[Kitten]

I have a personal blog that I don't want to fiddle with paying a ton of money on, but I do have it on its own domain. I've been using Blogger's free hosting so I can keep using the platform, but does it really make any difference in terms of marketing as long as its on my own domain?

[SageMother]

Originally Posted by Kitten

I have a personal blog that I don't want to fiddle with paying a ton of money on, but I do have it on its own domain. I've been using Blogger's free hosting so I can keep using the platform, but does it really make any difference in terms of marketing as long as its on my own domain?

When a blog is buried in a domain you can't capitalize on traffic that flows through a free host.

[RFL1986]

I was wondering about this as well so it's good to know that a domain running through a free host is the best way to go. Are there any downfalls that would make it worthwhile to risk the traffic loss and host it differently?

[SageMother]

Originally Posted by RFL1986

I was wondering about this as well so it's good to know that a domain running through a free host is the best way to go. Are there any downfalls that would make it worthwhile to risk the traffic loss and host it differently?

If you plan to run ads or sell ad space, you might be inhibited by the host's TOS. That's easy enough to work around as long as the host doesn't prevent your linking to pages that have paid adspace.

[Kitten]

Originally Posted by SageMother

When a blog is buried in a domain you can't capitalize on traffic that flows through a free host.

Can you explain what you mean by this a bit more? This is just a personal blog with no real advertising....and it's not in conjunction with another site that I'm trying to capitalize on or anything. It doesn't mean I don't still want the traffic and such, though...

[justontime]

A few months ago I moved my blog to blogger using their free hosting. I have been using the free version of sitemeter and it has given me some very interesting information about the traffic coming to my blog and I get more than I expected through blogger. Mine is just a personal blog, I do have advertising but that is not the main reason for the blog. The sitemeter information also shows what countries my blog traffic comes from, the entry and exit pages and it provides stats for how many readers at each hour of the day. I am amazed to find that I have regular readers from a number of different countries.

[SageMother]

Originally Posted by Kitten

Can you explain what you mean by this a bit more? This is just a personal blog with no real advertising....and it's not in conjunction with another site that I'm trying to capitalize on or anything. It doesn't mean I don't still want the traffic and such, though...

A search engine will see the "wordpress" or "blogspot'" in your subdomain url. These are both established domain names and are already recognized by spiders. You get to "draft" off the trail of that recognition.

Since your blog is personal, your need for easy recognition doesn't appear to be that of someone selling ad space or hawking their wares. Proceed as you see fit!

[RFL1986]

Thanks for the information, SageMother. I was wondering what exactly you meant before as well and that's good news to know for what I'm doing with my own blog.

[dolce_vita78]

I believe that if your blog is for personal use only, then free services offered like that of Blogger would be suffice. If you intend to use your site for marketing activities and the like, it would be better to get a site of your own.

[tater03]

I really like Blogger for a personal site. I just find they were the easiest to set up and use.