Benefits and drawbacks of hosting blog with blogger.com for a custom domain

Unlimited space for Google is not hard to give away. So for sure they are right about that. However, unlimited bandwidth is something you should be wary of. Because those claims even from Google will be not true. Once you say go above 5K a month traffic on Blogger platform, it is wise to get your own hosting.


Blogger blogs despite getting into the domain name forwarding still has to abide by the spam and the other platform rules. So it's not like you can get most out of that blog. So if by any chance if your blog turns into high traffic blog, google may use your traffic stats and if higher traffic can't be handled then they will suspend hosting.

So if you plan on growing much, then it is better to get your own hosting and domain. Most of the time people keep the blogger blog for the small blogs which they don't want to maintain and take seriously. It's like the platform during the phase when you can't afford to buy hosting and domain. You should in such cases remain on blogger. When you able to afford the hosting, then switch from blogger.

Pros :
1. It is true that Blogger provides unlimited bandwidth with 100% uptime. You will not face any downtime on your site.

2. It is free to use. You do not need to pay hosting fees.

3. You can monetize your blog through various ways.

4. It is easy to configure Blogger blog than a Worpress blog.

5. Blogger is the most secure blogging platform. No one can hack your account unless you share your password with him/her.

6. It has built-in RSS feed.

Cons :
1. Unlimited Bandwidth and unlimited storage are two dfferent things. Blogger doesn't provide unlimited storage. You will get 15 GB storage with you Google account. You have to use this 15 GB space among all Google services like Gmail, Picasa, Drive, Blogger etc.

2. Unlike a custom webhost, you cannot host your files on Blogger. You have to use Google Drive or any third party file hosting service for this purpose.

3. Unlike self-hosted blogs, you cannot edit the root/core files of your Blogger blog.

4. Lack of themes. Blogger lacks professional looking themes mostly because they are free.

5. It lacks many useful extensions and plugins which are available on other blogging platforms.

6. Google can delete your blog at any time. However, it only happens when someone violets their TOS.

If you could spend Rs.99/- then you will get domain for your blog, there are many domain hosting website, where you can buy. Some give domain for free but those will not support Google AdSense in it but you can configure that in blogger.com. It's ok that you are using blogger.com for hosting your blog's content and get unlimited space from Google. But there are some disadvantages.
1. Your content is hosted by other party, not you.
2. Your blog is not your's, its Google's.
3. You have to create feed for the blog.
4. You cannot do much in moderating the code.
5. Google can remove you blog anytime they want.
6. Limited themes, plugins and addons.

Blogger is an entry level blogging platform but can't be used for high means. Some reasons are as follows

1. It can't handle high band witch, chances are there your account will be suspended if you violate even one TOC.

2. Its a Google thing, as we all know recently Google deleted its Reader without letting anyone know this may happen with Blogger too and you will loose all of your hard work.

3. Those low-profile themes will not make you happy all the time because you will like to change them whenever you take a look to any another which will give your Blog a poor ranking. You will feel lack of something, whenever you will look at any Wordpress blog you will feel jealous. It happened with me too.

4. If anything occurs with your Blog like file corruption or anything else, then you are blown away you can't do anything, but with Wordpress nothing like this happens. Wordpress platform can be corrupt but it will not affect file saved in the hosting.

5. You will not get those awesome plugins on blogger and it will make you blogging journey really bad. You will feel that you are seriously tortured because you can't leave your hard work and can't work with it too.

Benefits of Self-Hosting
1. Access to core files, If anything happens you can just access them and repair the issue.

2. We have Wordpress which is best CMS out there, most of the famous blogs use Wordpress as there platform because of its awesome functionality.

3. There are many more things which Blogger can't do but it is work of some minutes for Wordpress.

If you want to take your blog to a next level then blindly go for Self-Hosting.