Many more individuals are beginning to get their feet wet in the world of blogging. If you are just starting out researching about blogging, you may have come across the terms hosted and non-hosted. There is a question being asked fairly often pertaining to this subject. Should I go with an already hosted blog, or should I go with a non-hosted blog to host it on my own domain and server?
What does hosted/non-hosted mean anyway?
A hosted blog means that it is hosted on someone else’s server.
A non-hosted blog means that it is hosted on YOUR server
Hosted
Examples of blogging platform websites are: Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Tumblr.com, LiveJournal.com, and more. Each of these sites give you a FREE account with extreme ease to start getting your content out to the world. With a hosted blog service, you don’t need to install any software or doing backups, etc. You just simply produce content.
However, there are a few cons to the hosted account. Hosted accounts can appear to be a little less professional looking. You have limited control over customizing with CSS and HTML. Some of the hosted accounts don’t even allow advertising.
Non-Hosted
You can host your own blog with platforms from WordPress, Tumblr, and a few other solutions; WordPress being the largest and most well known. When using a non-hosted blogging platform, you must pay a third-party to host your blog such as GoDaddy. With a hosted blog service, you need to manually operate the technical side of your blog, but it comes with some perks. You have total control of having your blog on your own domain or sub-domain names that you personally own. You have complete control of the look and design of your blog with CSS and HTML. You even have control over permalink names which allows you to control the URL’s of each post. This helps greatly with SEO. And the best part, your blog is less likely to disappear because you are not subject to terms and conditions of being hosted on someone else’s website.
Conclusion
When selecting the direction to go, I would suggest that anyone just starting out with a new blog may want to start with a hosted account. It is completely free and you can start blogging almost instantly. There is hardly any learning curve, but I would not recommend you think of this as your final blogging home.
I highly suggest going with the non-hosted blog so you can have more control over your blog and get exactly what you want and need. This is surely the route to go if you want a high quality and business type blog.
The choice is really up to you whether or not you prefer to have a hosted or non-hosted blog solution. I hope this post has helped a little.
Let us know your thoughts on hosted vs. non-hosted blogs.
