Blogger vs Wordpress - The Search for the Best Blogging Platform - Part 3 - What makes Blogger Great

The previous post in this series laid the foundation for this discussion. It explained why this comparison focuses on Blogger and Wordpress.org instead of the more general hosted vs self–installed platforms.

Old Blogger to Blogger Beta to Blogger

By the way, before we start I'll let you in on a little secret: The Blogger you knew before February 2003 when Google acquired it was a different Blogger from the current offering. This new and improved Blogger, which I'll simply call as Blogger, is like the old Blogger on steroids. It's been hitting the gym lately, I heard it said.

This means that some comparisons you might stumble upon on the net might refer to the old Blogger or to Blogger Beta which is a sort of pre–release version of the new Blogger. Looking at the publication date is not of much help either specially when the article chronicles a blogger's move from Blogger to, say, Wordpress. While the date may seem recent, the information regarding Blogger might still be what the poster knew when she was still using Blogger when it was still a couch potato, remote on hand and nachos nearby. In a word, beware; you might see Blogger portrayed in a false light, though unintentionally. So, the next time you encounter a comparison saying that Blogger has no Categories, just say to yourself that Blogger has something even better; and it's called Labels.

Now let's move on and I'll show you why I believe Blogger is the biggest thing since Blogger (pun intended).

Ease of Setup

Blogger is among the easiest blog platform to set up. You can set up a blog in less than five minutes. It's only a matter of filling up forms and choosing your template. The only time consuming step in the process is the part where you choose your blog URL (should I use mycutestcat, cutelilmissy, or cutecatomine). Due to this, Blogger has been described as for beginners. Don't let that fool you into thinking that Blogger is unsophisticated, though. Advanced users can set it up with their own domain names; they can set it up to publish on a different host; they can make the set up as difficult as they wanted to gain the functionalities they want—but only if they want to. It is optional and not forced upon the user. This is unlike Wordpress where you simply have to do those things. While Blogger is for beginners, it is not for beginners only.

If you go to the self–installed route with Wordpress, you would have to jump through a lot of technical hoops before you can even start writing your first post. In fact, you have to jump through technical hoops before you can jump through another set of technical hoops. The first technical hoop you have to contend with is looking for the right registrar to register your domain name. Then, there is the question of hosting. You have to learn all those stuff like bandwidth and scripting capabilities not to mention things like cPanel interfaces. Then there's the technical hurdle of the software installation itself. While all these may not be rocket science (to some), it is still something you can do without if you choose Blogger.

Cost = Free

Well, what can I say? Free is free; can it get any better than that? While Wordpress is also free to download (it's Open Source—"free" as in freedom and "free" as in beer), there's little you can do with it if you don't buy a domain name and hosting space. Although the cost of having a domain name and hosting space may not be much, "some cost" still comes out as greater than "zero".

Simple to Operate

As with most hosted solutions, Blogger is simple to operate and use. If you can use a word processor, Blogger won't be much of a challenge for you. It won’t get in the way of your writing. I can not say that using Wordpress would be much more difficult but having more complexities to deal with, like your host, plug–ins installed, etc., would make it a little less easy than an integrated solution.

Zero Maintenance

You don't have to concern yourself with installing patches, plug–ins, and updates. If Blogger decides to update its software, it just happens seamlessly in the background. If, on the other hand, Wordpress decides to release a new update, you have to download it, upload it to your server, and install it there. What's worse, you might not even know that a new update has been released and fail to update your server thereby compromising the security of your installation (if it happens to be a security update). With Blogger, you won’t miss any updates—that's for sure.

Good Security

Related to the benefit stated above is security. It would be very hard to keep up with the crackers or system intruders who seem to have all the time in the world. You, on the other hand, have a blog to run and an exuberant community of readers and followers to inform/entertain/educate/bash. Needless to say there may be times when an important update would slip through your notice. But you will soon be reminded of that fact after seeing your defaced site. I've read of some Wordpress sites which have been hacked but not of Blogger sites getting the same treatment. This is significant when you consider that most Blogger users are what many old timers would call beginners and that most Wordpress users are techies or at least have their sites maintained by techies—some are even by webmasters.

SEO and Traffic

After signing up with Blogger, you are already part of the big and growing blogspot community. This is true even if you get your own domain name and don't have the blogspot domain. As this community is linked together—from the Blogger home and the next and previous links in the navbar—you are already linked! Do I need to say that links are hot commodities in the web in general and in the blogosphere in particular? You are already a step ahead.

These advantages are shared by most, though not all, of the other hosted platforms. However, they are not the only reasons for choosing Blogger. In the next installment, I'll give you other reasons why Blogger is so great. Those reasons are special because not only are they unique to Blogger, they are some of the weaknesses of other hosted platforms which Blogger has, in the past, been categorized under. So, stay tuned to the next installment.