interesting question. does Blogger hinder traffic

[jdub]

I'm wondering if using Blogger is hindering my traffic/revenue. It seems like people who own their own domain get more traffic, maybe it's just me. I know I need to buy it anyway, but I'm just wondering if using blogger in any way reduces traffic or search engine rankings or anything like that.

Do any of you have any thoughts on this?

[Brutha]

If you have your own website you are seen as someone who blogs for fun.
If you want to make money with your blog you should buy your own domain.

[jdub]

I think I'm going to, but it probably won't happen until after finals are over. That way I'll have time to look into it b/c I'm sure it will take a while to transfer stuff over and get the domain and hosting and all of that.

Do you think the Blogger platform limits traffic though? It just seems to me like individual sites get better google ratings than .blogspots

[Raymond Fernando]

To answer you first question:
"Do you think the Blogger platform limits traffic though?"

To my understanding, I don't think they would limit traffic to any blog.
-It would hurt their image
-Why limit traffic when they want to encourage people to sign up and get more revenue from ad providers?

A few examples of blogspot websites who get high traffic volume are:
Official Google Blog (575,000 readers)
PostSecret

Which leads to the second question:
"It just seems to me like individual sites get better google ratings than .blogspots"

That is not necessarily true. You can see how google ranks their pages as explained via GoogleTechnologies.

Page Ranks and search queries are tied in by the content and how often other sites link to your site.

Here are a few sites who have pretty high google rank when searching for the word blogspot:
one red paperclip
PostSecret

Depending on whats going on in the world and what people want to search for, will make search results vary from day to day or year to year. You can use Google Trends to see how often certain topics show up, searched, and where the searches originated from.

My questions to you would be:
What is the main goal of your blog?
What information do you offer that contributes to information on the internet?

After looking at the postings, they don't seem to stand out as something new.
Example:
Cyber Monday Deals
It seems like it regurgitates deals that can be found at sites like bfads.net, spoofree, techbargins, etc.

How does this relate to you? How does it relate to your goals?
Being a college student, how does spending money on items during the winter holiday actually help your budget?

One thing I would encourge you to do is to take a deep look at your content. Do other bloggers talk about these topics? In what ways are they looking at their topics? How do you think differently from them? Are you getting your opinions and facts from other blogs or tv shows (who might not be as credible as a Scholarly Journal, Magazine, or Book)?

Continue your passion and hard work which will unfold success.

[schola]

I recommend it jdub. You can get a domain for around $10. Keep in mind that domain and hosting are separate deals. If you don't want to host your blog yourself yet, you can keep it on blogger and change your blogger settings to publish at the domain you purchased.
Then when you get more time, you can get a hosting plan and use Wordpress or something to host it yourself.

[AndrewJ]

I always recommend getting your own domain and hosting your own blog.
Yes it helps with seo and branding but most importantly it gives you more control over your blog. You can get some domain coupons and hosting coupons at the link in my signature.

Andrew

[mellom]

I have a Blogger blog and I created my own domain. For $10 you can do it easily. You can actually find out more at my blog (in signature).

I'd also recommend checking out: Sivatar - Share Your Site Avatar With The World!

[jdub]

Thank you for your responses. I have some new things I'm going to implement into my blog.

How much does hosting cost? I don't know much about that side of things

[AndrewJ]

You can get good hosting for $5-10 per month. I've listed some discount coupons at my blog here

Andrew