Free Blogs Vs. Self Hosted Blogs

A long time ago, I started a blogging tips site on Blogger so I could help other bloggers as well as make a few dollars. I was so excited to get the project started, that I posted quite a bit of stuff within a few days. On Tuesday, March 7, I received an unpleasant surprise when I logged into my account. Blogger had frozen my blog on the suspicion that I had setup a Splog.

A Splog is a blog created expressly to propagate spam. We’ve all seem them. They are 99.9% Adsense and .1% reprinted content. It’s purely incidental if you get any useful information out of them. Blogger had me verify that the blog was being operated by an actual human being. Then I had to wait about a day for someone to look at the blog and verify that it was not full of spam before they released it back into my control.

I puzzled over this for a few days wondering what triggered the shut down. After speaking with other bloggers, I determined it was the fact that I had added a lot of links within a short period of time. I had put up about 30 links to various blogging resources (templates, web forums) within a twenty four hour period of time. Other bloggers reported doing the same thing and the common denominator is that we were all locked out of our blogs.

Blogger takes spam blogging seriously. Perhaps a little too seriously. I was one of the lucky ones in that I was only locked out of my blog. Other bloggers report having their blogs deleted with no warning whatsoever. One blogger I spoke to spent about four months building one of his blogs only to find it completely gone one day. Luckily, he was able to rebuild and relaunch the site on its own domain and recoup some of his losses.

Everywhere you turn a new blog host is popping up offering server space for your blog, under their domain of course. Should you take up their offer or are you better off striking out on your own?

[Are you starting a website with adult content? Check out my article on finding adult web hosting.]

Well that all depends on what you plan to do with your blog. Is it a personal blog for casual posting or a professional blog to promote your business? Will you be talking about “safe” topics or risqué ones? Some hosts do not allow sexually explicit material and will delete your blog if you do. How much traffic are you expecting or want to have? To keep server costs down, some hosts limit the number of visitors you can have per month. What I’m getting at is that if you host your blog on someone else’s server, you have to play by their rules.

But there are benefits to having a blog hosted by a third party. First and foremost they’re free which is a good thing with gas prices being what they are nowadays. Secondly, setting up a blog is usually as easy as making pie. Well at least for those who know how to make pie. The hosting company completely takes care of any maintenance needed and support issues. Then there is the fact that you are usually a part of a community. Some blog communities have an internal marketing system that you can tap into for marketing your blog.

But all of these benefits can be outweighed by a few consequences. You can lose your blog for no reason and with no explanation. With Blogger, once your blog is gone, someone else can register the domain name. With other hosts, such as WordPress.com, once deleted the domain is no longer available even to you. Another disadvantage is if the host has server issues then you have server issues. Worse, if the host’s business goes under there goes your blog.

Hosting a blog on your own domain, while eliminating many of these issues, comes with its own set of problems. There is the cost of the server space and monthly traffic. Then you must install and configure the blog software which, for a newbie to computing, could prove to be a challenge. There is the upkeep and maintenance of the blog and you have work twice as hard at marketing yourself.

However, the major benefit to having your own space on the net is similar to buying a house versus renting. It’s yours to do with whatever you want. You have complete control. If your blogging takes off and you start getting more visitors than you know what to do with, you can open a web store and sell items. You can add a forum. If you hate your web host, you can change to a different one without changing web addresses. If you have the know-how, you can become a blog host yourself. The possibilities are endless.

So before you jump onto the free blog bandwagon, think long and hard about whether or not it will take you where you want to go. With free blog hosts, you may just find yourself heading towards a dead end.

Daria Black is a fiction writer, blogger, and avid coffee drinker. Visit her website Daria Black – Words By Daria located at http://www.dariablack.com to read fiction stories, talk philosophy, or just laugh at life.

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(photo courtesy of PublicDomainPictures)

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