WordPress vs. Blogger

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[Mike]

Hi All,

This is a naive question probably, but I'd like to know what WordPress users love that Blogger doesn't offer?  I mean that as an honest question and not sarcastically.  I know a couple of WordPress bloggers and they're all very pro-WordPress and are constantly asking me when I'm going to make the switch. 

I'm not opposed to it so much as I just haven't been motivated to do it yet.  I've experimented with WordPress to a degree and like the customisation options, but haven't delved too deeply yet.  I haven't experienced any major Blogger dramas and have been with them 2.5 years now.

I do find it interesting though that I don't hear many of the same Blogger users shouting from the rooftops, whereas WordPress users are much different.

Of those of you on WordPress, do you use the hosted blog through wordpress.com (potentially with your own domain name) or host yours elsewhere?

Cheers,

Mike

[Snoskred]

I use self hosted Wordpress..

I'm not even sure where to start on this topic. I used to be very loyal to Google - now I am concerned about how much influence they have over the interwebz. I would have stayed on Blogger but I didn't like the way they kept changing things without letting anyone know. I wanted to have control over my own blog.

What I dislike most about Blogger - and the thing that made me switch in the end - is that all Blogger users have a robots.txt file that they cannot change or control at all. Sephyroth wrote a great post about it a little while back - Blogger messing about with search engines.

Your average every day blogger user they won't know what a robots.txt is or what they can do with it. They won't know that Google Webmaster Tools exist. In general they want to type and hit publish. But for those bloggers who want to have control over it, they're unable to change anything. There should be the ability to customise the robots.txt within Google Webmaster Tools.

Recently they pulled the openID login for comments trick. A lot of people who were already disgruntled saw comments on their blogs fall to virtually nothing overnight and then they began to wonder what would happen next - they realised that they truly had no control over their blog.

I know a blogger who runs a blog with content which is a little explicit - certainly not anything like some of the blogs on Blogger I have seen, but they are gay and they discuss issues relating to that, post pictures of *ahem* quite attractive men but never anything with exposed male parts. Imagine my surprise when I dropped by their site recently to find this message -

Content Warning

Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable. In general, Google does not review nor do we endorse the content of this or any blog. For more information about our content policies, please visit the Blogger Terms of Service
 
I understand and I wish to continue - I do not wish to continue

Yet there is another blogger blog that I know of which posts actual frontal images of.. hmm, how best to put it.. certain male body parts. That blog has no such warning.

The thing of most concern to me in the Blogger terms of service -

10. Termination; Suspension. Google may, in its sole discretion, at any time and for any reason, terminate the Service, terminate this Agreement, or suspend or terminate your account. In the event of termination, your account will be disabled and you may not be granted access to your account or any files or other content contained in your account although residual copies of information may remain in our system for some time for back-up purposes. Sections 2, 3, 5 - 8, and 10 - 15 of the Agreement, along with applicable provisions of the general Terms of Service (including the section regarding limitation of liability), shall survive expiration or termination.

So you could have used the service for years, have a long history of posts, and lose it all in a heartbeat, for any reason they choose. For people using the paid posting services this is of greater concern because Google recently seem to be targeting blogs which do paid posts without using the no follow link - many sites had their page rank dropped. Any time, for any reason could mean they pull the pin on your blog and all your hard work is gone for good.

No thanks, Blogger. Losing everything you ever wrote on your blog would be very unpleasant.

[debambam]

Hey Mike! You'd think that my first post on this great forum you gave us the heads up on would be over in the introductions, but NOOOOOOO, instead I'm here offering what pathetic little advice and voice on the subject of blogger vs wordpress I have!

Ok, when I first started blogging, I was on blogger. It was easy to find, accessible, and pretty much a 'plug and play' type way to blog. And it did exactly what I wanted it to. It gave me enough customisation that I could play, and learn, all at the same time. As a self taught geek who only knows bits and pieces according to what she wants, it was an ideal platform to start with. Then I started feeling stifled by the limits...so I switched to wordpress.com, I can't even remember why to be honest! It must have offered a different way to learn. From there I ended up (via a couple of other paths not worth mentioning) purchasing my own domain and a hosting plan, and setting up wordpress, as you are well aware of

As Snoskred so eloquently points out, what happens to your posts if someone somewhere who knows nothing about you decides that your account, and your blog, should be pulled? I will admit that when that thought occurred to me after visiting a blog with a similar message to one Snoskred spoke of, I near shit myself and actually went and printed out all my posts that I'd done! There was some pretty heavy stuff from an emotionally intense part of my life and I didn't want to lost them. Not because I wanted to be famous, or I'm stupid enough to think that my thoughts REALLY impact on others, but because blogging was very therapeutic for me back then and I didn't like the thought of my deepest thoughts just totally disappearing on the whim of someone in a far away land.

Anyway, long story short? I guess both blogger AND wordpress have their place and both are right for different people at different times.  As for why the wordpress lovers are a little more outspoken than the blogger lovers? I'd be thinking that is because - and no I'm not having a go at you here mate - the people who are happy or content with blogger don't want or need more control over their blog, and are happy for someone else to be calling most of the shots, they don't want more than is on offer, or possibly simply don't know what is on offer out in the big wide world. The wordpressies however just want everyone else out there to open their eyes and see the choices that are there for you if you want to take them....besides wordpress just makes it all so easy I've noticed a lot lately that those who use wordpress tend to also use firefox. I think it's a whole way of thinking. CHOICE for all is a good thing. But thats a whole other post

Cheers, Kelly

[squadron]

Plug-ins and standards. I'm male so I'll answer your question up front 

I haven't used Blogger, but I know that Wordpress is the industry blogging standard and as such has a lot of  free support, including plug-ins for all sorts of functions.

If you go Wordpress, make sure you host it yourself on your own domain on your own web space.

[Snoskred]

The wordpressies however just want everyone else out there to open their eyes and see the choices that are there for you if you want to take them....besides wordpress just makes it all so easy

I think that is one major reason the Wordpress people are so outspoken. When I was on Blogger I couldn't do much technically - I could put html and javascript into a widget, but the template wasn't so easy to change. In fact Sephyroth ended up fixing my 3 column template I was using because I struggled with it for quite a few hours and got frustrated. I thought I was not technically minded, and I thought you had to be a genius to run a wordpress blog and create themes etc. I didn't even know how customisable the templates were or if I'd be able to make my theme look the way I wanted it to look.

The current theme on my blog took The Other Half - with me sitting next to him - roughly two hours to create. And there was some work in there which freaked me out at the time. Now, *I* am customising themes for people. Me, the person who is not technically minded.

I think to start out with there's a lot of things to know with blogging. People start out on Blogger and learn the writing and how to create good content, they get comfortable with that and then they want to get comfortable with everything else blogging involves - which can mean learning the language of HTML and CSS etc..

Back in September, I'd have been too scared to even *open* a .php file let alone edit one. Now I'm editing them daily. And I feel a lot more confident - that may be another reason for being vocal.

[Lani]

Apart from half an hour (literally) of having a wordpress.com blog, I've used self-hosted WordPress the entire time I've been blogging, first on a subdomain of a free host where I could install the real thing (er, bias detection alarm!?!) and now with my own 2 domains and real hosting, so I can't make a comparison from a user's perspective.

From a reader's perspective, however, there are quite a few things which annoy me about Blogger blogs.  The big one is the comments section, which I have to open up a new tab for.  Sometimes I forget about the popup and it drives me batty.  I can't use the popup because on half the Blogger blogs I read it can't be resized.  I also like to be able to refer back the post when commenting sometimes so then I have to switch between tabs. 

Even before the whole link debacle, the fields available for leaving my details weren't good enough.  I always try to send a Thank You email to a first time commenter.  I can't give the Blogger bloggers that same option.

The other thing is that many Blogger bloggers do not seem to be aware of the platform's limitations.  One of them mentioned that people don't leave their email.  (Er, we can't - Unless we sign up with Google!)  Another one complained about the links left in the comment bodies when the url box was taken away. Then there are those stupid letters I have to enter 3 times, even though they are useless, and too many partial feeds.  While these may be real choices in some cases, it's my feeling that it's a lack of awareness.   Blogger does not promote awareness. Overall, too many things get in the way of making connections.

Of all the feeds that I delete from my feedreader, Blogger tops the list.  Of all the posts I skip reading, Blogger tops the list.  Of all the blogs I rarely comment on even though I'd like to, Blogger tops the list. 

And the only place I've ever heard really good bloggers wonder why they don't get much traffic is Blogger.

Having said that, I think whatever platform people are happy with is fine.  It's really not a value judgement.  I just think we WordPress users probably get a bit "evangelical" about it when they see great bloggers being held back, but not realising that they are.  Sure, there might be a lot to learn using WordPress, but it's not hard and one of the things I like about blogging is that there is always something to learn, something to improve on, somewhere to go. I would feel stifled if I used Blogger.

And I guess one of the key reasons I chose it when I was raw was that I wanted my own space. I didn't really know much about the technical differences then but I knew from just that half hour on wordpress.com that it wasn't enough for me.  Then, I thought I just couldn't make it look the way I wanted.  Now, I know I couldn't have made it work the way I wanted, which is far more important.

[macgirvin]

One thing that is often overlooked in platform comparisons is how portable your data is and if you actually can keep it. I eliminated blogger as a platform early on because I had years of archives and first of all couldn't import them into blogger, but most importantly once there couldn't be exported back out again. Companies go under, things happen; though Google will probably still be around for a few years.

Self-hosted WP (for those that are squeamish about writing their own blog platform) gives you the most control over your intellectual property. If something better comes along, you can pull it out of the WP database and (with only a little magic) import it into another system. If you [shudder] should die, your family can keep your writings.

The other big difference between the two platforms is that you can tweak every aspect of WP and make it look and work better or differently. You've got the 'source code'. With Blogger, you're stuck with whatever Google decides is the way a blog should work.

[Meg]

Hi Mike

You've had some great advice here, so I'd just like to add a couple of points.

I have used Blogger a little, but really started out on Wordpress.com (for about 5 months).

While Snos makes a valid point about Blogger with regards to the TOS, Wordpress.com may well have similar restrictions.

Without limiting any of those representations or warranties, Automattic has the right (though not the obligation) to, in Automattic’s sole discretion (i) refuse or remove any content that, in Automattic’s reasonable opinion, violates any Automattic policy or is in any way harmful or objectionable, or (ii) terminate or deny access to and use of the Website to any individual or entity for any reason, in Automattic’s sole discretion. Automattic will have no obligation to provide a refund of any amounts previously paid.

Wordpress.com also have a NO advertising policy, and many of the plugins and customisations are not available.

[Snoskred]

While Snos makes a valid point about Blogger with regards to the TOS, Wordpress.com may well have similar restrictions.
Wordpress.com also have a NO advertising policy, and many of the plugins and customisations are not available.

Excellent points Meg - truly the only way to have full control is self hosted wordpress. And even then you have to stay within the terms of service of your host, unless you have your own server connected to the net 24/7 which you're using - and even in that case you're still needing to stay within the terms of service of your internet service provider.

There are hosts out there where you can host/do pretty much anything and get away with it because the host *has* a terms of service but only for window-dressing purposes and they don't enforce it. You don't find out about those hosts until you're trying to get a site shut down. I've done a bit of that in my time - the Nigerian Scammers love to create fake banks. Generally these hosts are much loved by spammers, scammers etc.

[Mike]

Thank you very much all for all the insight into this.

I actually do have an instance of Wordpress installed on our home development server here (I experiment with everything in sight) and have had a chance to play with it from both the front end and back end and REALLY like the amount of control and flexibility you have over things like plug-ins, themes/skins, access to the codebase and MySQL database, etcetera.  I love open source

If it weren't for the fact our electrical system is wonky and constantly brings down our web connection during major electrical storms I'd just use this and be done with it.  Unfortunately this isn't the case so I need to either go with wordpress.com or locate a hosting option.

Since this discussion came up I've been tinkering with a hosted blog on wordpress.com and notice there is nowhere near the same flexibility in control from the self-hosted option - as many of you have said.  At the same time you can still do more than you can with Blogger.

My question at this point is how much does hosting run.  Can anyone recommend a hosting provider?  I'm a bit strapped at the moment and was considering going with Wordpress.com until finances permit a self-hosted option.  I assume there wouldn't be any problems migrating posts from one Wordpress blog to another (given migrating from Blogger to Wordpress was so easy).  Is that right?

Thanks again!

[Lani]

If you have a look at Snoskred's signature, there is a link to the hosting she provides.  As a very satisfied customer (I just moved 6 weeks ago), I can recommend her.  Budgetwise, I've never seen a better deal and servicewise, I couldn't ask for more.  I'm sure a few people can recommend some other hosts, but you might get a few more recommendations for Snosk.  She's been busy since the comments debacle at Blogger and there are a couple of people here who've taken her up on her offer recently.

[Meg]

Mike

I was about to make the same comment. Check out http://www.snoskred.org/wordpress-blog-hosting @ $5 a month bound to fit in with most budgets.

[Mike]

Oh woops - yeah duh!  I've looked at Snoskred's sig probably a hundred times and the thought didn't even occur.

Good idea

[Snoskred]

Wordpress to wordpress is a breeze. Its blogger to wordpress that is a complete &^@$%*& nightmare. Seriously. Posts are easy to import, that takes a few minutes. They've screwed up the images - there is a blogger image import plugin but it no longer grabs all the pics since Blogger changed something. For most people switching over, the best solution is to leave them on blogger but delete the posts. I did that myself. The other option is to download all the pics from blogger manually, one by one, and then I just chuck them up on the server and run the blogger image import, that works..

We offer self hosted WP hosting for $5 a month and you can pay via paypal - monthly or some months in advance, up to you. We don't make money out of it but we have a huge dedicated server going to waste and I figured I might as well help some bloggers out rather than do nothing with the space. The only other thing you have to pay for is your domain name.

We install a set of plugins as standard which do pretty much everything people need but you can add more if you need to - be aware this may dead your blog so unless you really need it I recommend treading carefully. You get email and an FTP login. We don't have limits on space at the moment - blogs don't tend to use too much.

And you get me with it - well sort of. I've been having fun customising templates and creating header graphics for people.. I don't charge for that if you're hosting with us. We do the blogger import for you, too - however I can't download all the images for people anymore, I just don't have the time these days..

[Sueblimely]

You have been given good advice here, Mike - about the reasons to use Wordpress as well as Snoskred's hosting - it is extremely good value.

One thing I would add to this -  I have read that some bloggers feel that running a self hosted blog such as Wordpress is more professional?

I used Blogger myself until late last year and gave my reasons for changing over on my post Reasons I moved from blogspot Blogger On the whole I think Blogger is a good program and I prefer it to Wordpress.com because you have more control over the template. I much prefer running Wordpress on my own domain though because of the additional control it allows me.

[Lani]

This from Bloke Bloke who just left Blogger for WordPress...


Moving Over to Wordpress: The Good, Bad and the Ugly

(edited by Lani: URL fixed)

[FormerAdmin]

One thing I would add to this -  I have read that some bloggers feel that running a self hosted blog such as Wordpress is more professional?

Hi Sue,

my two cents worth:
- Having your own recognisable domain name is, all things being equal, easier for branding purposes.
- Having more control over the look and feel of the blog makes it easier to change things (I know this sounds like a no brainer, but work with me here) .
- All other things being equal, it is easier to get a professional result using professional tools (and one of those professional tools is a decent blog content management system (CMS) like WordPress Multiuser, Movable Type or Drupal).
- No blog platform is any kind of substitute for consistently writing good content that is niche-satisfying (if not niche-specific).
- it is possible to have thousands of readers with any kind of blogging platform (including static hand-coded HTML) - that said, it is easier with a blog-friendly CMS.

In summary - being a widely read blogger is a lot of hard work, and when there are so many other reasons to not succeed, using free Blogger or wordpress.com blogs just makes it that much harder. An analogy is transport - I could ride a bicycle to work - I choose to drive because it is easier with the amount of dashing about that I do at sometimes short notice - the bike would just make it harder for me to get through my day.

PS: kudos to those who do ride - you are taking on some of my carbon footprint and I am grateful for it

Cheers, Andrew

[scotty]

Hi Mike,

1. WordPress vs. Blogger

I guess you mean self-hosted WordPress vs. Blogger/WordPress.com where Google/Automattic do the hosting for you? Personally I prefer self hosted WordPress for its flexibility, however there are also many advantages with hosted services like Blogger/WordPress.com, where you get

- Free/almost-free (although hosting + domain packages are pretty cheap these days anyway)
- Scalable architecture + CDN for your media content
- Managed service so you don't need to worry about updates

No wonder there are high profile bloggers on hosted service (Robert Scoble, Om Malik for example).

2. Blog Hosting

For very low traffic sites I use NearlyFreeSpeech.NET, which charges you USD$1/gb transfer + USD$0.01/mb-month storage. I have a small anonymous rant blog there running PyBlosxom that is having trouble to use USD$15 after a whole year. (I know, because no one visits that site

If you are finding someone hosting it for you, it will be your responsibility to keep it up to date. From the frequency of WordPress updates, you might end up spending 1 night every 4-6 weeks updating your sites to the latest version to avoid security exploits.

[Snoskred]

Scotty - we give our customers the choice of updating/upgrading themselves, or letting us do it. Most hosts won't do that, as far as I know.  I just hope it doesn't turn into a major headache for us. I held off updating to 2.3.2 on my blog because I saw people were having a fair bit of trouble with the upgrade, I've done it now though..

[Jaycee]

My hosting has the Fantastico easy install which meant an easy install the first time but when I tried to upgrade it stuffed up my blog so much I had to restore the backup I'd fortunately done. I still haven't got around to updating the Wordpress version but I must do that and I'll be doing it manually. I've done the manual upgrade before and it's not that hard said she hopefully! 

[scotty]

Scotty - we give our customers the choice of updating/upgrading themselves, or letting us do it. Most hosts won't do that, as far as I know. 

Yeah. Most people think they can just install WordPress and forget about it, only to find out site being hacked 12 months down the track as they were using a version with security issues

I just hope it doesn't turn into a major headache for us. I held off updating to 2.3.2 on my blog because I saw people were having a fair bit of trouble with the upgrade, I've done it now though..

I think as long as you have developed an upgrade process, it can be easy upgrading a large number of WordPress blogs. I am hosting around 20 WordPress sites for friends and it usually take only a few minutes to upgrade them all, which I wrote about the process here.

Mass Install/Upgrade WordPress Blogs

But I agree that it is a good idea to let the people hosting with you decide as sometimes they might be using plugins that don't work with newer versions of WordPress, so to avoid the horror of blank page after the upgrade

[ShadowKnight]

I use a self hosted WordPress blog as I have control over all facets of the blog.  In this way I am not at the whim of Google or any other organisation that changes policy and TOS at the drop of a hat.

The reason I chose WordPress is that it is the pseudo standard blog software.

[guera]

I played around with blogger briefly but prefered the interface of wordpress.com. It seemed to be a lot easier to work with than blogger when you're starting out. But wordpress.com is more restrictive than blogger - no ads, no css customisation (without paying for an upgrade).

I am much happier after the move to self-hosted wordpress - so much more freedom with plugins, themes, money making - whatever it is you want to do, you can (pretty much). And there seems to be a lot if support for it. As a few people said it seems to be the industry standard.

I agree, Lani, about commenting on blogger, even more so since they changed the fields. I had to open a blogger account just so I could leave my url in a comment. I hate the pop-ups and the letter-entry spam guard thing, although I think that's something the author can turn off since some blogger blogs don't ask for it. I find it usually puts me off commenting on blogger blogs, unless it is one I have been reading for a while or really want to comment on.

[Mike]

You all convinced me.  I've just migrated my tech blog to Wordpress.  I've still got an eye towards a self-hosted version in the future, but at this point I'll stick with the wordpress.com and reassess after a year or so.

Thanks for all the feedback and input on this

[Snoskred]

That's a nice theme you chose there, Mike.