CT Biz Blogs

I think it’s important to have your own domain name for your blog, as I’ve said in several posts, such as this one on What you need to begin blogging (item #3).  In that same post, I also mentioned Jakob Nielsen’s article about weblog usability , and his warnings.

His point, and it’s a good one, is that unless you have your own domain name, you don’t really own your blog.  It’s actually owned by whoever is hosting it, like Blogger, or AOL.  They can decide to change your service at any time, and if you don’t like it, you’ll have to move your blog to a new address, losing any “link equity” you’ve built up.  That means that all the inbound links you’ve gotten, which help people and search engines find you, will be broken. 

Well, AOL bloggers are finding that out the hard way, as I discovered from this post at Blogspotting .

Even though bloggers using AOL pay for the privilege of having a blog, AOL has added obnoxious ads (”seizure-inducing” one commenter calls them) at the top of the blogs.

Google, who owns Blogger, could do this too, and in fact, at one time Blogger blogs did have ads at the top of the post. 

You can get a domain name for about $8.95 a year, from providers such as Go Daddy.  Then you can use domain name forwarding to allow browsers to display your blog when the address is typed in, no matter where your blog is actually located.  Then at least the URL of your site won’t change, if you ever have to move your blog from Blogger’s Blogspot domain or from AOL. 

Of course, you have the most control by hosting your blog with a web hosting service that you pay for, so that you can move the whole shebang if you feel the need.