Blogger.com - VS - Domain Name ?

The biggest problem with using Blogger, Wordpress and others - you are not in control of your content. They could delete your site at any time, if they think you're violating their TOS.

So the real question is, would you rather lose some ranking, that you could possible get back or would you rather lose the whole site and all of the content and never get it back ?

- Alex

Alex is right, someone only has to report your blog and Blogger can just take the whole thing down! It woul dbe a real shame to build up a good income only to see it disappear literally overnight.

If I were you I would purchase the domain name for your site and install Wordpress on it. It will be your site then and you can do what you please with it, plus Wordpress is easy to use.

If your Blogspot really doing a great job, like top in Google than your wordpress site. Why not, but it has always a consequence.

Blogspot is not live life long for its only free.

If you are afraid of making the big leap to your own domain here's what I recommend: do both (provided you have the time).

Create your website while you are using your blog. When your website is finished, link your website to the blog and vise versa. You could always elect to use the website as the "formal storefront" for your business and your blog as as more casual conversation. If you decide to phase out the original blog, you can work on the SEO for your website (even if it means some duplication) until it's good enough for a full transition.

I would leave that site alone Your free blogger blog.

Or you can transfer it over to a self hosted Wordpress blog ( That is your choice )

I would start a new site one that you own and one that you control. Buy your own domain name ( keyword rich ) and start another blog in a niche that interests you.

If you have already made a few sales now you know what is possible. From now on build your own sites on wordpress.org or self hosted.

Blogger has its uses, but if you are going to be spending a lot of time on your blog and trying to build a real online business you would be silly to keep putting work into something that you do not own. ( Google does and they can delete your blog with the push of a button been there done that)

You should get a .com or other top-level domain (.org, .net). It's vital that you have control over your content. I speak from experience. I used to put all of my content on free sites like Squidoo, but then Squidoo decided to get tough on people in particular niches and people writing on certain topics -- regardless if it was quality content or not. Once this happens, your only option is to start over, anyway.

Having your own self-hosted domain is better for you in the long run. In addition to having control over your content, you actually have a virtual asset that can be sold like a house on the housing marketing for considerably more than its monthly income. You are also able to build a list a buyers. Over time, it will also become easier and easier for you to outrank your competitors, and you will get backlinks naturally.

Basically, you have a lot more to gain than to lose. You also already know that the niche is profitable and that you are capable of making money in the niche, which puts in you a better position than a lot of other marketers. Wordpress is also pretty simple to use once you get the hang of it.

Good luck,
Joey

thanks everyone!
I believe from the awesome feedback here that i will get the domain and switch but gradually like "inceptive solutions" stated above..

i have been blogging for a few years now and sort of forgot about how easy Google can just eliminate your blog for any reason they choose...

The reason why i even asked this question was because the blog is as old as when i 1st started. it was one of my originals before i even heard of Wordpress! I sort of forgot about it until i decided not to long ago to check some stats and sales and i was shocked to see some of the results.

Sometimes it is better to leave things the way they are. If a good thing is working, why change it? so, with this in mind, That is WHY i asked for some opinions about this..

Thanks Again !

You can switch your Blogger blog to a WordPress self-hosted blog without losing traffic, but it takes a few months to do this correctly.

1. Buy the domain name and use Blogger's custom domain option to place your free blog on it. Blogger will automatically redirect all traffic sent to the previous address to the new.

2. Wait 1-2 months for Google and the other search engines to update the links in the index so that they are pointing to your new domain name.

3. Transfer your blog to a WP self-hosted blog, then use 301 redirects to send the links that are listed in the index to the new links created by WordPress.

4. Set your Blogger blog to private to avoid having the old links get reindexed by the search engines.

Good luck.

It only makes sense to do both, why lose what you have built with Blogger but just duplicate it wirth your own domain and build that site. This way if you "violate" a TOC at Blogger you have your site still.

ALWAYS go with self hosted on your own domain. Then, providing you've been diligent in your backups, if the hosting goes south you can always be up and running with a new hosting account in approximately 5 minutes plus the time it takes for dns change to propagate! When you are paying the bill, you are more in control. You get what you pay for.

This is a really good suggestion. In fact, as you have the time, you can add links to old posts and link them up to posts on your new location to funnel the traffic over. Eventually you can just make the occasional maintenance post on the old blog just to keep it alive, but have the new blog be the focus. And why limit yourself to one? Most hosting accounts these days allow you to use them for multiple domain names (even multiple installations of wordpress!)

If you're using one of the services, which allow you to run their site smoothly & simply, for free, but it's the kind of service, which has all the files on their server, such as forumotion.com (this one I dealt before), I must tell, run from them like hell. I can't speak for blogger.com or how was that called, but above mentioned forumotion.com iced one of my old accounts for nothing. Back then, I wasn't exactly using this for IM, but for some other personal stuff, some web galleries, etc. I'm 100% sure, there were no TOS violation from my site, yet the account was wiped out from the face of the Internet for good. The funny part? When I went back to their support forum, asking what happened, their admins ignored me and instead of that kept putting my topics to archives, which was equal to deletion. When I approached them with a more tough attitude and pointed out that what they're doing violates the federal US laws and a dozen of discriminations acts, they suddenly looked a bit scared, quickly apologized for whatever happened, but nobody was able to tell me directly, what happened, who banned or who deleted my account. That day, these crappy free pseudo hosting services ended for me. I got myself a stable, huge hosting package and a couple of paid domains and so far so good, at least their support is kind, fast, reliable and kind, of course, when you are paying for it, who wouldn't be kind to you... .)