Should I Get My Domain Or Move Out Of Blogspot

This is the most common question I got after posting about my successful move out of Blogger/Blogspot. Honestly, I can’t answer for everyone because it was a personal decision that made me move out.

If you want to make the move you have to define what is your blogging purpose first, if you are just a hobbyist and you journal your everyday life I suggest you stay on the free platform like Blogspot.com and WordPress.com (it’s different from WordPress.org) .  The services they offer on the free blog service are great I have no complaints using them, I’ve been using them for more than a year before I decided to move Earthlingorgeous.com out of a free web host to a paid one.

If your purpose is to generate income I suggest you invest on your own domain and a web host.  There are lots of great offers out there like that of GoDaddy.com that offers free domain for web hosting.  The one I used here is Moms Hosting by Mommy Ruby it was the cheapest one I could find and well I can communicate well with the owner (If you plan to use Moms Hosting just tell her Earth referred you, no I don’t get commission out of it but it be best she knows where you learned about her).  I wanted some provider that can teach me the ropes first and make me comfortable about having a paid web host.  I only paid $3 for 3 months which is a great offer, I will be upgrading soon though because I think I am exceeding the bandwidth with this $1 deal.

A reminder though, once you get your own domain you will loose your Google PR (if you have any).   That is why its best for those who  wants to start a blog to get their own domain first if their purpose is to generate revenues out of their blog.  You can still start on a free platform because moving your domain to a paid web host will not affect your PR.

It took me a couple of months before I decided to buy my own domain.  I was contemplating about it since December 2008.  I wanted to know more about the pros and cons of having one.  After a month of research I finally got my domain and it was the best decision I made since my purpose was to take my blogging to the next level.

After getting my domain I started thinking about moving out of Blogspot to WordPress or get my own web host since most of the good companies that offered good opportunities for income generating blogs favor those who have their own web host.  Come end of March 2009 I finally made the move out of Blogspot to a paid web host that uses the WordPress.org platform.

Today marks my 22nd day in my paid web host provider, I was surprised that after three days in my own web host Earthlingorgeous.com finally got a PageRank of 2!  That PR was elusive to me when I was in Blogspot.

Now, I am very very happy my income doubled and in the next month I expect the double to be doubled!  Which is really really great since I will continue to be a stay-at-home mom and still have an income and enjoy the perks of blogging.

Oh one more thing, if you are from Blogspot and you wanted to move to WordPress I suggest you familiarize on the WordPress platform first because it’s very different from Blogspot. Blogspot uses HTML coding where you can just cut and paste codes if you want to customize your blogs at WordPress you have to install plugins and have have to get an FTP server thingy for easy installing.

I hope this information answers all your question about moving out of Blogspot or not. If you have more questions just post your comments in here and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Happy Earth day everyone!