Which is better, WordPress or Blogger?
This is an age old question and I first asked and encountered when I was just starting. Finding the answer to that question was everything but simple. I got answers from different people, some who knew what they were talking about, some who were willing to help but were unfortunately ill-equipped to answer the question since they haven’t used both of them. I don’t want you to have the same problem – ergo my WordPress vs Blogger (WordPress vs Blogspot) post.
If you’re a Pro Blogger, Search Engine Optimization specialist or a Social Media consultant who can’t seem to find a short answer to epic the epic question which is better between WordPress and Blogger, or you’re still undecided which blogging platform you are going to use, or if you simply want to know a few advantages and disadvantages of these blogging platforms, check the list below:
WordPress vs Blogger – WordPress Advantages
- Highly Customizable
You can tweak it and become more than just a blog. It’s a powerful CMS that allows you to build different kinds of websites on top it.
- Huge Repository Of Free And Paid Themes And Plugins
There is http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ for WordPress Themes and http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ for WordPress Plugins, not to mention the hundreds of theme designers and plugin developers who build their business solely on this platform.
- Very SEO Friendly
It’s the favorite blogging platform of SEOs and Web Strategists for many reasons. Even Matt Cutts, head of the web spam team at Google, the real best friend of many SEOs agree with it.
- Easy Learning Curve
WordPress is pretty easy to learn. Trust me, I’m not a web designer or a web developer, my background is journalism, creative writing, TV writing and production, advertising and traditional media and hey I’m doing pretty well with it.
- Pinging and Third Party Application Integration
WordPress pings a list of servers that you can identify every time you update your blog. And there’s more, with the help of Plugins you can do a lot more with it, including integrating third party application and services on your blog. You can integrate social functions from Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media sites a lot easier on WordPress.
WordPress Community – the community that supports WordPress is simply amazing. You will never run out of people to ask help for if ever you run into problems on your blog, be it on hardcore coding level or simple problems like plugin integration.
WordPress vs Blogger – Blogger Advantages
- Owned by Google
We love our own. It is a fact. It is undeniable. Whether Google ranking algorithm favors Google Blogger blogs over other blogs running on other platforms or not is not the topic of this post, nevertheless I’m pretty sure that you’ll agree when I say that they will never hate their own, at least SEO-wise.
- Robust Servers with Unlimited Bandwidth
Site speed is an important SEO factor unless you have money to shell out to pay for your hosting, you will be left with two options: go for cheap and free webhosts that based on my experience is not a smart move if you’re serious about blogging; or use blogger blogs and have your blog hosted on one of the most robust server infrastructures in the world. Have you ever seen a blogger blog that has gone down because of huge traffic spikes? That’s nearly unlikely.
If you want to host your WordPress blog on a really robust server, check the host I use for my other blog that receives thousands of daily UVs.
- Huge Repository of Blogger Themes, Gadgets or Widgets
Customizing your blog will never be a problem; there are thousands of free Blogger Themes that you can use. Designing your own or building one from scratch or from Blogger’s rich collection of templates is fun too. The number of Gadgets or Widgets that you can apply on your Blogger blog I believe rival that of what you can put on your WordPress as plugins.
- High Degree of Customization
Customizing Blogger blog is easy with the use of their drag and drop interface on the Design builder, you can also edit the HTML of your blog and have an even more control.
- Really Easy Learning Curve
Blogger is more geared towards the beginners. One might even call it an idiot-proof blogging platform. It’s so easy to learn that you’ll hardly need to read a guide for it (at least if you’re okay with serving things as is).
- Blogger has Dynamic View Feature
One of the latest improvements in Blogger is the integration of Dynamic Views. These are templates that load your content (blog posts and pages) dynamically. This allows users to see and navigate throughout your content without even clicking. Your posts will load automatically as your visitor reaches the bottom of your blog. This makes your blog more user friendly, perfect for Pro Bloggers who do it for social engagement.
WordPress vs Blogger – WordPress Disadvantages
- Certain Security Vulnerability
WordPress is open source. And that openness extends to people who want to hack (whether for profit or just because they can) WordPress. It’s a common problem on the Internet anyway, that’s why you just need to know what to do or you need to know how to secure your blog from hackers.
- Prone to Spamming
Spam in the form of blog comments and trackbacks is a big problem and unless you install the necessary plugins like Akismet, which you should really be doing, you’ll be dealing with a huge degree of spam attacks on your blog.
- Update Incompatibility
WordPress updates frequently, too frequent that some themes and plugins can’t keep up. This could be a major setback if you did core customizations to your blog or you tweaked your theme so much without following web standards and clean coding practices.
WordPress vs Blogger – Blogger Disadvantages
- Heavy Flagging and Moderation
This is one of the biggest problems and for SEO and other Pro Bloggers it is a serious one. If you blogged about anything that’s not good with Blogger’s Terms of Service then your blog could be in big trouble. If you’re blogging and your theme falls along the niches of hacking, exploits, illegal and mature content and other bad niches (according to Blogspot) then you risk your blog of getting banned – losing earnings and literal hardwork.
- SEO Limitation
Compared to WordPress customization for SEO purposes are pretty limited. There’s not much you can do in terms of meta data, link automation, post element placements and many others.
- Free Has a bit of Negative Reputation
Many advertisers, especially those that look into metrics like PageRank, IP diversity and others would not advertise on a blog that’s hosted on a free blogging platform such as Blogger.
Conclusion – WordPress or Blogger?
There are many other advantages and disadvantages that I can include on this WordPress vs Blogger post. I swear I can do a whole one week Pro Blogging course on it and still leave some details out.
Giving you the choice at the end is very cliché. And saying at the end of this post that it all boils down to personal preference is a very predictable remark, so I will not do that.
If you’re really serious about Pro Blogging, SEO and Social Media and you want to take these disciplines to the next level or you simply want to utilize blogging other than to express your thoughts on a very serious level then I would recommend you to take the platform that gives you 100% control and responsibility over it – and that would be WordPress.
How about you? In the epic WordPress vs Blogger battle, which one do you side on? Express your thoughts below.
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39 comments
Roy says:
Nov 12, 2011
I started from blogger which i think an easier way for beginners to blogging. Later on i had wordpress and kinda more easier because of several things might not be totally different from those of blogger.
Both i am earning so don’t matter to me. Lol
Manuel Garcia says:
Nov 12, 2011
This will be an endless battle since both platforms have their own pros and cons. It’s still depends upon the user whether what will they use. So far, i am contented using blogger since I can manipulate the template which I can’t do in WordPress. On the other hand, I also wanted to switch to WordPress since i want to avail those useful plugins. Anyway, Nice post
Kim Tyrone Agapito says:
Nov 12, 2011
On the contrary you can do a lot more with WordPress themes than in Blogger’s
metalpig says:
Nov 12, 2011
As a beginner, I also started on free hosting site such as blogger but when it’s getting a bit serious, then that’s the time I’d change – from blogspot to wordpress(dot org)..
btw, you did a good comparison between the two… =)
Kim Tyrone Agapito says:
Nov 13, 2011
Thanks MetalPig… I see we have the same blogging roots LOL.
metalpig says:
Nov 13, 2011
yeah! but you’re grown up already.. unlike me, I’m still on the roots… LOL!
Kim Tyrone Agapito says:
Nov 13, 2011
Your blog dates back to June 2009, mine started last July 2011
metalpig says:
Nov 14, 2011
2009 pa nga pero nasa 53 posts palang.. heheheh
Vic says:
Nov 12, 2011
TechCrunch, Mashable, and other powerful and popular blogs out there use WordPress. You and me also use it – so I go for WordPress
. WP is a powerful CMS not only for blogs but also for full websites. I even see directories, communities, corporate websites that are built on WordPress.
Vic recently posted..The Friends and Enemies of Procrastination (Causes and Cures)
Kim Tyrone Agapito says:
Nov 13, 2011
I agree, although there are WordPress limitations, mostly server side that I still failed to mention on this post.
pauldoh says:
Nov 12, 2011
Hi Sir Kim.
This comparison makes me feel that I was right when I used wordpress when I started blogging few months ago. Yes, it was really hard for a beginner like me to tweak my theme at first, but now, I’m learning to use it little by little.
Kim Tyrone Agapito says:
Nov 13, 2011
I’m glad for you Paul
pauldoh says:
Nov 12, 2011
By the way Sir Kim,
<——Are you using a plug-in for these floating social media buttons?
I've always wanted to have something like this in my blog but I only see Blogger users using them. You're the first I've seen using wordpress.
Kim Tyrone Agapito says:
Nov 13, 2011
It’s called GetSocial.. give it a try.
Shah Blogger says:
Nov 13, 2011
so far, I was comfortable with the performance of the blogspot in SEO. Easy for me set up My Themes, tag, atribut, put microformat or microdata and etc about ON PAGE SEO to be easily read in a robot crawler. Not bad, after 2 month my domain create, i got PR4 jump from PR0. And my single post got to many PR3. Very happy and grateful. I think it is sufficient. Content is more important. I am also still learning, hope you are willing to share knowledge.
Really good artcle, Nice nice nice!! Thanks
Liz Money Web says:
Nov 13, 2011
I used to love Blogger but when my PR4 blog was classified as splog (which was apparently not), I switched to wordpress. I sent and appeal and my blog was restored after several months of follow up. But it left me a very negative experience that I don’t want to happen again. So I just created a back up then started a new wordpress blog with the same theme. I still have blogs with Blogger, but the most important ones are created with WP.
Liz Money Web recently posted..Free eBook: How to Make Money Online from oDesk
Kim Tyrone Agapito says:
Nov 13, 2011
That’s a pain. Glad you learned your lesson
Liz Money Web says:
Nov 13, 2011
Yeah, I learned it the hard way. Hehe.
Semidoppel says:
Nov 13, 2011
I’ll stick to WordPress even though I also have one blogger website. For me it’s easier to create drafts using WordPress.
Peterborough Search Engine Experts says:
Nov 13, 2011
This is like asking between Twitter and Facebook which one is better? of course nothing is better they are just different and each has its benefits and usage. I am a big fan of WordPress because I believe this platform is limitless, you can do the most amazing things you could never imagine before, thank to this platform. However I also use Blogger for different purposes and I am happy with both platforms, I just feel they both enrich the internet. I do not focus on SEO, when selecting this platform, I think about the human experience 1st, then I put the SEO hat to see what can be done.
VaNessa says:
Nov 13, 2011
I had blogger and it was a great tool but it didn’t have the social media distribution like wordpress. I love wordpress now, after I have spent about $70 on being able to customize it the way I want. I want to be perceived as more legit so wordpress it is!
Cai Abbass | Pink Tsinelas says:
Nov 13, 2011
If you really want to get serious with blogging I also recommend you get your own domain and use WordPress. I wish I did when I started in 2004. HAHA
Good job with the comparison.
metalpig says:
Nov 14, 2011
even the famous Boing-Boing is also migrated to WordPress…
Óscar says:
Nov 14, 2011
I was thinking about it for a few days before starting my own blog, right now I think I took the best option
wordpress!
Flyer Design says:
Nov 17, 2011
Thinks for sharing valuable information.
Jim Syyap says:
Nov 18, 2011
I tried both wordpress and blogger and decided to stick with blogger. It’s fast, and it’s easy to use. With wordpress, I was spending a lot of time tweaking and trying to make things work.
Blogger allows me to concentrate more on my writing.
I’ve been using blogger for more than a decade now, with more than ten blogs that are actively updated on a regular basis. I even have an adult blog. None of my blogger sites have ever been banned.
Marvs says:
Nov 20, 2011
It’s really a matter of preference. The good thing about Blogger is you can create numerous blogs w/o having to worry about hosting.
Crumpylicious Blog says:
Nov 21, 2011
I have a PR 4 and PR 3 blog using blogger with our own domain name. I tried wordpress but I found it difficult to customize and tweak. It’s so much easier to customize using blogger especially with all the guides you can find in the net. I maintain a back up weekly though just to be sure in case blogger bans us for some reason. (who knows?) but I’m curious can you lose page rank even if you have your own domain and you get banned by blogger?
sammy says:
Nov 23, 2011
I had a blog on blogger years ago it was making me about $100 a week(3 ebook sales) One day I checked and it was gone no reason why. Nuff said?
shankar reddy says:
Nov 23, 2011
I am a big fan of WordPress because I believe this platform is limitless, you can do the most amazing things you could never imagine before, thank to this platform. However I also use Blogger for different purposes and I am happy with both platforms, I just feel they both enrich the internet. I do not focus on SEO, when selecting this platform, I think about the human experience 1st, then I put the SEO hat to see what can be done.
Larry says:
Dec 1, 2011
Tumblr is the Internet in 2025
http://tumblrkills.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/tumblr-is-the-internet-in-2025/
Kim Tyrone Agapito says:
Dec 5, 2011
That’s a very bold prediction Larry
Aj Banda says:
Dec 22, 2011
I’m currently residing on blogger, but I won’t deny the facts that from what I’ve heard, WP is more powerful. But I love your point about open source here on WP, opening the code to the public is like giving anyone an backdoor key to your WP sites.
Well, this is still a long debate, and still the users has the final say
Justin says:
Dec 28, 2011
WordPress.org I think definitely has a big advantage over both WordPress.com and Blogger. Perhaps it would have been useful if you had emphasised the difference between self hosted wordpress and hosted.
I suspect a much fairer comparison would have been between wordpress.com and blogger.
WordPress.org ie. the self hosted version because of its enhanced flexibility has to be the better option of the two or even the three.
Tracey says:
Jan 11, 2012
Thanks Kim, a timely post for me. I’m just about to go to hosted wordpress.org. You saved my back. Literally.
Tracey recently posted..Go to MONA For a New Perspective on Crap Art
Tracey says:
Jan 11, 2012
P.S. Do you have any WordPress extended theme favourites? I like the idea of Suffusion, clean and customisable, but heard you have to be a bit of a tech head. If you know it, how would you rate it on a scale of one to ten?. One being easy and ten being seriously techie.
JoMi says:
Jan 13, 2012
I use blogger for my personal blog. But, for my other niche blogs, I can say that WP plays better when it comes to plug-ins, SEO and other stuffs. For beginners, I would still recommend blogger, since it is much user friendly, and it’s simply FREE! I love how you make a comparison between two great platforms! Thanks for this awesome post, Kim! You deserve a pat on the back! =)
JoMi recently posted..NIKON D4 DSLR TECH SPECS, FEATURES, PRICE AND VIDEO
Blobber Boy says:
Jan 17, 2012
I’m more used to using blogger, but I would love to try wordpress some day.
David says:
Jan 30, 2012
I am starting out, what would be the best you use??