Thursday, 24 September 2009

Blogging bungle or bonus?

Penned by Psych Babbler™ at 4:00 PM
For some reason I have been wondering lately whether to move to wordpress or better still, to get my own domain name. I have been playing around with WP and I'm not too happy that you can't change fonts or the themes like you can in blogger. Hence the 'own domain name' bit. I thought at first I could get some satisfaction changing my blogger template...but I haven't found any that are well suited. 

The reasons I also don't want to change include that I have promoted this blog big time and do have good readers/followers. I'll lose my google page rank and other promotional stuff if I change my platform. I'll have to start from scratch. I wonder if I host my own domain name using my blogger profile will result in me being able to maintain all of the above. Or maybe not.

So anyone with any ideas?

It's not good when you are technologically challenged like me and want to do stuff with technology!

Until next time,

Cheers!!!
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19 penned views:

  1. THIS TEMPLATE IS TOO GOOD.. CHECKING OUT UR BLOG FOR THE FIRST TIME... dont mind the CAPS .. dint notice :)... they say blogspot is good for beginners like me ... so u may as well move to wordpress for ur 'own domain name'
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  2. Hmm I wish I was more techy to help you out. But I have no idea. :x And starting from scratch can be a toughie, but if & when you do, I'll make sure to jump on the bandwagon to follow the new blog. :)
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  3. finally something i can really comment on .. :D ..

    ur pretty much thinking in the correct direction .. u do blog a lot .. and something like WP would be really neat for u :)

    I have been playing around with WP and I'm not too happy that you can't change fonts or the themes like you can in blogger

    kinda untrue .. WP is highly customizable. infact if u have a look then ull find that about 90% of the blogger themes in the wild were first written for WP and then ported to support blogger. case in point have a look at my blog .. the template i use is a pretty famous WP template they adapted for Blogger.

    I am talking about the hosted version of WP .. and not the one which is hosted by wordpress.com (haven't had a chance to look at that as yet) so wordpress can be self hosted .. ie . u buy your own domain name and hosting space and install wordpress there which gives u all the tweaking power u need (i practically have to source code to Wordpress which u can change to your hearts desire) But i think u would be a lill geeky for u :)

    the other option as u said is to get ur own domain name and let blogger point to ur domain ( like i have done http://blog.alenchery.org) although i don't see any particular advantages of doing so ( atleast i dint find any after i did it )

    so if you have the money and the time .. and the nerves to get down and dirty with some tech geekry. this is a nice article that should give you some insights into how you could same some of the pages attributes http://is.gd/3CSyR

    it might look like a tough job .. but if ur not as lazy as i am (i have been wanting to migrate my blog for a long time) .. the end result should be very satisfying ..
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  4. another good article on the same .. http://is.gd/3CTqQ
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  5. @ Varun: Welcome to my blog...and thanks for the nice comment re the template.

    @ Archana: Nice to know I'll have at least one reader! ;)

    @ Joel: The post was kinda directed to you! Was also going to email you re the same. The WP I've been playing around with is the free one which isn't very customisable. My current template is a WP adaptation but I figured you'd have to pay for them unlike blogger. I guess I'm going to have to shop around and check out how much a hosting platform costs. Maybe you should move too...it might encourage you to blog more! :) Haven't seen you blog in a while!
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  6. hmm .. if ur seriously thinking Wordpress u need to think about the hosted version and not the free wordpress.com version .. if u do decide on it .. id suggest u go though this website http://www.webhostingsearch.com/ to find a good match for ur needs .. me id personally suggest these guys who call them selves the Fat Cow hosting company :)

    http://www.fatcow.com/fatcow/special-promo.bml?offer=OPI&LinkName=WHS

    they are really good .. and have excellent offers (its about $45 a year and they even throw in a free domain name for life apparently )
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  7. I have been fiddling with this idea of moving to WP..tried WP but was really unhappy..and decided to stay back at blogger ! I'm happy with it !
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  8. @ Joel: I checked out what you sent but I was wondering about this one: http://www.justhost.com/web-hosting What do you think? It's just that the latter is in AUD (n I'm thinking of the $3.95) whereas the one you sent is US dollars which would make it more expensive. They seem to have the same features.

    @ Nu: I'm thinking if I change to WP it will be with a customised domain...paying for it. But I need to check expenses first. If I can't do that, I will be sticking with blogger.
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  9. Hmmm I have read an article about how you will not lose your page rank and all when you shift from Blog...Lemme dig it out!!!

    But frankly speaking I feel much more comfy with blogger all thanks to the flexibility it provides.

    In fact a week or so back I was checking out the cost of a personal website and all but then dropped the idea because it would mean too much of work. So dropped out the idea!!! :)
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  10. oh well...where ever you go, i will follow :D...
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  11. Blogger is very simple to use

    While WP is a little above that. Then there are some feature that one will miss from blogger which is not in WP. A tough choice
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  12. PB, Since I am on WP from the beginning, I find it user friendly.

    You can just write basic HTML code to change fonts and style. Comment interaction also seems really easy.

    I would always endorse WP.
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  13. Come over to WP Psych Babbler, you will not regret it :) You can bring your old posts and all your comments to WP. Before transferring you must announced where you are going so that your readers can subscribe to your new url's feed burner.

    I wrote a post on this move, will get you a link, it contains another link to a post by Destination Infinity... discussing the same subject.
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  14. Here's the url
    http://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/moving-to-word-press-from-blogger/
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  15. hey cool .. the one you mentioned seems good .. they offer pretty much the very same deal :) although there is a catch (isnt there always) .. the $3.95 is only when u sign up for three years (u have to pay up front for 3 years thats almost $143) its 5.95 if u wanna just pay up for a year .. its kinda wrong of them to not mention that anywhere except for when u actually sign up and get to the payment screen. with fat cow its 3.95 for a years thingy ..
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  16. Yes the free version of WP is not customisable which is why I moved to blogger too but if you get your own domain name and host it on wordpress then you can actually do a lot with it including using Adwords etc. I'm not sure about the page rank but I think you might lose that because domain age matters for google and since your domain would be new, google might not rank you immediately. That being said, you do blog a lot and using a hosted WP blog might be the way to go for long term purposes. Also, I am not sure if you could migrate content to WP from blogger?
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  17. Hey there are hazaar free templates out there you can choose from. I think you got bored of the searching too soon. :)
    Try some more... you might end up liking something unusual and unique.
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  18. @ Smita: Yeah...that's my dilemma...blogger has been good to me but I think I just really want to change my template and lack the skills to do it myself and can't find one good enough! Oh and thanks for trying to find the article! :)

    @ Titaxy: Aww...thanks!!! :)

    @ The Survivor: Welcome! And yea..tell me about it...the choice is tough! Blogger does have some good features which I'd hate to miss (e.g. Followers...)

    @ Solilo: You still need to pay to change fonts in WP, don't you?

    @ IHM: Thanks for the link. Will check it out. I'm kinda hoping to move to change the template...wouldn't mind a customised domain if I can afford it...but another dilemma is whether I can continue using my pseudonym if I purchase a hosting space. Sigh.

    @ Joel: Oh yeah...I noticed the catch but figured it might be okay.

    @ Legally Alien: I remember you moved from WP to blogger when most ppl do the opposite. But like you, I like that you can change templates in blogger for free. Oh, and you can migrate content from blogger to WP. I've done it when trying to figure out whether I could use free WP.

    @ G: Lol...I probably did get frustrated in not finding the PERFECT template! I love most of this one but want some changes. If I was technologically literate, it may not have been a problem! :P
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  19. No. you don't. HTML codes are allowed in free WP. Check my blog.

    We have our NGI (No gender inequality) blog on blogger but now we are planning to move it to WP. WP is much better than blogger anyday. Only good thing about blogger is that it allowed Javascript so various template options.
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Thanks for your views...I do appreciate them!

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