This article is about blogging and why you should never blog on a free host like blogger.com or wordpress.com I am writing this to alert people out there who are building blogs on free blog hosts like blogger.com and wordpress.com
Installing wordpress is free and gives you full control over your blog. There are other platforms like moveable type to choose from as well. Take a look around and find the platform you like or that best fits your blogging style. I've learned an expensive lesson and now will only build blogs on my own domain names.
The reason?
Lets start with blogger.com
They have a new out of control spam bot. Search the blogger help forums and you will find the horror stories. Legitimate blogs are being deleted, people are getting locked out of their blog until reviewed, and assumed to be a spammer because either the bot flagged the blog or someone clicked the little flag button at the top of all blogger blogs.
That and the fact that they have constant problems with the publishing getting stuck at 0%, slow load times, etc. it makes blogging through blogger.com a buggy experience at best and your content or reason for blogging is up to someone else's interpretation of what is or is not legitimate.
I understand getting rid of splogs and spammers, but in blogger.com’s case the cure is worse than the disease. They were not always that way. I've been on blogger a long time and the service used to be good.
As far as wordpress.com, they are just as bad. If the blog links to a website and looks as if it might be promoting people to go to that website they will suspend your account without warning and lock you out of all the content.
I'm not sure what they think blogs are for, but they seem to think they have a noble purpose in life and that they alone decide what is a "genuine blog" or not.
A "genuine blog" is one that is controlled by the individual who writes to it, not one that must adhere to someone else's idea of what their blog should look like and what it should say.
If you blog on freehosts just be aware your content and your blog is in the hands of others who will decide for the world whether or not your blog should be seen by others.
I recommend all bloggers get their own domain names and install their own blogs. You probably have learned that using a freehost for your company’s website is bad for business so why put your company’s blog on a freehost?
The same goes for individuals. Blogs allow you to express yourself the way you want to express yourself. That is the beauty of blogging. Are you willing to sacrifice your individuality to conform to what blogger.com or wordpress.com thinks is a “genuine” way to express yourself?
Many times the person deciding your fate is someone who has never had any authority over other people and who think that now they have Godlike powers to decide the fate of content written by others. These are people who likely produce no content of value themselves and think they know what is best for the rest of the world.
Get your own domain name and install a blogging platform that fits your needs. It’s the best advice you will ever get about blogging. You only own the blog if it is on your own domain name. Everything else is just providing content for someone else.