The Good Old Wordpress Debate

This is one of my long-winded posts, so if you don't give a rat's behind about ever moving to Wordpress.org, then you might not want to bother reading this treatise, if you will.

There are some misnomers out there about blogging platforms, domains, etc. So if you have questions, let me know or leave a comment in the comment section. 

I'm sick to death of hearing some bloggers say that to be taken seriously, one must switch to Wordpress.org. Which of course means chartering your own course by virtue of having to find a host (and of course paying them). Calling said host whenever there is a problem and waiting on the phone, which I can tell you wasted much of my valuable time when I was on WP. It means having to always keep abreast of updates that might pose security risks. Etc. etc.

The way to be taken seriously is to provide quality content. It also makes Google happy. Google happens to own Blogger. So what does that tell you about search engine optimization?

I have seen comments on blogs that say they switched to WP because they wanted their own domain. As many or most of you already know, you don't have to switch to anything to get your own domain. I have had my own domain on Cozy Little House for years. So that's a moot point. 

Being on Wordpress.org does not better your chances of being granted opportunities or having magazines come calling. All they care about is that you have an email address on display so they can approach you. I should be evidence of that with my little decoupaged cabinets. No one came calling me on WP. So, I'm saying, that argument doesn't hold water.

Being on Wordpress does not mean you make more money. I have always made more money on Blogger. And when you take into account the costs you must pay to have a Wordpress.org blog, then you must subtract that from what you've earned in revenue. 

I've made some people mad, I do believe, by coming back to Blogger and singing its praises. For some reason when I left the ranks of WP, or defected, that made me and my sanity questionable. And who does that, I heard more than a few times? 

Who, everyone said, goes back to Blogger after Wordpress? I even have people on WP that use to read my blog, but when I returned to Blogger, they stopped. So I guess I lost substance in their eyes. 

There are many very popular blogs, such as A Cup Of Jo, that have remained on Blogger. And I can assure you that she is very sought after and doing quite well, thank you very much. Here is her blog: http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com. (There are many others than the ones listed below, and I'm quite sure I'll remember them as soon as I hit Publish.)

Let me list just a few others that remain on Blogger:

IHeart Organizing

The Old Painted Cottage (has her own domain)

Dear Lillie

Savvy Southern Style (has her own domain)

French Country Cottage

The Country Chic Cottage (has her own domain) *

Madigan Made (has her own domain)*

Yvestown went to WP for a short time, said she didn't like it, and now is on Squarespace.

The ones I have * by, you will find the paragraph below at the very bottom of their blogs:

Powered by Blogger

Design by Free WordPress Themes | Bloggerized by Lasantha - Premium Blogger Themes 

So what does that mean? It means someone very techy took Wordpress themes and basically (their own word I suppose) Bloggerized them. Which means they took Blogger blogs and added the Wordpress features. So when someone tells you that you can't do as much on Blogger, it is true to an extent. But if you go to the blogs I have the * next to and take a looky-look, please tell me what else you would possibly want?

Yes, there were things I liked about Wordpress.org. And if someone said they'd take over the technical aspect of it and I didn't have to pay anything, I probably wouldn't have left.

Yes, your Blogger blog can disappear. This is true. And you don't have a host to call to help you try to get it back. Although, many have gotten their blogs back through some process that I'm not schooled on because I have yet to need it.

But hey, I lost all my posts in late July of 2013, and though I lost a lot of links and traffic and all that bloggy jazz, I'm doing just fine now.

Starting over isn't as bad as one might think. In fact it is somewhat liberating.

Yesterday a reader sent me a link to Internet Archive Wayback. Whoa! I'd never heard of it. I was able to go there and retrieve some of my posts. Not many, I admit. But bless her heart and then some!

In opposition of Blogger, there is little support for bloggers in the forums. Yes, they have forums, but you may or may not get help and they may or may not ever email you back. That's the long and short of it. There is little technical support. (Unless you now count me.)

So yeah, a lot of bloggers are heading over to Wordpress.org every single day. But if they're opening up their checkbook because they think they'll be "taken more seriously and are taking their blog to the next level," I think they may be surprised. However, if they work hard and learn all the technical stuff, they should do just fine and may even do much better.

What in the world does taking your blog to the next level mean? I would surmise it means doing it all yourself. Yes, you own your content. But if it disappears like mine did, you don't own squat. And furthermore, you own it ONLY until you stop paying hosting fees. Then that blog goes up in smoke.

Blogger blogs at least stick around, even if they haven't been updated in years. But once you stop paying a host, because you've decided to try something new like Squarespace, etc., then it's like it never existed.

Yes, you can move your posts somewhere else, but as you know, I didn't have much luck with that.

So if you want to head on over to WP and join the ranks of other bloggers that have decided Blogger is just too amateurish, I wish you luck. But Blogger is serving a whole lot of us and I don't think Google is planning to go anywhere any time soon.

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