[zharlene]

Lots of new wannabe bloggers come in here and are advised to start blogging using their own domain.

As a blogger who's using my own domain/hosting, I'm starting to think that maybe it's easier to start out at blogger.com

You'll realize, that many probloggers (i.e. people who blog for a living) actually started at blogspot (whether you know it or not).

It's a whole lot easier for new bloggers to get "heard" at blogger.com because:

1 - Links to their blogs are published on the front page of blogger.com sometimes.

2 - It's free, so you have nothing to lose.

3 - You've got more time for your posts, because you don't have to worry about templates, finding the right hosting, paying for your domain name annually, backing up your data...

4 - The money that's normally used on hosting/domain name can be used to fund SEO.

If you're successful, you can transfer all your post easily to your own domain/hosting. All you have to tell your fervent readers is "ok, well I'm moving to my own hosting now", and they'll of course just change their bookmarks.

If you're unsuccessful on the other hand (and a large percentage are), you can always just abandon your blog (since it wouldn't cost you a cent).

So yeah, I'm thinking that maybe it is a lot simpler for newbie-bloggers to start at blogger.com...

[richkid]

The only problem I see is that you will have built traffic in one place and then move to somewhere new - you will always lose readers.

Also I have a fair few horror stories of people trying to transfer from blogger to wordpress when the were up and running.

[Ivan]

Originally Posted by zharlene

2 - It's free, so you have nothing to lose.

Let's take it form the top

Originally Posted by zharlene

3 - You've got more time for your posts, because you don't have to worry about templates, finding the right hosting, paying for your domain name annually, backing up your data...

Agreed. Why worry about that. Let Blogger worry about your uptime, the availability of your work, the safety of your data.

Originally Posted by zharlene

4 - The money that's normally used on hosting/domain name can be used to fund SEO.

So with no control over your site (the metadata, URL structure, site structure in general) how would one go about effective on-site optimization? :/

Originally Posted by zharlene

If you're successful, you can transfer all your post easily to your own domain/hosting. All you have to tell your fervent readers is "ok, well I'm moving to my own hosting now", and they'll of course just change their bookmarks.

They'll change their bookmarks? A lot of them, probably. All of them, not so sure. Also, what about your RSS feed? Feedburning is an answer, but then you can't use the MyBrand feature to customize the URL for branding...

Originally Posted by zharlene

If you're unsuccessful on the other hand (and a large percentage are), you can always just abandon your blog (since it wouldn't cost you a cent).

Hosting is cheap. Domains are cheap. Wordpress and templates for it are available for free. Your time is what's expensive so don't sell yourself short.

But hey, I'm someone who makes web solutions for a living so the though of having sites on services like Blogger makes me shiver by default

[SophieM]

I thought that you could just buy a cheap domain name and then blogger will redirect readers to your new address for free.

[HarveyJ]

The problem with leaving it on blogger is that your options for monetization are limited.

You can't run all the ads you want, it's difficult to deeplink if you're an affiliate, and if you get complaints (which shouldn't happen, but might) they can shut you down, and you won't be able to get your posts back.
You also can't SEO it as efficiently as your own site, so if you're hoping to get traffic from organic search rankings, and it's not some bizarre niche, then you may have some difficulties.

[zharlene]

*Note: Let's not forget that I was talking about newbie-bloggers. I was just trying to point out the advantages of starting out on a reputed free blogging platform.

HarveyJ - They won't lose their account if they're abiding by the TOS.

Ivan - I know lots of people who pay more than they should with hosting, and their domain names. I also know a few people who don't even know how to put up their own website (as easy as it may sound to some of us, it's not as easy for others).