BACK TO BLOGGER SUB DOMAIN

Last night, after I finally saw the post of June 7,2008 posted in my custom domain appear on Google web search, I thought, well, it was possible to live with the previous four posts that were still invisible in the search engines. Then, when I looked up Google Blog search, it was simply not traceable. The next post also met with the same fate.

It appears that posts on the custom domain start getting indexed by the search engines only after about a month. Till then, all that you write is visible to only those who visit your site regularly or those who land up there looking for something else. Which means that all the hard work that you put in during that period remains relatively undiscoverable. On the blogspot sub domain, however, the listing is lightening fast both on Google web and blog searches.

Is not the free sub domain that Blogger offers you then better than a paid custom domain for your blog? Except for the advantage of notional “ownership” of your site with your own www address, a custom domain has really nothing additional to offer to those want to move there from Blogger’s free sub domain. On the contrary, you have to pay $10 every year to keep the custom domain going. The amount may not be much but if for some reason you are not able to renew it, your blog will just drop out of the web. That misfortune will not strike you on the Blogger platform.

I am back to the blogger sub domain, with blogspot defining my station on the web as before. I have overcome the attraction of having my own notionally independent web address for very real considerations.

My advice to those blogging on blogspot is that they should stick to it and avoid custom domains at least for now. If and when Google works out a way to seamlessly move you to a custom domain with the search engines recognising that only the address of your blog has changed, not the blog, and ensures complete continuity without loss of anything at all, a switch may be considered. Till then don’t even think of getting a custom domain.

Yes, those who are contemplating starting a new blog or have just about started blogging, can seriously think about getting a custom domain. Otherwise, as things stand now, you are going to wind up looking rather foolish, paying to make things difficult for yourself as a blogger, when the excellent free platform provided by Blogger gives you almost all that you really need.