Blogger or Wordpress.com debate winners

At the start of this month I posed the question ‘Blogger or Wordpress.com. Which is better?‘ with the added incentive of the best answer for each side getting $100 each via Paypal.

Competition Winners

I was very pleased with the response to this competition and also with the quality of the comments in the debate. Thanks to everyone who took part

Here are the 2 lucky winners who will be getting $100 cash sent to them.

• Best comment supporting Blogger : Ramkarthik from Blogging Tune (TechZilo & Myo Kyaw Htun left good comments too. You should check out the Wordpress.com vs Blogger Table Myo referred to.)
• Best comment supporting Wordpress : JHS from Colloquium (Todd Dow was a close second for this comment)

It was an interesting debate. Both sides seemed to argue that the blogging platform they prefer has better themes however I believe that to be subjective as both platforms have a large collection of free themes available to bloggers.

Ramkarthik won the debate for Blogger with this comment :

If you compare blogger.com and WordPress.com, I would vote for Blogger.com.

Here are the reasons why I’ll choose Blogger:

1. Blogger.com has easy process to create a blog.
2. Since blogger is owned by Google, blogger blogs have the tendency to reach the top of Google Search more easily than WordPress.com.
3. The controls in blogger.com is very easy and anyone can manage with it.
4. Blogger.com allows you to earn money by displaying advertisements and other things.

Here’s Why I won’t Choose Blogger.com:
1. It has a bad commenting system.
2. You can’t filter spams.
3. You can’t have many pages unless you are good in CSS.
4. You don’t have many good templates to choose. You should know CSS well to choose a template other than the one which blogger provides.

Advantages of using WordPress.com:
1. You can import pages from blogger blog. This is the best feature available.
2. WordPress.com allows you to have extra pages like contact, about etc.
3. You can learn how to use WordPress.org by using WordPress.com. You have to learn because you cannot stay all the time with the free one.
4. WordPress.com has good templates and commenting options.
5. WordPress.com gives you the option to add few bookmarking sites to your blog without knowing any Coding.

Disadvantages of WordPress.com:
1. You are not allowed to display advertisements or even AdSense.
2. You cannot use plugins that WordPress.org has which are must for a blog.
3. Little tough to master the usage.

Though WordPress.com has less disadvantages than blogger.com, I would still vote for blogger.com. The main reason for it is you are allowed to monetize in blogger.com and not in WordPress.com. Many bloggers start blogs to earn money. Luckily I started to earn money with my Blogger blog and now successfully moved to a domain name.

Anyway I would say 70/100 for Blogger.com and 50/100 for WordPress.com.

Thanks,
Ramkarthik.

JHS won the debate for Wordpress with this comment :

Just found your site and I’ll play because I have a definite opinion on this topic:

There is no contest. WordPress is FAR superior to Blogger for numerous reasons, some of which have been mentioned above.

I am an experienced website builder, having constructed my first by trial and error (and an HTML book from B&N) back in 1998. It grew and grew . . . I finally began blogging in March 2005. Being a neophyte, I signed up for Blogger.

I didn’t get serious about blogging until late 2006 so I went to work hacking my Blogger blog. Then I wanted a better comment system, so I added Haloscan. I developed a loyal following.

Sadly, however, I learned the hard way that I should have used Word Press and my own domain name from the outset. The transition has been time-consuming and cost me links.

First, Word Press has far more flexibility in terms of creating static pages, editing timestamps (a must for someone like me who has a demanding career . . . I can’t be sitting in front of the computer and hit “publish” at the optimal moment). I write my content on the weekends, tell Word Press when to take it live and go about my business. With Blogger, that is impossible.

Blogger’s comment system is pitiful in comparison. I have the flexibility with WordPress to allow folks to subscribe to comments, preview and edit them, and can even invite new readers to subscribe to my feed on their first 3 visits. The top commentators for the month are rewarded in my sidebar. No need to have a pop-up window, as with Haloscan or Blogger. Plus, spam comments are trapped/blocked. With the Comment Relish plugin, my site automatically sends a personalized e-mail to new visitors who leave a comment. Sweet.

Here’s yet another significant advantage: No trackbacks / pinging with Blogger. Yet another reason I needed Haloscan. I participate in Linkfests. It was a major pain with Blogger. WordPress automatically pings based upon embedded links. Or you can add trackback links at the bottom of your post. You don’t need to look up a separate trackback link, either, because on WordPress the permalink is the same as the trackback link. Again . . . sweet.

And get this . . . Haloscan comments do not import into WordPress so I have copied and pasted some of them, but there is no way I am ever going to have time to recoup 22 pages (on Haloscan) worth of comments so they are lost. (I got back my prior Blogger comments, though it isn’t an even trade.)

The formatting flexibility in WordPress is also remarkable and if you use Chris Pierson’s themes, you can customize them but retain many fabulous features, such as the built-in photo/graphic formatting offered and pull quotes. All of those types of features required special Blogger hacks that I spent hours perfecting through trial and error. There are several plugins that allow you to incorporate footnotes (I use them all the time), tables, superscript, subscript, font colors . . . you can even toggle between full and normal screen mode while writing your post. And you have full html functionality so you can either preview the post the way your readers will see it or manage the html code right there in the WordPress window. Did I mention the emoticons?

Last night I downloaded plugins that allow me to backup my entire blog with 1 click. I can even program WordPress to do this regularly at a particular time and download the zip file to my hard drive. Also, I found a plugin that does not require me to unzip plugins — I can upload, activate and customize them right from the desktop, not to mention the new one-click WordPress upgrade plugin. NONE of these things are possible on Blogger.

Finally, I can tell the moment I pull up a Blogger blog vs. WordPress site. WordPress, irrespective of the theme employed, offers a more professional, clean, “finished” look than does Blogger. (Highly subjective point.)

That’s about it . . . just off the top of my head.

Summary

Once again, thanks to everyone who got involved in this debate, I can assure you it was not easy deciding on a winner!

I will be having another debate soon so make sure you stay tuned to Blogging Tips