Blogger or Blogspot can be very appealing to people who want a user-friendly platform to start their blog. Blogging is a great tool to highlight your skills, and even bring in new clients. Blogspot is a platform owned by Google. It is free, and users can create and publish their first post in a matter of minutes.
However, Blogger may not be the best option for people who want to create a professional blog. We have noted down nine reasons to avoid Blogger, with why you shouldn’t host a blog on Blogspot in particular.
Reason 1: Your URL is not your own and SEO will suffer for it
According to the default system, any blog that is hosted on Blogger will be on the blogspot.com domain. These blogs have URLs similar to http://yourblog.blogspot.com as opposed to a custom domain like http://yourcompanyname.com. It is essential to have a domain that features your company’s name and location for smooth branding. It also makes it easier for your visitors to remember the URL.
When you do not have a custom domain, your clients or potential customers could lose their trust. However, there are other issues, as well as you might not have anticipated.
One of the primary goals of a professional blog is to bring attention to the professional behind it. If you have already answered the question, “what is a blog, and why should you create one?”, then you’re well aware of this fact. Blog owners use search engine optimization or SEO, to ensure they will appear on the first page or first rank of the search result by using keywords relevant to their industry or company. However, using Blogger will become a hinder in your SEO efforts as Google takes below factors when ranking websites:
- Top-Level Domain v/s Sub-Domain Usage.
- Domain Authority.
- Backlinks.
- Site Speed.
Unfortunately, using Blogspot leaves your blog vulnerable to these things. Other site owners also prefer not to link blogs hosted on Blogspot, which again takes a toll on your domain authority and loading speed. Blogger also does not provide SEO options like other platforms.
If you combine these factors, you will understand why so many blogs on Blogspot.com do poorly in search engine rankings. If visitors cannot find a professional blog, then it offers no advantage. However, it’s ironic considering that Google owns Blogger.
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Reason 2: Spam is a problem
Apart from the problems like readers not being able to find a blog hosted on Blogspot or other bloggers refusing to affiliate to these sites—spambots are also a hurdle. People who run blogs on Blogspot.com often spend a lot of time in contending with spam comments, as spammers target blogs on that service.
If bloggers fail to remove this spam, it will easily overshadow the comments made by legitimate visitors. Visitors may also assume that the website is abandoned or not trustworthy if they discover spam-filled comments. Furthermore, Google may even penalize a person for the content added to their sites by Spambots.
Reason 3: Google can delete your Blog
Although all website hosts require their users to agree to their terms of service, Blogger’s terms are unusually strict. If a blog owner breaks those rules, Google can choose to delete the blog without notice, causing the blogger to lose all of their hard work and words. However, other hosts and platforms can be backed up via plugins, PHPMyAdmin, and other tools to prevent data loss.
This might sound hard to believe, but when someone creates a blog through Blogger, they don’t own their content—Blogger does. That’s a lot of control to give up. The best thing anyone who already has a professional blog on Blogspot.com can do is move their site to a different platform as quickly as possible.
Reason 4: The Blogs all look the same
Even when bloggers manage to combat spam, or get a bit of traffic on Blogspot, they still suffer from the fact that their blog looks like every other blog on the site. Setting up a custom domain doesn’t change this either. These blogs are usable, but they’re not necessarily professional. Nor do the free themes provided by Blogger indicate that the person who owns that professional blog is serious about their business.
Website owners can choose a platform such as WordPress and purchase custom themes that look professional and help them stand out for just a small price. Blog owners can customize these themes with editing code or adding plugins to make their blogs more engaging and easier to use.
A professional design or custom top-level domain name costs money, but it also shows that the website owner is committed to their business and Web presence. This, in turn, builds a company’s reputation and makes SEO easier.
Reason 5: Functionality Is limited
Whether you use Blogspot or a custom domain, Blogger offers limited functionality. You can edit some HTML and CSS, but you cannot add plugins or dive deep into the code like you can do with other platforms (WordPress). This not only contributes to your blog, looking like every other blog created on Blogger but reduces its function.
If a site owner wants to connect their social media or add a realty map to their site, they’re limited to a few Blogger tools that don’t always work or look good. And forget about a plugin that will deal with the spam issue.
Of course, these are just a few of the reasons why Blogger and a blog hosted on Blogspot is not an appropriate choice for professionals who want to create an online presence.
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Reason 6: Challenge in acquiring backlinks
Backlinking is a beneficial practice for your blog in terms of gaining visibility and traffic. But above all, when you acquire backlinks from other websites, you receive Google’s attention. These links can become one of the best sources for your blogging website to reach a higher rank in the SERPs, or push you way down.
However, since you cannot get your unique domain on Blogspot, you’re stuck with www.website.blogspot.com. This can be a disadvantage for your Blogger website since all the sites look the same on the platform. The similarity between all the Blogspot websites gives rise to the already thriving skepticism within blogging professionals to link out your website.
Reason 7: You cannot customize as you want
The amount of time you will be wasting on setting the perfect theme for your Blogspot website is underrated. Unlike most other platforms that provide you an array of options to customize the UX of your blogging website—Blogspot will give you a couple of templates and have you find your way. As mentioned earlier, you are allowed to edit the HTML and CSS, but only after agreeing to the Blogger Code Editor’s conditions.
This steals your only chance at making a blog look appealing. Because let’s be honest, blogs are not known for your attractiveness. Even if you look for a non-official template, you’ll be stuck with a low-quality and unusable template. Compare this with Premium WordPress when you have the option to choose or create a theme that resonates with the scope of your website/blog.
Reason 8: Blogspot has no definite future right now
Let’s be honest; the future of Blogspot is not crystal-clear right now. Although it has been a Google product for more than 20 years, it doesn’t contribute to the more extensive profile of Google. WordPress is the main competitor to Blogspot currently, and it clearly has the upper hand in terms of functionality, customization, and benefits in terms of SEO.
You don’t want to depend on a platform that has no future, instead invest in one that braces you for your long-term goals. Blogspot has not seen an update in a very long time, meaning it will not survive in the current technological environment. With more than a year without any update after the 2019 ‘spring clean,’ the platform doesn’t seem to budge in terms of updates, we suspect its demise very soon.
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Reason 9: Bad customer service and support
Established support helps in protecting the interest of your business ventures. While many hosting platforms have dedicated support to take care of your queries and complaints, Blogspot offers you a non-technical user forum. You might find a Google Staffer answering the questions now and then, but that’s it.
While active community support can help unearth common problems, an equally bewildered group of users cannot resolve all queries. With not a single support contact for Blogspot, customer satisfaction is zilch. Therefore, Blogspot does not exactly provide a favorable environment for professional blogs to thrive.
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Hello there Souvik. This is quite an informative post and as a web designer myself, I can’t say how right you are about the reasons to avoid Blogger for a professional blog. Personally, as I was starting to try out designing and creating websites, I didn’t really have the budget or the skills that I have today so picked out Blogspot as my first website builder tool. It didn’t really turn out the way I’d imagined it to be and it was a heck of a headache to optimize as well. But that was how my story of becoming a web designer began. Today, I’d choose any other builder besides blogger and my favorite one is WordPress.