Another website making thread, but with a specific question regarding Blogger

Dalboz

I've already got a blogspot/blogger address. I'm about ready to hit it with a redesign to give it a more custom feel and what to give it an actual domain name. The thing is that I'm a total newbie regarding all of this. What I've looked at mainly is the registration service offered through blogspot/blogger/Google, which is basically through eNom and is $10 US per year. I would then have this pointing to my blogspot/blogger page, and hopefully have email available (not sure how exactly that's hosted, since like I said I'm a newbie at this, but I would be okay if I can register the email address and just point it at my Gmail address). The whole thing uses Google Apps, of course.

Now, tell me why I shouldn't do this and why it's a bad idea. What do I not know that's going to mess me up? FYI, my goal with the site is something that would look semi-professional and hold articles or chunks of stories if I feel like posting them to showcase my work, and maybe photos and stuff (which I can use photobucket for and link). I'm also hoping for versatility if I want to expand things down the line, like several prominent authors website like Neil Gaiman or George R. R. Martin (yes, lofty goal, I know, but I could do worse than attempting to follow in their footsteps; but these are also just examples of the feel for the website I want to eventually develop). Not necessarily like those sites exactly, but I think it gets the point across about professionalism and expandability.

So, please explain my ignorance to me and dispel my illusions so that I can move forward solidly with correct information and a good plan that will last me years down the line.

Szechuanosaurus

Ok, well you have the mechanics slightly backwards - blogger would point to your host, not the other way around. Other than that, this is feasible although Blogger will be limited in how much you can use it to manage your whole website.

Basically, here's how it'll work.

1. You buy hosting (presumably with a domain name).
2. You set up your email with the host - you can either have this as a stand-alone email account that you would access through the host's webmail application or use something like Thunderbird or Outlook to collect the email or you can set it up to auto-direct to your gmail account if you prefer (I think you can possibly also set gmail up to collect from POP3 accounts rather than using a redirect as well, not sure though).
3. You reconfigure your blogger account with your hosts ftp details so that instead of it publishing your blog on Blogger, it publishes to your host instead.

This means that you can do stuff like host graphics, CSS files etc. on your host rather than building them into the template on blogger, but you still manage the actual templates, make posts etc. through your blogger control panel at blogger.com

Now, the limitations. Blogger is geared up very much for creating a blog. It doesn't - at least last time I looked at it - allow you to use it as a more advanced CMS system. You can't create 'Pages' or publish to multiple 'blogs' on the same host etc. Everything goes to the blog page and that's that. You can, however, build a website around your blog with a consistent navigation menu across the site and in your blog template so you can navigate from the blog to the rest of the site as if it is all just one site (which it is basically, it's just that one section of it has content created by your blogger account).

Comparatively, you might want to look at Wordpress which is slightly more powerful. You actually install it on your host, so you login via your own URL, and you can not only manage your blog but also use it to content manage 'Pages' so you can create and manage a whole website using it.

Dalboz

Okay, thanks for the help, although I think I'm a little confused, so I think that I need further clarification. In my mind, the host is where my files (especially the main pages that hold the blog entries) are physically stored on a server. So doesn't Blogger/Blogspot host my blog while a domain points to it? See, I really am a newbie at this, and once I start working with it, I tend to pick it up quickly, but I need to make sure I'm doing it right going in since this project could be very important to me.

So, does Wordpress actually host? The site looks like the deal is similar to Blogger/Blogspot, where it's free unless you want to register a domain name or have any extras (which seems to include customizing the CSS, otherwise you're stuck with the basic template? I think you can do that on Blogger/Blogspot for free).

Hmmm, I just realized that I was looking at Wordpress.com, not Wordpress.org. But how is Wordpress.com, and if that's not viable, can someone recommend me a decent, albeit cheap, way to register and host a domain name? Cheap is kind of the operative word at the moment, although I want something reliable, otherwise there's no point.

Szechuanosaurus

At the moment, your blog is hosted with Blogger, but that doesn't have to be the case.

If you set up your own hosting, you can have your blogger account upload the files for your blog to your own host (but the blogger control panel is still accessed through blogger.com).

Of course, you could just have a website at example.com with a link to your blog at http://givedaddytheknife.blogspot.com/ and keep the two things separate.

Or, you could set up a domain with no hosting and configure the domain as a masked redirect, so your blog would still be hosted on blogger.com, but people visiting example.com would be redirected to http://givedaddytheknife.blogspot.com/ with example.com masked as the URI, so it appears that they are in fact looking at example.com. In that case, you just have your blog same as before without being able to build a site around it but it appears to have a fancy non-blogger domain name.

Wordpress has a free hosting solution, similar to blogger with a limited amount of file storage. I'm not sure to what extent you can customise the templates if it's on Wordpress's free hosting.

Really, the neatest way to get your own website & blog is to buy hosting with a domain somewhere like dreamhost, download Wordpress (which is free) and install it on your host and go to work. That way everything is contained on your domain and your host and not distributed across several domains and hosts.

The second best option would be to stick with Blogger, but buy hosting with a domain somewhere like dreamhost and reconfigure your blogger account to publish your blog to that host instead of on the blogger host, then build a site around the blog managing the non-blog website files manually. That way everything is pretty much contained on your domain except the control panel for your blog but at least you are still working with a familiar interface.

Dalboz

Okay, I think I get what you're saying now. I think that was part of the confusion as I didn't know that Blogger could post to other hosts. And you're solution seems more viable. I guess the main question is who to go with for hosting now? I checked some of the suggestions on Wordpress.org, and it seems like most of them will register a domain for free when you set up hosting, along with subdomains which I hadn't thought directly about but could be neat to have. Since it's just me, I'm thinking that a very cheap solution would likely be fine (I don't think I'll be posting video or anything, and if I do, I'll probably just use Youtube for that). So, whose reliable with a good deal for space and bandwidth (I doubt my demands are going to be of any real size for it) but not terribly expensive? You mentioned Dreamhost, which I saw on Wordpress.org. What about the others, since this is my only starting point? I've obviously heard of GoDaddy, and I've also heard of HostICan, which has good reviews when I googled it although I also can't seem to find reviews that are newer than two years old. This may be my birthday present to myself this year.

KVW

Dalboz wrote: »

I've already got a blogspot/blogger address. I'm about ready to hit it with a redesign to give it a more custom feel and what to give it an actual domain name. The thing is that I'm a total newbie regarding all of this. What I've looked at mainly is the registration service offered through blogspot/blogger/Google, which is basically through eNom and is $10 US per year. I would then have this pointing to my blogspot/blogger page, and hopefully have email available (not sure how exactly that's hosted, since like I said I'm a newbie at this, but I would be okay if I can register the email address and just point it at my Gmail address). The whole thing uses Google Apps, of course.

Now, tell me why I shouldn't do this and why it's a bad idea. What do I not know that's going to mess me up? FYI, my goal with the site is something that would look semi-professional and hold articles or chunks of stories if I feel like posting them to showcase my work, and maybe photos and stuff (which I can use photobucket for and link). I'm also hoping for versatility if I want to expand things down the line, like several prominent authors website like Neil Gaiman or George R. R. Martin (yes, lofty goal, I know, but I could do worse than attempting to follow in their footsteps; but these are also just examples of the feel for the website I want to eventually develop). Not necessarily like those sites exactly, but I think it gets the point across about professionalism and expandability.

So, please explain my ignorance to me and dispel my illusions so that I can move forward solidly with correct information and a good plan that will last me years down the line.

I do the same thing with my current blogs. However, I'd go to GoDaddy.com and use that for your domain registration. You can easily find a coupon code online (just search for something like 'godaddy domain code' or 'godaddy coupons' and youll find them) and get the registration fee dropped down to like $4.99-5.99 range.

Also, the first time I bought an address, I set it up properly, but forgot to forward the non-www. address (ie: I did http://www.weeklycrisis.com but not http://weeklycrisis.com) and they called me on the phone to let me know about it and helped guide me through to fix that little mix up. I don't know anything about the Google registration part that Blogger links to, but cheaper and with great customer support like that is the reason I always point people to GoDaddy for domains.


As for if you should or should not do it, there's no reason you shouldn't get a domain name if you can afford the $5-10 charge. It immediately adds some credability to the blog since it doesn't look like a "free blog" anymore (you can also remove the Blogger search bar at the top with a simple edit of code in HTML mode in the template at Blogger) and shows you've at least become serious enough to buy a domain name.

Also, the name can be used at any time if you move off the Blogger platform to a paid host or switch to Wordpress, so it's not like youre in danger of wasting your money by buying it either.

In the end, free Blogger/blogspot offers a lot of options for editing with decent bandwidth/load speeds, lots of space and customization is through the roof. You could literally turn a free blog into what Gaiman or Martin have for their blogs if you wanted to without ever paying for a host.