Standalone blogs against free blog hosting sites

Anyone who plans to start their own blog, no matter personal or corporate (for external audiences), always faces the question: start a blog on free platforms or install your own engine. This topic is not as straightforward as it may seem at first glance. Why this is so, we will tell you within the framework of this material.

Let's start with short definitions - what is standalone and a blog on blog hosting sites, especially in relation to Runet.
A standalone blog is a blog that is hosted on a standalone server or shared hosting, using a separate domain or subdomain of your own domain. Here are the most used engines in RuNet:

• Wordpress is the most popular PHP + MySQL engine. A huge number of themes and plug-ins that implement any additional functionality on the created blog.

MovableType is a once very popular PHP-Perl + MySQL engine. There is a free and paid Enterprise version. Interra and e2 are Russian blog engines that work on PHP + MeSQL. Fairly fast, with good Russian language and typography. Unfortunately, they do not have as many themes and plugins as Wordpress, and e2 has a very strange license , which is simply unacceptable for many Runet bloggers.

A blog hosting blog is a blog created on any paid or free platform. As a rule, you do not install this blog, but simply after registering you get a ready-made solution on the blog hosting subdomain. The most popular blog hosting sites by Yandex. Blogs are (TOP-10):

• Livejournal
• LiveInternet

Blogs@Mail.ru
Diary.ru
Love ♥ Planet
Beon.ru
Blogger.com Rambler-Planet Jamango LoveTalk

Just because both options have a lot of positive and negative sides, it is so difficult to make a choice between them.
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Positive sides

Negative sides

You can do whatever you want with your blog, you are the master of everything - content, user accounts, etc. This blog is very easy to monetize. Upon reaching a certain attendance, you can install banners, as well as sell ads in the RSS-feed, which is not visible in the main context of the blog. It is also possible to sell links from your blog, but only when you achieve high rates of GooglePR and Yandex CY. You can easily organize the automatic export of new posts to popular blog hosting sites (cross-posting), thereby leading several blogs for any audience. The design of your blog and a set of functional elements is limited only by your imagination and knowledge. Popular corporate blog increases the weight of the search results of the company's website, being placed on the same domain. A huge set of statistics, because you can install any service statistics. You can use an external program for blogging. The possibility of maintaining such a blog by a group of authors.

The main disadvantage is the need to have the skills to install server software. With particularly high loads, it is necessary to optimize the engines, implement caching, make illustrations and video on additional servers. Also regularly need to spend time updating the engine and backup. All standalone engines are vulnerable to varying degrees. It is not recommended to put a blog on the domain of a vital site, because this endangers the entire server. Domain and hosting / purchasing costs. This is especially true of popular blogs with very high traffic.

Positive sides

Negative sides

Free It takes minutes to get a blog ready to use. The server part of the blog for you as if does not exist. Upgrades and backups are made centrally by the administration of blog hosting for all users of the service. With peak loads, the user does not have a headache for the stability of the blog - this is a service concern. "The horse has a big head, she even thinks!" Convenient social mechanisms - frending, bookmarks (favorites). The existence of thematic groups with a specific theme for registered bloggers. There is an opportunity for organizations to create popular communities or in some way support popular existing ones in order to gain the attention of the target audience to the goods and services promoted. Very advanced features of commenting, dialogue. Advanced screening of unwanted commentators.

Not all blog hosting sites allow you to use your domain for your blog. Most often, your blog has a third-level domain that does not play into the memory of URL remembering, and links from it cost significantly less than from a similar standalone blog. Such a blog can not bring special benefits to your corporate site, even being very popular. He can only send direct traffic to him, and then, this should be done very carefully. Anxiety blogosphere does not forgive. Limited variety of design. You can change the minimum of elements, being content with the included design themes and the ability to change the meager number of functional elements. Not all domestic services support working with blog clients. For example, the most popular Russian client BlogJet supports only WordPress.com (also blog hosting) and LiveJournal.com services. The domestic manufacturer tries to “add” the user to the web interface or offers its customers who are not as comfortable and functional as BlogJet and Co. Blog data belongs entirely to the service. When you get to blog hosting you almost always will be offered to import data from a standalone blog or from another popular hosting, but to export it will not. However, almost always your data can be exported via RSS, if your blog hosting site supports the export of posts via RSS. You can immediately forget about the export of tags and comments, and published illustrations may not be given to your new blog on a different domain. Your entries must comply with the “Service User Agreement”, for which failure your blog can be permanently deleted. At any time at the whim of the administration of the service, you will have to learn to pay for its continued use. Very poor monetization options. Here you can only promote your services and engage in self-PR. Still very popular blogs can sell links, but this income is not popular here.

As a result, we get simple conclusions , despite the number of unknowns. If blogging is a job or a part of corporate policy, then most likely, a stand-alone solution will be chosen, because the information will belong only to you, and the right person with the required skill level is often already in place to maintain the blog. Also on the blog you can earn, and sometimes very little, compared with the average salary. A blog on a free hosting service is also an excellent solution, but only for those who do not have money reserves and knowledge for its organization and further maintenance. He is also good for those who use the potential of the community and likes to listen to someone else's opinion, and is also ready for dialogue in the comments.
Vyacheslav Baransky
Source: Royber PC