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I ask because I've been using blogger for sometime now... and for my light usage it works pretty well... I do however have some javascript things included and hear that wordpress doesn't allow this even in the paid version. Everyone swears by wordpress but they quote the not-free version...

i refuse to pay for something I can get for free (often even if this limits functionality and sometimes to my detriment).
so i ask... and i want a comparison for the free ones...

wordpress or blogger.

and give reasons.

i'm thinking of moving away from a blogspot.com to my own domain and want to know if i should go with wordpress or not...

i use blogrush (i get a lot of my traffic from this), and I also use a twitter roll to update the site... also I like to be able to edit the html on the blog and wordpress doesn't seem to let me do that...

theologer -< blogger
theologer -< wordpress

i migrated over today to see which I liked best... i'm really bothered feeling like wordpress is limited, but maybe i'm just not used to it yet.
lemme know what you think... big move ahead... I normally swear by all that google does... reason to change?

I don't know if anything else would be better, but I'm getting so much ****ing comment spam with Wordpress right now, and no way to block IP ranges or even email addresses that I can figure out. Sorry - just needed to vent.

If Blogger is working for you, stick with it. You can use it with your own domain, just like WordPress.

Did you turn on Akismet yet? Stop Comment Spam and Trackback Spam « Akismet

I get very few spam comments leaking through that system. Lots of spam yes, but 99% is caught for me.

Also, you can block specific ip addresses or emails too, look around in the dashboard some more…

-Owl

now the mere fact that yall are getting comment spam means you're getting substantially more traffic than I am. Now I recognize that traffic is foremost related to content and the content of my log is probably interesting to very few. But one review I read said that wordpress blogs get inherently more traffic than blogger because google doesn't index blogger well. I don't know If there is any truth to this or not..... Just thinking.

I have Akismet turned on - but thanks - I'll take another look around. I get a ton of spam that Akismet stops, but a ton more that it doesn't.

That wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense, since Google owns Blogger.

couldn't agree more. Just what I heard

tumblr

Blogger vs. Wordpress « â…“ Poet. â…“ Geek. â…“ Egyptian. -<
this is that link I was talking about... the guy mentions that his blogger blog never showed up in google searches but his wordpress one does...

apart from this... other good reasons?

SpamKarma2, FTW. Better than Aksimet.

I get absolutely NOTHING leaking through.

-t

My Blogger blog gets reasonable traffic, enough to generate some comments and enough to attract some spam as well unfortunately. It also shows up just fine in Google searches.

For example if you Google search for roxio toast h.264, to my surprise the #1 hit is my blog.

i am clueless when it comes to blogging software so may i ask

what app is best to have a blog where once can have total control over the look of the site

and how does that work? do i need to sign up only with wordpress to have a hosting account? do i buy the software?

thanks


oh and also can one get a domain name with the blog?

If we’re talking Wordpress, you download the software (it’s free), and then you install it on your own server. That means, of course, that you need to have an already existing web site. If you sign up for a Wordpress hosting account, you can choose between some ridiculous amount of themes, but there are limits to the control you have over what the site looks like.

Of course, if you install it on your own server and want to actually use the full control you then have over the look of the site, you need to be fairly competent at XHTML, CSS, and PHP to tweak it to your liking.

i decided to stick with blogger, for these reasons.

1. blogger's free service is MUCH more full featured. There are a lot of simple things that i miss from wordpress (like their dashboard and well written code for community) BUT.. in blogger I can mess with CSS, upload my own templates and use javascript... wordpress none of this is free unless you have your own domain.

2. I bought my own domain. Through blogger this was a $10/year for the domain and the hosting. This is dirt cheap. the next cheapest at wordpress suggested is 6.75/month....

3. finally I do have some blind faith in google that what isn't perfect about blogger will be changed. so i moved from 7zeros.blogspot.com to theologer.com

My biggest problem with Blogger was the lack of a backup feature. It was great for posting comments on other Bloggers' sites, but in the end, backup was the #1 reason I dumped Blogger and went to Wordpress. Love it.

If you have bought your own domain, I'd suggest using the self-hosted version of WP. Version 2.5 was released around two weeks ago and it's one of the best OpenSource blogging applications out there currently. You have a lot more freedom going that route than using a hosted application.

I use the free version of Wordpress that I host on my site and I can do a TON of things with it that I can't do with Blogger.

These two seem a bit self-contradictory to me.

$10 a year for a domain and hosting is quite cheap. I don’t know how Blogger hosting works, though—is it actually your site where you have full FTP/shell access and all that, or just a Blogger blog with its own URL that doesn’t end in .blogspot.com or whatever it is? And if the first, how much space do you have?

If you use the ‘full’ version of WordPress, you don’t have to use their servers or hosting plans. In fact, after you download the .zip file with the WordPress files in it, you never again have to have anything to do with wordpress.org or wordpress.com ever again, if you don’t want to.

If you buy a regular domain from a regular host (like GoDaddy or Dreamhost), you can get domain and hosting for $10 a year as well, and probably even cheaper, too. It’s not so much the price that determines whether you’ve got a good deal as it is the level of control you have over your new domain.

If i would have known that i would probably have gone with GoDaddy or dreamhost... as it is I bought the domain through blogger and they move all my stuff over for me. I'm actually not sure if I have any control over the site via ftp or whatever, i've looked into it briefly and then given up.

If i could have found hosting for as cheap as blogger was offering the domain and hosting I would totally have done it with wordpress... but as it is. and for me. I'm pleased with how my site turned out, and at this point i'm more interested in the writing than I am in the features... but that said... i would have done it differently if i'd have known that.
-r