Blogger is a free blogging platform from Google that allows private or multi-user blogging features. Blogger was originally BlogSpot which was bought over by Google in 2003. Blogger platform can be great for new comers into the arena, it has a very simple user friendly layout, with simple widgets, simple template designer Etc. But it is just a mediocre platform for Blogging, for those who want their blog to stick out and for professional bloggers, you have to move on. So here are the 6 Reasons why Blogger is a mediocre platform for Blogging.
1. Limited Template Options
Blogger has a few templates that one can choose from while they are starting a blog and most of these templates are very similar to each other, which does not facilitate bloggers being creative and customize their blogs. There are a lot of custom templates available for Blogger, but their installation and customization to meet the needs of a new blogger, may be out of their skill level as they are relatively new bloggers. Most of these custom templates come with some small glitches that are hard for a new blogger to fix.
2. Limited Customization Options
Blogger Blogs have the basic Page Elements Page where you can move around your widgets, it has a Template Designer where you can adjust widths of the sidebar, change the color of background, text, borders Etc.Apart from this there is little else you can do in terms of customized editing. The only other way of editing a blogger blog is by the “Edit HTML” method, where you go and edit the source code of your blog, to make changes in them, I have done a lot of these changes to my Customized Tech Blog, the home page being my proud possession.But this level of Editing the Blogger HTML does not come about until you know a lot about HTML Codes, CSS Styling and have a lot of experience blogging on the Blogger Platform, so this is out of the question for new comers or even those who been blogging for a while. So editing is one huge drawback of Blogger.
3. No Plug-ins
Unlike WordPress, Blogger has no Plug ins, no SEO Plugins, no meta tags Plugins Etc. All this work has to be done manually for each and every blog post. So SEO will be a big pain if you are running a blogger blog. The lack of Plugins also makes Guest Blogging very difficult, you will have to manually receive articles through mail and only then can review and upload it as a guest article.
4. No Permalink Editing
Blogger uses an automatically generated Permalink, which uses the first 5 or 6 words of a Blog Post, but in WordPress we can alter the permalink so that we can fit in all the keywords, those who understand SEO well, will understand the importance of this.
5. CommentLuv does not work on Blogger
Commenting is a huge part of blogging and the blogging community, Blogger Blogs do not support CommentLuv or KeywordLuv Comments, this is only for WordPress, although there are some complicated hacks which may work on certain Blogger Templates, but I would not bet on seeing CommentLuv comments on a Blogger Blog. Blogger has its own comments section and its not a pretty sight, not many features either.
6. Labels do not get Search Indexed
Labels in blogger do not get search indexed due to the pre-loaded robot.txt file which is in all blogger blogs, this makes it difficult to SEO, as you may have to optimize each and every post, which it itself is a pain as I have described above.
I would like to say that Blogger Blogs can be great for new comers, or those that are just Blogging for a few Friends or Family, but if you are a serious Blogger who wants the world as your audience, then I would suggest switching to a custom domain under WordPress.I too am going to switch to WordPress soon, so I thought I should blog about this.Even Blogging greats such as Amit Agarwal shifted his Labnol blog from Blogger to WordPress as soon as he got really serious about it.
In a future post I will concentrate on the few benefits of Blogger, so stay tuned for that!
Informative read. From my opinion, Blogger is a great platform for beginner’s. The information that you shared will be very useful and helpful in blogging.Thanks!!
I like Blogger apart from WordPress and the reason is its Blogging king Platform. It has more traffic handling capacity and the most important is it is highly secure..
Hi Gautham!
Good tips, I agree with you wordpress is better than blogger.
Thank You for your tips.
I recently wrote an article about this topic on my blog. You can read it here ->http://www.bestonlinebusinessguide.net/apps/blog/show/12043344-you-are-so-wrong-about-blogger-
This article is in response to this post. This is my own perspectives about this platform war.
Thanks
that's why I moved to WP, but Blogger is good for starters which gives them the idea on blogging.
Getting labels indexed is not good for SEO. Watch that point.
I agree with you wordpress is better than blogger. But blogger is base for newbie. people start blogging blogger.
You are absolutely true about Blogger on the customization part and flexibility to some extend, but in Google's eyes Blogger blogs have a special place and is pretty easy to rank for a particular keyword with blogger blog, and blogger blogs can easily cut through the competition in Google. How about that?
But I would definitely go with WP for serious blogging due to a lot of reasons. Nevertheless, Blogger is pretty powerful platform and second to none!
users that use blogger how main platform don't deserve respect! hehe
Very true, Gautham. Those are some of the reasons why I have jumped boat to WordPress.
Blogger have some limitations but "Free" hosting and service offered by them, is a main point to be notice while jumping into the blogosphere.
Thats good. If you are getting free hosting then you cannot blame them that they are not giving flexibility. Enjoy the free stuff but for being professional you need to go to wp.
This is one of the best option to make our good identity in front of all but i think commentLuv plug-in is so necessary.
I have a blog on Blogger and I always wondered why many people did not read and comment on it. Comment and Key luv that doesn't exist there may be the reason. After all people are many a times interested in propelling their business forward and seek to use blog comments as a platform to do so. I write about travel on my blogs and visit exciting places in and around New Jersey. I am most definitely going to start using WordPress from now onwards. Thanks for the inputs.
Well-researched post Gautam. Looking forward to hear your instance on Vidya Suri's comment.
Personally i do find word-press much better than blogger. Word-press offers a lot of options as compare to blogger. Lot of themes, more customizable options, numerous plug-ins, widgets etc. I think most of the bloggers are now using word-press and only those who are getting started with blogging or doing blogging as a hobby are still stick to blogger but professional are going with word-press only.
Hi Gautham. Nice article, valid points.
My two cents:
Re no.4 – the permalink is the title of the post. As a rule, most people try and SEO their title, so I think that part is easily taken care of.
No.5 = Intense debate allows the commentluv plugin on blogger. I've got it on one of my blogs and it works like a charm 🙂
While Blogger and WordPress have their differences :-), success largely depends on the blogger 🙂 I am a fan of Blogger because I've used it since 2003 and then earlier last year, got my own domain via Google. It is easy (so is WordPress, really) and convenient.
True, but the title always has to make sense to humans, but the permalink does not need to, In WordPress the permalink can be different from the Title, but not in Blogger.
As I said, Intense debate comments are not really commentluv, it does add link juice, yeah it looks fancy and has many features compared to the normal blogger comments, but it does not add link juice, I have tried it.
Thanks for your comment.
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will agree partly with you, but one should agree that Blogger is one of the greatest platforms for the newbies and beginners.. it is the place where most of the bloggers start their first ventures..
I will say that blogger is good for personal blogging but if you want to be a pro then you must choose to wordpress. Blogger has very less flexibility as compared to wrodpress.
I am agree with you Andy. You are right, but I know it this time. Because I don't know it before. I make a blog website using blogger. Is it better for me if I buy a domain name for this website? I mean if I buy a domain name for this blog site is it be a fully customizable website?
Thanks Andy & Jai @ Tech
No mate, domain name and customization of a website are different. You can customize a Blogger blog, but it has its limitations.
I agree, man! But I prefer to use WordPress… I like blogger, but my preference is always WP.
i will not agree with your 5th point because we are able to install commentluv on on blogger using IntenseDebate Commenting System 🙂
If you go to page source and see Intense Debate Comments, you will see that it is not commentluv.I have tried it.