket.

Act on your dream!

JD



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adsenseannie
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 Posted: Wed Oct 10th, 2007 02:24 am

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Two words:

No sandbox

:)

It's very easy to start getting search engine traffic to a blog that's already on an authority domain, within weeks or even days of getting some links pointing to it.  Sites on a new domain have to wait out Google's "sandbox effect" and it can take months before you start getting the traffic you're working so hard for.

That said, I only have one Blogger blog and I built it more to prove that you can make money without spending money than any love for the platform.



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reash
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 Posted: Wed Oct 17th, 2007 08:01 pm

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My blog is hosted on blogger and so far I am contented with blogger. Basically one of the reasons why most people host their blogs on blogspot is lack of money to buy their own domain.

It would be great to have your own domain because you can design your blog template anyway you want. You have a full control of everything. With blogger, you can do limited things only but you can still design your own template if you are capable of using CSS.








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 Posted: Fri Oct 19th, 2007 04:15 am

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I keep blogs on blogspot because it is easy for brand new people to duplicate how I use blogspot. 

I have links that point to my blog and I teach my team to do the same.  It works becasue I continue to get sign ups from my blogs.

Jon

 



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 Posted: Sat Oct 20th, 2007 01:46 pm

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Hello Everyone!

I also use blogger because of the ease of use. I have a Blog for article posting and another blog for my team training.

Tim



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 Posted: Sat Oct 27th, 2007 05:16 am

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Google's Blogger is by far the best free blogging platform out there...without a doubt.

On another note, Google just completed their PageRank update and I'm happy to report that my blog has moved up to a PR of 4. Happy times!

Shine on,
Aar:Dn

Last edited on Tue Dec 4th, 2007 05:11 am by Aaron C.



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 Posted: Sat Oct 27th, 2007 12:35 pm

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Hey Aaron,

Where do you go to find the page rank?

Tim



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 Posted: Sun Oct 28th, 2007 04:18 am

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Hi Tim,

One of the best places I've come across is SmartPageRank. It not only gives you your Google PageRank, it also gives you other important info. about your site such as:

•site traffic data (via Alexa)
•the number of backlinks to your site
•the number of pages on your site that are indexed in Google, MSN, Yahoo!, AltaVista and AllTheWeb.

I actually wrote an in depth review of it the other day on my blog. You can find it here: An Easy Way To Check And Monitor Your PageRank™. I also posted pictures of each section's data results so you can see exactly how it works.

And what Michael said is correct as well.

Shine on,
Aar:Dn



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cusherr
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 Posted: Thu Mar 27th, 2008 08:09 pm

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Great advice in this thread, although I have heard that self-hosting a blog is generally more efficient if your goal is to drive traffic to the main site. You are right that when it comes down to keywords and links, the domain doesn't really matter -- in fact hosting at blogspot may arguably allow for faster and more steady indexing.

Squidoo, too, is really great, in that it gives your blogs a place to go of sorts. One thing I haven't been able to do is win enough subscribers to really write home about, but I'm guessing that will just come with more content and better entries. Can't expect to develop a following over night.

Do others create communities with other blogs and cross-link, quote, etc? I've heard this, too, can be very effective.

dsmmarketing
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 Posted: Tue Jun 10th, 2008 10:45 pm

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    I just read a helpful email from a blogging guru who made some very important points regarding having your own domain vs using the ever popular blogger.com,typepad.com,blogharbor.com and wordpress.

Most of us in this business or related businesses want to use our blogs as a place to provide useful and helpful information but also to promote our businesses or affiliate products. This is all terrific, however, there is a downside as far as the search engines are concerned when we use free blogging platforms without owning our own domain.

There is a risk when putting up multiple blogs, without owning the domain name and either using them to promote products or simply to generate links to our other sites. The search engines see this a s a form of spamming using your blogs, hence the name "splog"

Now, in this email, it goes on to tell the story of a guy who was earning around $2000.00 a month with his blogs after finding niches and using adsense advertisements on them. One day, he went to his computer and found that all of his blogs were gone!Blogger.com made the determination that he was violating the terms of service and said his blogs were "splogs" or spam blogs.

Even after speaking to the  support people at blogger.com, their determination never changed.

So, you need to be very careful about your blogs and how you use and host them.
If you want a free blog hosting platform you can't go past wordpress.com. You will need you own domain name which are very inexpensive to get and they add to the professionalism of your blog. Remember you never get a second chance to make a good first impression!

Wordpress allows you to make changes in the code if you want to. There are many other blogging platforms out there, some are free and others not. I use Squarespace.com which is not free but has a lot of great things in it that help create a good blog.

Anyway, I hope this helps you avoid the pitfalls of not having your own domain and risking being a "splogger".



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 Posted: Mon Jun 16th, 2008 07:57 am

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For me personally, I'm testing two platforms:

1. http://www.Square-Space.com - This is a hosted application and is very simple to use once you work out your way around. Because it's a paid, hosted service at around $7's / month for a base level account (and a free 2 week full service trial) it means your support and backup server setup are there to help you sufficiently.

I've heard Blogger is good, however, becuase it's free, there is the risk of not as much support or losing the blog(s) you've created, as I just read in the post here earlier about a guy losing their $2,000 / month income from their blog (all the more reason why it's a good idea to have multiple income streams online, i.e. blogs, minisites, members sites, information sites etc)

2. http://www.WordPress.com - This can be downloaded and installed manually, and also a lot of web hosting programs have WordPress ready, however it's more complex to learn initially and has tonnes of customization options. However if you want to customize a WordPress Blog, I would recommend using a service like http://custom-wordpress-blogs.com to do this for you from a low couple a hundred bucks you can have a great WordPress blog, on your server, meaning you have full control.

I'll be monitoring how both of my blogs I'm setting up go, each one is from one of the above services and we'll see which one performs the best with traffic and sales conversion etc... Keeping in mind, one of my blogs is on "Attraction Marketing" and the other around "Life Coaching" two very different niches, but I'll keep you all posted anyway.

Hope these ideas can help you in some way over time.



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 Posted: Wed Jun 18th, 2008 03:22 am

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You're right Michael, the most important part of the blog is ultimately the links in the blog. Of course the blog has to have good content or you won't recieve much traffic to it... but in the end, it is the links in the blog that will translate into conversions, and finally $ in your pockets (if you've monetized your site properly). This is a great Forum, just wanted to mention that somewhere.

Last edited on Wed Jun 18th, 2008 03:23 am by Internetting4Dummies



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 Posted: Fri Aug 8th, 2008 12:48 pm

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You can download the Google tool bar and a page rank tab will be listed in the tool bar.

Or you can use a free tool like this one ..... has a Page Rank Checker listed (Google for more...there others similar to this) :

http://www.submitexpress.com/tools.html

God Bless,
Michael



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