Much later, upon the invitation of friends, I have likewise registered with MySpace.com and Multiply.com and blogged in these social networking sites for some time. Today, I only blog at Blogger.com, even though some of my blogs already have their own domain names. I mentioned all these so you'd know where I'm coming from. Compared to other bloggers, the range of my experience with free hosted blogs is admittedly limited. Be conscious of this context, therefore, when I share the following lessons with you:
Lesson No. 1: Free hosted blogs have limited monetization opportunities-
When I started blogging in December 2006, I was only too glad to be able to blog free of charge. My reality check came soon enough when I already wanted to monetize my blog. Although my free Blogger (*Blogspot*) blog could earn from ad revenues via Google AdSense, I discovered that my Blogspot address was a liabilty in some "make money online" sites like PayPerPost (PPP), where an accredited blogger gets paid for doing reviews of other blogs, websites or products/services. Free hosted Blogspot blogs belonged to what PPP called "excluded domains" in many of the review opps there, as seen in the screenshot below:
My experience with a free Wordpress.com blog was worse--it could not be monetized in any way (even Google AdSense), period. The limitation was inherent in the design and programming of the blogging platform used for the free hosted blogs. As a matter of policy, Wordpress.com blogs are ad-free. It was something I glossed over when I opened an account there. Actually, when you're new to blogging, there are many things you'll gloss over because you don't know any better.
By contrast, there are ads in MySpace and Multiply. However, the revenue is not earned by the blogger; it goes to the host, that's why they can offer their facilities and services for free.
Lesson No. 2: You'll lose your PageRank when you convert to your own domain name later-
"Domain name" has multiple related meanings, as you can see in this link. In this post, however, I'm using the term "domain name" to refer to one's blog address.
It didn't bother me then that I had a very long blog address. It was long because my free Blogger blog had a unique address that consisted of three (3) components, namely: a top-level (".com") and second-level ("blogspot") domain and a sub-domain ("myblog"). These are written in reverse order--i.e., "myblog.blogspot.com".
I decided to finally get my own domain name--i.e., make my blog address "www.myblog.com"--to earn more respectability. Forbes.com invited me in late 2007 to join its network of business and finance blogs. I thought my blog needed a more upscale address if I were to join Forbes' blog network, and I could only achieve that by dropping the "Blogspot" domain.
To my great disappointment, I lost the Google "PageRank (PR)" of my Blogspot blog when I converted to my own domain name later on. PageRank is Google's system for ranking Web pages. It is considered the Holy Grail of bloggers because it is an indicator of an individual blog's value and plays a crucial role in Web searches using Google. It took me many months of hard blogging work just to get a PR2, much less a PR3, only to lose it overnight with my shift to a new domain name. Remember, a blog address or URL (acronym for "Uniform Resource Locator", previously "Universal Resource Locator") is unique. PR belongs to that unique blog address and not to you as the blogger. So, when you shift to a new unique address, even if you still have the same contents in your blog, you'll lose your PR. Google is programmed that way.
Resource Links:
1. Blogger.com.
2. Blogstream.com.
3. Wordpress.com.
4. MySpace.com.
5. Multiply.com.
6. "What is a domain name?"
7. "URL".
8. "Google Technology: PageRank Explained".
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