WordPress vs BlogSpot is one of the most talked topic to blog. Both, the WordPress and BlogSpot are well established and the most popular platform on the web to build a blog. Both of them are actually great blogging platforms and are using all over the world. Before comparing both platforms we need to know a bit about of them.
Are you in the most confusing state that which platform should I use, WordPress or BlogSpot? Hmmm! If you are so, then you don’t need to be wondered because these two are really great blogging platforms and are using extensively all around the world. If you are a new learner and trying to choose one of the most successful platform between these two for running your own Blog, then you might be trying to search the answer as which one is the best platform for you.
Having site is really interesting but if you are new and have used none of them and want to gain some experience and skills about blogging then having the use of BlogSpot is highly suggested, but if you are skillful and really serious and passionate about your blogging and want to do something more, then WordPress self-hosting domain is suggested and there also many more WordPress Hosting services are available where you can enjoy the potential and capability of WordPress with self-hosted blogs.
In fact WordPress is one among the best and sophisticated Content Management System available on the internet where bloggers can build free of cost blogs on WordPress.com or by using of the WordPress CMS, bloggers can run their blogs on their own domains. Before we compare both of them, let’s have a small journey inside both of them.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a website creation tool which is written in PHP and MySQL. It an online and open source Content Management System. It’s your own and can house it and you have freedom and full control over it. It is one of the easiest and most powerful website CMS in today’s existence. We can easily build creative and professional looking websites or blogs using WordPress.
According to Wikipedia, WordPress got started on May 27, 2003, with a single bit of code to increase the typography of everyday writing.
In early it had fever users but later increased and now it is one of the greatest self-hosted blogging platform all around the world and used by millions of sites and probably seen by millions of people almost every day.
It is one of the world’s most popular tool for managing and creating websites, any kind of website whether that is a simple blog or full-featured business website have the use of it.
If you’ve never created a website, no problem! Because having the use of WordPress, it is very easy, that is, with the WordPress you need not know anything about HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) to code any bit of line or don’t need to have design skills to build a professional looking site. There are numbers of free site designs available (known as “THEMES” in the WordPress) to choose from and you can easily create a professional looking and well designed site.
You don’t need any special tool and need not to install anything on your computer because unlike traditional desktop software, WordPress also runs online where you can easily update your website from anywhere
It is free to use and also free to modify. You can modify your blog if you know about HTML and can write code then, you can dig in the code and can make WordPress as you want. It is completely portable, means you have the capability to host your site anywhere and there is no prohibition, you can move it at any time.
You can host your WordPress website with many different ways.WordPress.com is the hosted version; it means that the website which you are running is on the official WordPress servers. You can go there just now and can build your own website for free in a very short time. If you want to start your own blog and just want to know that what WordPress is all about then this is the best and right place to start your own site.
But make it sure that there are some limitations that you should know and be aware of to WordPress.com because some features that it offers are not free, you will have to pay for them. You’re only limited to the pre installed themes and you will not be able to use plugins (plugins are mini programs that add features to your website ant expand its functionality). You will be also charged but not a lot if you love to use your own domain name. But don’t worry about that, if you decide that you like WordPrees and want to be fully benefited from everything that it offers, and then, no problem! Later you can easily move your site anywhere.
The WordPress.org is the self-hosted version. If you want to run WordPress on your own web hosting account then you will have to use WordPress.org and by using this version, you will be able to have the complete control over the design and functionality of your blog.
Many famous blogs, music sites, news outlets, celebrities and many more are using WordPress around the world. Some famous blogs like TechCrunch and Mashable are both using WordPress. News outlets like New York Time’s blogs and CNN’s-air personality blogs also use WordPress.
The best part about WordPress is that it’s very easy to use and flexible enough for just about anything. And this is the main reason that WordPress has grown so much in popularity around the world. According to one of the recent survey, claims that, the WordPress powers 22.5% of all websites on the internet.
There’s a reason behind, that is, why 22.5% of all website on the internet are built with WordPress. If you want to come to know then, take a short glance at the WordPress showcase and you’ll see a number of well-known people and sites having the use of WordPress. While you’re at the showcase you may be inspired for your own website. Hence it is one of the best CMS in recent time and used by millions of sites around the world and seen by millions of people every day that’s it has grown so much in popularity all over the world.
What is Blogger or BlogSpot?
There is a little bit confusion between Blogger and BlogSpot. In fact its authentic name is Blogger, but all the blogger.com blogs are hosted at subdomain of BlogSpot.com like, (abc.blogspot.com) but when you create a website on Blogger (BlogSpot), then you have to go to Blogger.com to build a BlogSpot blog.
It is the free of cost Web hosting service .According to Wikipedia, It was developed by Pyra Labs, and it was bought by Google in 2003.
Under the ownership of Pyra Labs, Para Labs had charged for some of its premium features that it has got but later, all the premium features that it had became free when Google acquired Blogger and also later Google purchased Picasa (Picasa is a Google’s photos System that stores photos uploaded to BlogSpot) and It included Picasa and also its photo sharing service known as Hello into Blogger and allowed users to share photo to their Blogs.
Some major features were introduced such as individual archive pages for posts, comments, and posting by email, later in 2004 by BlogSpot.
Generally, the Blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of BlogSpot.com. But Blogs can be registered custom domain of the Blogger (i.e.www.abc.com). So BlogSpot.com domain publishing will be redirected to custom domain. A Blogspot user can have maximum 100 blogs per account
WordPress.com charges its users on account of using a custom domain while BlogSpot allows its users to use their own domain free of charge. But BlogSpot cannot be installed on web server therefore a user has to use DNS facilities to redirect a custom URL to a BlogSpot domain.
Except English, BlogSpot supports many languages. It includes all the enormous features to build a fine website or Blog. It includes template designers where you can design your blog template and can do whatever you want. It has got superior array of page element, for example Google Adsense, Blog Archive, and Labels etc
Blogspot platform is very useful, when you just want to start a blog just for sharing your thoughts with other or for gaining some experience about blogging and don’t want to blog for earning money. It is very simple and easy platform to use and need not any technical know-how. But in terms of functionalities, SEO benefit, there are many limitations of BlogSpot, but over all if you just want learn, how to blog, how to manage a site and need a platform with almost 0 cost, then BlogSpot is most suitable platform to choose from.
Main Differences between WordPress and BlogSpot
(Blogger)
“Should I use BlogSpot or WordPress for my new site?” is the question that is often asked by the newbies.
If you are beginner and confused that which blogging platform is good to start blogging, Blogspot or WordPress and waiting for an answer to know as to which one is the best to choose from?
So you need not to be wondered because both of them are great and well established blogging platforms and are using extensively all around the world. To help you better, here we are going to do a completely guided comparison between these two great blogging platforms to help you decide which one is better for your needs and will try to cover all the features that they include, to help you make the right decision.
Having Control over your Blog
Every individual attempts to have control over what he/she does. Same is case in blogging; Controlling over your own blog is one of the major reason to support self-hosted blog. You will not be able to have control over your own blog using BlogSpot because it is owned by Google, and there are chances to delete your BlogSpot account without informing you. Even though if you are using your domain name chances are high that if spammers use feature Flag as spam and report your as spam , then Google might remove your blog . This is very common and by quick research, you will come to know that many bloggers have faced with such problem using BlogSpot. While in other hand, the case is different with WordPress, using WordPress you will have complete control over your blog and its functionality.
WordPress Dashboard and BlogSpot Dashboard
The first screen you see when you log into to the administration area of your blog is known as dashboard. The WordPress dashboard increases the dial-up users’ speed. It is very easy to use where users can easily post an entry without facing any difficulty or wastage of time so they can save their time.
While BlogSpot has an updated dashboard design. There are many features that are available in BlogSpot but you will not be able to make use of them due to certain limitations but if you want to use all of them then it is necessary to enable JavaScript.
Domain name
In WordPress, when you transfer an existing domain in case of paid service, you have to pay some amount. But of course you can also create free blogs on WordPress.com in the form of a sub-domain like abc.wordpress.com.
While in BlogSpot you have the ability to transfer your domain for free and through the BlogSpot interface you can also buy the domain and, once again free blogs can be built as sub-domain with URLs like abc.blogspot.com.
Image Storage
Instead of BlogSpot WordPress offers more space. By default it offers three times of storage space than BlogSpot. But, if you need more space then you can upgrade by paying some amount of money.
The photos uploaded to BlogSpot are stored in Picasa (The Google’s photo System, as we have told earlier about Picasa) where you can browse your images and much more. By default it offers only 1GB of storage space for storing images but if you need more space then you will have to pay for more space.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Optimizing your blog for search engines and getting traffic from search engines make your blog unique. Every blogger first and last priority is the traffic that they always looking for so it doesn’t matter where your blog is hosted. WordPress offers more option to optimize your blog for search engine and you can easily get your site in front of searchers on Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. While the case is different in BlogSpot where you are limited to certain settings and doesn’t offer as many options as WordPress offers. BlogSpot offers fever options to optimize your blog for search engine.
Mobile Access
Using WordPress there are certain advantages where you will be benefited from. From one of them is accessing through mobile, if you are on WordPress, you can be accessed through mobile on m.wrodpress.com.
While using BlogSpot, there is no mobile- specific version, but however the help pages of BlogSpot can be accessed and you can publish your post by sending SMS or MMS.
Categories
Category is something that is used to sort and group all the contents into different sections. Any blog that publish content on different topics can divide their blog into different sections using categories. Using BlogSpot there is an option which is called Labels. It serves as a tag in BlogSpot and using Labels you can categorize your posts in monthly and yearly manner. While using the WordPress there is an option to upload the categories and tags.
Ownership
Blogging service, the BlogSpot is provided by the Google. Most of the time, it is free and reliable and it is quite enough to publish your articles on the web. But however it is owned by Google not by you and Google runs it and can shut it down at any time or your access to it may be shutdown at any time.
While in WordPress you use a WordPress hosting provider that hosts your site. Using WordPress hosting provider you are free to decide that when you want to shut down your site or can decide how long you want to run your site. Using WordPress you own all the data and have control over what information you share with others.
Portability
Portability means moving your site from one platform to another. However moving a site from one platform to another is a complicated job and the most significant risks during moving the site are losing the SEO , subscribers and followers. BlogSpot is owned by Google so if you want to move your blog you will lose SEO, subscribers and followers and though you can export your content and BlogSpot allows you but the date will stay on Google’s servers for a long time.
While using WordPress, you have the authority to move your site. You can change the domain name or can move your WordPress site to a new host too or you can even move your site to other CMS Using WordPress. In comparison with BlogSpot, WordPress offers ways more SEO advantages.
Security
Goggle is a strong and secure platform and while using a BlogSpot, you have the advantages of it because you need not to worry about creating backups, securing your blog or managing your server’s resources.
WordPress is also secure enough but it is self hosted and you’re hosting it so you are responsible for security, backups and managing your saver’s resources but you don’t need to worry because WordPress offers plenty of plugins that make it easier for you
Customizing Themes
There are many BlogSpot templates (Themes) that can be customized and if you want more control over formatting then you can also edit the HTML and CSS directly while in WordPress, there are bundle of free WordPress themes on the internet where you can customized your WordPress themes easily.
Reputation
Since BlogSpot is free that’s why most people don’t see it with great eye and the reason is that most people use it for Black hat SEO, spamming and for landing affiliate pages. While WordPress is self-hosted blog, people think that the person is serious and has paid for it and that’s why WordPress is more reputed among the people than BlogSpot.
AdSense
AdSense is the one of the most significant priority for any blogger who wants to earn money from his/her blog. In early BlogSpot was the best way for Adsense account approval but later it became though to get Adsense account with BlogSpot. Getting your blog approved is very easy with WordPress and domain mail address.
Team Blogs
There are only two types of accounts in BlogSpot means it provides only two types accounts, administrators or Non-Administrators. While there are various accounts in WordPress for editors, Contributors and Authors.
Static Pages
You can create maximum twenty static pages using BlogSpot. You can place these pages on WordPress very easily but in BlogSpot you cannot place these statics pages easily. You will have to edit the template HTML if you want to show static page as a homepage of your blog which is a complex and painful job for many users while using WordPress you can create many pages that you can list in the home page of your blog very easily.
Theme and Templates
Themes make the complete look and feel of your Blog. Both of these great platforms offer many templates but you will find unlimited free WordPress templates because of its commercial nature. Using WordPress, you have the FTP access so you can have very attractive look and feel of your WordPress theme.
WordPress Theme
BlogSpot Theme
Reselling your blog
Since BlogSpot is owned by Google so you cannot resell your blog because Google strictly doesn’t allow you to resell you BlogSpot Blog. but the case is different here with the self-hosted blog and there is no prohibition you can always resell your self-hosted blog.
Social Media Websites
Those don’t love BlogSpot who are very active in social media sites and bookmarking sites like reddit, stumble upon and Delicious. Buysellads is network for bloggers which doesn’t accept BlogSpot bloggers even if you use the custom domain name which work fine because in contrast with WordPress, the WordPress is more recognized than the BlogSpot in global standard.
Furthermore, WordPress keep updating and releasing of new version with the some added functionalities while there are very few updates which often comes rarely on BlogSpot. Updates are free on BlogSpot while WordPress updates are costly for which you will have to pay some money. You will have to pay some money on WordPress Web hosts as well as on your themes but don’t worry for spending money while using WordPress because the more you send and the more you can earn as well.
So let’s have a highlight journey that what we have discussed so for and hope this quick summary of both platforms will help you understand better.
WordPress Summary
- WordPress offers many different designs and functionality options for growing and expending your site
- It is the platform where you have freedom in terms of flexibility, ownership and control
- WordPress is an open-secured software the giant community for designers and developers
- It has a large number of design templates that help you to build a unique and professional looking site
- There are many plugins that allow you to add features as well as make changes in your blog in WordPress
- Your responsible for Spam protection, backup and security.
BlogSpot Summary
- It covers all the basics about the blogging and is a great platforms specially for newbies
- To make a blog on BlogSpot ,You must have a Google account
- It is very easy in using and so simple
- Your URL will be your name.blogspot.com like abs.blogspot.com but you can transfer it to your own domain
- There are limited design templates to make your site
- You can change background, column width, font and colors by help of template designer.
- Through browser interface you can edit HTML to your
- You don’t have any access to FTP
- You can improve your sidebar and footer by help of simple gadgets that it provides
- It is owned by Google
- You may not be able to have control over it
- you can have maximum 100 blogs per account.
Conclusion
Comparing these two great blogging platform is rather difficult but no doubt, both of them are different types of blogging platforms. BlogSpot is so easy and very simple blogging platform while WordPress is more powerful CMS than the BlogSpot. It has many features that make it unique and professional looking site. But however if you want to gain some experience and want to share just posts and pictures on something with their name attached to it, and don’t want to turn your site into something more substantial, and don’t want to be professional then BlogSpot is the right option to pick rather than WordPress but if you choose WordPress for such kind of activities then WordPress would be something more expensive for this kind of blogger.
Most bloggers have small expectations at the start but when they come to know that there is potential in their blog, they quickly demand for something more special that offers them more control and potential.
When words like control and ownership come in our mind we quickly understand that this is something that is called WordPress. Yeah exactly, WordPress is the platform that gives you complete ownership and control over your site. It offers the giant amount of features and functions that Blogspot doesn’t offer but however it is a little costly but you need not to worry about it because it can earn you more than you spend. You will get a great return of your investment that’s why WordPress is more reputed around the world.
If you have used both of these or have used none of blogging platform, we always suggest you WordPress over any other platform because in recent age of life, WordPress is most sophisticated and great platform over all, but you’re the owner of yourself and have the authority to pick choice for yourself.
If you want to choose any blogging platform for yourself then take a look at the comparison that we have made up and take some time to make the right decision for yourself because if once you decide to pick a choice and then change after some times, have great affect on your blog. Meanwhile, you may lose SEO ranking or may drop in traffic so the right decision is the best at the start.
So if you are on BlogSpot and want to move to WordPress or if you are a beginner and want to start blogging, but confused which platform should be used, then it is a complete GUIDE for you.
