I agree to some of your benefits about self hosted blogs. But as far as AdSense approval is concerned, it basically has nothing to do with your URL. Be it a custom URL or blogspot.com, if your blog is following their policy they will give you the approval. After spending quite a lot time at AdSense and Webmaster forums, I have realized that AdSense and Google search is too smart in determining quality content. So if your content is good that should help you to rank higher as well as get adsense. I like blogspot because its free and allows us to put ads. Later someday if needed I will shift to wordpress but it does not seem to happen in near future.

As for co.cc domains…they are basically sub domains and have been penalized by Google. Google deindexed all the sites that had co.cc subdomain simply because most of the sites were spam or crap sites. AdSense probably will not approve any co.cc subdomain and blog/site with co.cc domain never gets indexed in Google search. This is the current status.

Rest of the part – Great Post! I agree about the control you get when you get self hosted blog.

Regards,
tsvaishnav

Thank u for ur wonderful posts.keep up the great work

Actually i need ur help regarding the same topic and i’m totally confused as to what to do.I’ve mailed u my comments through contact.So plz check it out and let me know. I’ve read abt ur readers comments and how ur a wonderful timely response which is very rare these days.And truly appreciate for doing that. Eagerly awaiting for ur reply,Thanks in advance

Here’s the thing that has been covered on this blog often. Quality verse Quantity. On Blogspot and WordPress hosted, they own your blog and your traffic. Each page has a button that allows the reader to instantly move on to the next blog.

On your own hosted blog, it’s your traffic. They came to your website for you. I would rather have 10 people visiting my website because its my website than 100 people who hit the “next blog” button and have no interest in my site.