so I am trying to figure out what to do about my blog situation, since I don't really have enough solid images to inspire a portfolio site or anything.

I promise, I am not tryin to start a flame war or anything, I just want to know what good or bad things anyone has experienced with either wordpress or blogger.

Image quality or size issues?

Outages?

Flexibility?

Or anything else that might make one better than the other.

I've been thinking about pointing my .com name to whichever I choose. Wondering if anyone has done this also, and if so did you have any issues ?



thanks in advance,

-tony gloster
(url to be influenced by the replies to this post)

I don't understand why you think this would start a flame war.

All of those questions you ask, image quality, outages, flexibility, all depend on you. Wordpress and blogger both allow you to host on your own site, or on their site. You can get around any image sizing issues by uploading images to your website and linking them w/in the body of your blog using html. Outages, if you host your own blog, are solely your responsibility, although I've not heard any bad press about WP or Blogger w/ re: outages.

Flexibility is the only thing that is different: Wordpress is, IMO, more flexible since you actually download the software and install it yourself, vs working on their web based posting site. It also has a greater variety of templates available. Again, IMO.

I know a lot of people who have made their main website into a blog - I personally don't like the idea as I want a solid portfolio site with a blog attached. But I konw it works for a lot of photogs and I can't knock it.

Karen

Wordpress has posts and pages (blogger does not have pages) which is really powerful.

Wordpress also has a huge development community that has created templates and plugins for almost every need (I have 30 different plugins on my blog that do everything from reducing 99% of spam to manage booking inquiries.

I'm actually thinking through this right now as well, the whole blogger vs wordpress thing. Each has distinct advantages and disadvantages. My new blog, which I'm currently designing (don't look at my current one!) is based on Blogger.

The code is super easy to edit, and the template is all one page (wordpress is a handful of pages). Having the code be easy and flexible was a huge plus to me, and now that the new version of blogger supports AJAX, I'm totally stoked to bring visitors a dynamic intuitive visit.

Really, for me, it was all about the code. I don't like the templates that both blogger and wordpress offer, and so it came down to how easily I could customize the template for me. I'm no web designer, so I needed something easy.

I'm kind of tempted right now, though to get a blog through Infinet Design. $$$ though

I've had both and Wordpress wins HANDS DOWN.

I had a really hard time logging into Blogger. We're talking hours and hours at a time when I couldn't get on to update my images or check comments or write new posts.

I've never had that issue with my Wordpress blog. Note though that my wordpress blog is hosted on my own site, which is, of course, the way to go to increase your Google rankings. If I were just starting out, I'd buy a domain with my future business name, and would host a Wordpress blog through my own domain name. This will help your name get established in the wide world of the internet much quicker than anything else.

I absolutely <3 Wordpress. I think blogger has it's place, but hosting on your own server, in my opinion, is important. Wordpress is super flexible, and while Jeff mentioned that there are multiple pages, that's in part because Wordpress is based on stylesheets and the different pages. Blogger *kinda* incorporates this with the new version, but it's not nearly as robust. There is actually only ONE file in Wordpress that controls 99% of what's going on (the look and feel). The other files are what generate the pages on-the-go.

Wordpress *also* supports AJAX, so I don't think that's a reason to go with Blogger over Wordpress.

At the end of the day, I think Wordpress is far more extensive, and far better to grow with than blogger. Blogger has only recently moved away from static pages, whereas Wordpress has been doing it from the get-go and has a wealth of information and experience pushing it to be better.

Wordpress has literally ... *literally* ... thousands of templates available. Are you sure you're looking in the right places for them? I can't imagine not being able to find *something* that appealed! And besides that you can totally customize any WP template with just a little knowledge of CSS. My blog is a WP template that I customized with my own banner, colors, etc.

Karen

I'd love to comment but have a question of my own...

We're currently using blogger with the content published to our own server and custom templates, but have thought about switching often.

I'm concerned about Google's indexing, Google seems to index our blog very often (which is great) so links we put in our blog show up in all sorts of venue and topic searches. So how about wordpress, what's everyone's experience with being indexed by Google ... does Google put blogger first (since they own them)?

Maybe not, is there a good resource that you could post up here that you'd recommend for those that are going the wordpress direction?

Your blog looks nice, very clean Love it.

I went with wordpress- because everyone said to. It is kind of like the mac thing for me, I want one, but not sure why.

When it comes to technical stuff.....I am lost. I wish I could figure out all these things people are saying they use with wordpress. I cannot even figure out how to get the about me page to show up. Now, I am not stupid, but I am not a computer wiz either. Maybe if I had more time, I could figure out the whole blog thing a bit better...like RSS and other stuff.

Sorry- that didn't help you much, but I had to vent!

I could not figure out blogger or wordpress so I used typepad. It does cost money each month, but I was able to customize it like crazy.

Just do a google search for Wordpress themes - the WP theme browser is one of the most extensive, but there are a bazillion out there!

For wordpress, there is a google sitemap plugin that helps with indexing with google search engines (like i said, you think of it and someone has probably made a theme and/or plugin that does it).

http://themes.wordpress.net/

Wordpress wins EASILY.

wordpress here - I customised an existing theme quite heavily, and I love the plugins available - although I currently only use 3 of them.

The google thing is influenced on how well you target key 'related' words on your blog itself not so much on the medium you're using - I can get my posts to number 1 on google search engines without too much trouble - as long as I'm specific enough in my key words (note: not just by having 'photographer' as the search string - lol ).

I also use it for my site, I lazily added a slide show of images (via flickr) to the top for my portfolio (although I'm not professional).

I host my own site.


Do it, you won't regret it.



....and if you do, blame Jules - she said it first.....

HEY! That smarts!

No, blame Kaitlin. She's the one that set it up for me! Thanks again, Kaitlin!!!!! I love my blog!

After reading this thread, I checked out wordpress and experimented with it. I exported my ENTIRE blog from blogger.

It's almost like a NEW BLOG! What i love most about it are the Stats. You can check from which websites your blog was referred from, how many hits you get, and what google searches lead to your blog. I think it's an invaluable marketing tool because you know which posts generate the most traffic.

I was with Blogger for about three years and I simply had no idea. I'm glad I made a switch to wordpress.