When it comes to blogging, we have plenty of options to start a blog:
- WordPress
- BlogSpot
- Tumblr
- …and many others…
One of the most talked about topics here at ShoutMeLoud is:
Which blogging platform is better?
WordPress or Blogger?
This debate can get pretty confusing at times. Many users like BlogSpot because there are less technical hassles, and many users love WordPress because of its increased power and features. When someone asks me which platform they should start with, here is my usual answer:
Start with WordPress.com for a month, and once you get accustomed to blogging, start a new blog on the self-hosted WordPress platform.
Alternatively, you are free to use Blogger.com as your launchpad blogging platform, but don’t stick to it for too long.
I say this from experience because I started my blogging journey with BlogSpot and later migrated my blogger blog to WordPress.org.
Back then, there were a hell of a lot of learning experiences trying to figure out WordPress. But now, learning WordPress is quite easy with the help of detailed guides, tutorials, and videos.
Anyway, in this article, I have shared a detailed comparison of WordPress vs. BlogSpot and will explain which one is better for certain situations and why.
WordPress Vs. Blogger: Which Platform to choose?
Why and Why Not Blogger?
The Blogger platform (aka BlogSpot) is very useful when you just want to start a blog to share your thoughts. When you are not blogging for money, or you need a simple platform that doesn’t require any technical know-how, BlogSpot is really good.
While there are many limitations of BlogSpot in terms of functionalities and SEO benefit, if you just need a platform to start a blog with at almost 0 cost, BlogSpot is the right pick.
At the same time, if you are blogging for money, building authority, or for branding yourself, BlogSpot is not the ideal choice. This is because you have limited control over visibility in search engines, and after a while, you become very limited when you want to add new features.
I have read it many times:
- Blogger is a Google product which means it gives more SEO advantages.
This is simply not true.
It doesn’t matter if you are using WordPress, Blogger, Drupal, or any other platform, SEO is decided by how you configure your complete site for search engines.
In the Blogger platform, we have limited control over our site. Despite the fact that they have added some new SEO features, BlogSpot still lacks in SEO optimization.
In a nutshell, the Blogger platform is better than WordPress when you are creating a blog for no other reason than you want to write. If you are OK with the limited features offered by the Blogger platform, then this is a great choice. For making money or creating a long term impact, WordPress platform is better.
Note: WordPress comes in two different forms. You can read about it here.
Why and Why Not WordPress?
Note: ShoutMeLoud uses WordPress (Self-hosted WordPress) as its blogging platform, but this will not make my comparison biased.
WordPress gives you complete control over your blog, and you can technically do anything you want.
You host your own files, can design it however you like, and can use it for any purpose (personal or professional).
You also get complete control over the SEO including adding SEO plugins to make your blog more SEO friendly. Moreover, you can always introduce the latest SEO techniques like “star ratings” using a plugin such as Rich Snippets.
WordPress will let you do everything you want to do.
But at the same time, you need to manage your own blog. You need to install WordPress on your own server and maintain your blog’s health.
It may sound technical, but with amazing support from the WordPress community, you can learn everything in no time.
In fact, if you stumble onto the ShoutMeLoud WordPress guide, most of your queries regarding WordPress will be answered.
Getting started with WordPress may require some effort in terms of watching videos, learning how to add a plugin, getting used to the dashboard, etc.
But we also have to do that with Blogger, right?
If you are planning to create a blog with the mindset of making it popular and making money from it, you should go for the self-hosted WordPress blog.
If you are an occasional writer or a hobby-blogger, BlogSpot is the best pick for you.
Here is a handy chart from HowJoyful, explaining the feature differences between BlogSpot vs. WordPress.com vs. Self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org):
Matt Cutts on Blogger or WordPress for SEO:
Matt Cutts is not only a Google engineer, and he is also the head of the Google Web Spam team.
He is one of those guys who educates normal users like you and me about what Google expects from a website and how the Google search engine works.
In the past, I have shared many webmaster videos from Matt, and he has always helped me learn something new. In a recent video, a user asked him:
- “Which is better in terms of SEO: WordPress or Blogger?”
Matt answered the query with this video:
Interestingly, Matt Cutts uses the WordPress platform for his personal blog, though he mentioned that Blogger is good for new users as it’s very simple to get started. He says that for casual blogging, it’s fantastic.
With regards to SEO advantages between Blogger and WordPress, both are about the same with the default installation.
The WordPress default installation is not SEO friendly, but you can always make your WordPress blog SEO friendly with the help of many available plugins.
In short, WordPress gives you more power and you can customize it according to your needs.
Blogger Vs. WordPress: Why WordPress is better?
As I mentioned above, I started my journey to Blogging with BlogSpot, and later I moved to WordPress. So, I’m aware of the benefits and downside of BlogSpot, and here I’m not going to talk about any benefits, as WordPress offers all those features which BlogSpot offers.
1. Control over your blog:
This is one of the major reasons I support self-hosted blog. Blogspot is owned by Google, and there are chances that they can delete your Blogspot account without giving you any warning. Even if you use the custom domain feature (Using your domain name ), chances are high that if spammers use feature Flag as spam and report your blog as spam.
Google might remove your blog. This is something very common and by doing a quick search on Google, you will realize many bloggers faced this problem while using BlogSpot.
Winner: Self hosted blog
2. Search engine optimization:
It doesn’t matter where your blog is hosted, traffic is the first and last thing any blogger will look for. Search engine optimization in simple words means Optimizing your blog for search engines and getting traffic from search engine”. Comparing WordPress and BlogSpot, WordPress offers more options to optimize your blog for search engine where as in BlogSpot you are limited to certain settings.
Here are few posts which will help you to optimize your WordPress blog for search engine optimization
3. Plugins and support:
WordPress is blessed with features like the plugin and a strong community to get support.
When I was on BlogSpot, I spent lots of time editing my theme to show related posts and adding such features. WordPress makes your life easy using simple plugins for everything you need. By using plugins, you can achieve anything, and if not, you can take help of WordPress support forum to get the custom code and extend the capabilities of your blog.
Here is a list of 30 must have WordPress plugins.
4. Reputation:
This can be considered as the human tendency or perception, that most of the people see Blogs built on blogger platform as non-serious. One of the simple reason is its free, and a mass number of people are using it for Blackhat SEO, spamming and for affiliate landing pages.
When talking about self-hosted blog, people think that the person has paid for the service, and he is serious about his blog.
5. Theme and templates:
BlogSpot offers many templates but due to the commercial nature of WordPress, you will find unlimited free and Premium WordPress themes. Moreover, since you have FTP access, you can alter the complete look and feel of your WordPress theme.
6. AdSense:
AdSense is the lifeline for any blogger who is looking forward to making money from his blog. Initially, BlogSpot used to be the best way to get your AdSense account approved, but later on, it’s becoming tough to get your Adsense account with BlogSpot.
With WordPress and your domain email address, getting your blog approved is very easy. Another advantage of a self-hosted blog.
If you are an AdSense user, you should consider checking out following posts on AdSense:
The Verdict: Blogger vs. WordPress
WordPress platform is anytime a better choice over Blogspot platform.
It’s important to figure out why you want to start a blog and then go from there. Blogger has many limitations that WordPress doesn’t have. In terms of functionality, there’s no question that WordPress is far superior.
If this article convinced you to move your Blogger hosted blog to WordPress, you can read my article on how to migrate from BlogSpot to WordPress.
Do let me know: What’s your verdict on WordPress vs. Blogger? Which platform do you prefer and why?
Here are hand-picked articles for further reading:
- Why You Need To Use A Custom Domain Name For Your BlogSpot Blog
- How To Write SEO Friendly Content (Beginner To Advanced)
- How to Make Money Blogging
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Another great post.
Thank you for the information, Its good to see such quality posts.
Im subscribing to your blog.
Keep them comming
Hello sir,
I want to make writings about my engineering subjects for engg students of my stream..
And some topics out of engg also
Im preparing for govt job and same time I want some earnings…
What should I use blogger or worlpress…( can I use it for free,without any investment)
Hey Shraddha,
It totally depends in your budget. If you don’t have any budget right now, you can start with blogger and then later on migrate to WordPress.
Yes, you can use both Bolgger and WordPress for free. And if you want to change it to a website in future you can do it with buying a domain. My suggestion is wordpress . Best of luck..
Hi Harsh, but since you can set up a blog with a custom domain, if you can get used to the limitations, is Blogger (with a custom domain) a good choice for the long term?.
I only ask because I’ve heard of blogs on Blogspot that have been taken down overnight, without notice. But obviously those are the blogs with spammy content which violates their TOS. I’m a clean blogger, I’m not like that.
Hey John,
If you are looking to blog as a part time thing, then blogger is a good option. However, if you want to do it professionally and want to earn good amount of money, then you should go with WordPress.
Alright thanks harsh. I guess if you look far down the road and picture myself regretting not using WordPress in the first place, then it makes sense to just go with it in the first place since I can do that now.
Guaranteed no removal is much better than unsure and praying it doesnt happen.
Hey, Harsh, I would tell u something I don’t like about your blog, You are always too truthful about your posts and yes you are never biased in your writings. I started a blog and it is 4 months now and I feel blogger isn’t for me and I have tried WordPress before and couldn’t get a thing but u make it clear to me that beginners need blogger for the start, so what am gonna do now is study more about wordpress.
So, I have to study more about wordpress even as I never wanted to but you give me a need to, Thank you so much.. I link lots of your post to my blog.
I’m using WordPress right now and this is way better than Blogger, though I also have a blog that I made using Blogger. I just have one question, if I’m going to transfer all my articles to WordPress.org, how can I do it without letting Google read it as a duplicate content? Should I delete my Blogspot blog after copying all my articles? Thanks!
Hey Faye,
You don’t have to delete your Blogspot blog. You have to redirect your blog from Blogspot to WordPress. Learn how you can do this: https://www.shoutmeloud.com/how-to-migrate-from-blogspot-to-wordpress-with-301-permanent-redirection-without-loosing-traffic.html
Thank you Harsh!
I personally think SEO isn’t as important as it used to be.. especially if one is using CMSs like WordPress, Drupal and others. These CMSs are baking SEO into their codes. The most important thing for webmasters is writing great content, implementing mobile friendly site and improving site speed.
Thanks,
“I have read it many times, that Blogger is Google product, and it gives more SEO advantages, and it’s a pure rumour. It doesn’t matter if you are using WordPress, Blogger, Drupal or any other platform, SEO is decided by how you configure your complete site for search engines.”
Blogger does give higher ranking. Or how you would explain that a Blogger site written by a child, who writes maybe ones in two months, and clearly does it just for fun, ranks better than SEO optimized, same topic, twice a week updated, WP site. And there are plenty of cases like these.
Writing blogs is now becoming widespread among people since it is the better way to express your views on different subjects. Blogging helps in enhancing the skills and with innovative ideas you could gain the attention of the people. Now, to start writing blogs is simple and easy. There are hundreds of people who like to become bloggers; however, due to insufficient knowledge about the steps to follow they could not fulfil their dream. Different blogging platforms are now available and those popular among them are the blogger and wordpress. Lots of pros and cons are there for both platforms.
I use both. Is that bad in regard to SEO? I first post into blogspot and then i copy and paste my blog into my wordpress page. Any advice on that? thanks!
Hey Jacki,
yes it is bad for your SEO. Basically, you are duplicating content. What you need is to move your blog from Blogspot to WordPress. Read this guide: https://www.shoutmeloud.com/how-to-migrate-from-blogspot-to-wordpress-with-301-permanent-redirection-without-loosing-traffic.html
But Blogspot abruptly removed my site and left me without the ability to post new items. I really liked the site, but was frustrated after that happened. I had heard that with free blogging sites, the powers-that-be can shut you down–maybe if your site doesn’t generate a lot of traffic. So now I use aWordPress site and am paying their minimum charge to do so.
Hello, I have recently started blogging on blogger, of course free one:D i just wanted to enhance my contents before creating website on paid base, I was wondering is its possible to join any affiliate program through blogger?
please let me know
I use neither, but a open source blogging platform based on phpbb. However it serves the purpose better.
Hi, I will be going to start a blog (a free one) on blogger, and when I gain some experience I might move on to wordpress.org….
I do have a question, In the meanwhile can I earn some coffee money through free blogger? or is it only possible through self hosted paid ones?
There is great logic behind your article but I always recommend blogger to start with cause wordpress needs like big of technical skills and new update sometimes makes newbie mad and they give and forget about.
With blogger no tension with updates, cpanel problem, hosting problems and so on.
You need to be little advance on wordpress.
I can agree with u bro …
if we know basics of SEO then it is no need of wordpress.
We can use header tag, recently meta tag option is also added to blogger. And their are also top sites present in first of some search results. so it is better to use blogger than wordpress
Really useful post, I am actually planning to take my blog to the next level now and confused if I have to upgrade to wordpress. I have been doing a lot more than what you can typically do with blogger. So it’s actually a very confusing decision for me. This post helped clear some of my doubts. Thanks!
Thanks Harsh!
Such a wonderful article for Blogging Beginners.
Very informative.
Thanks Harsh Agrawal Sir for this great article. I am a new blogger. I have started blogging journey with blogspot. When i used [.blogspot.com] then google indexed my site but few days ago i buy a domain from godaddy. Now i am using it but Google is not indexing my site. Is there any problem with blogspot hosting? I don’t understand. Please help me….
google will take take 3 to 5 months to index your site
The same thing happened with me, there is no possible way to index it as long as your blog is hosted by blogger and you are using a custom domain name.
I would say that I have seen two successful blogs being indexed by Google and the search results showed the actual domain names, not the free domain you get with blogspot. If your blog is around long enough, it will get indexed onto google with the actual domain that is pointed to Blogspot.
I totally agree with you Harsh, BlogSpot is great for recreation blogging but if you want to take it to the next level you must use self hosted domain or wordpress.org service. I`ve just started a new blog on BlogSpot and I will definitely move it to wordpress.org. Thank you for this chart it is very useful. I will link this post on my post when I get a chance.
This issue got me wondering about for month lol…i just couldnt sort out which was best track to follow….not even the top bloggers will tell you something specific..they will be like..blogger is good..wordpress is good! lol….i finally took my stand after watching the google man display his blog on wordpress…then i knew it must be wordpress :D…thanks so much for the clerification .
Nice writeup!
Hello Agrawal, great you have all lined up here. You know the question about which platform to use is always trending on the net as newbies come in day by day. But i i best go with you and Matt cuts, wordpress is the deal.. even from matt’s video, you could see that he preferred wordpress but just couldnt bend off blogspot since its a product of his company 😉
Great post Man,
Cheers!