Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Blogger.com works well for me.
Jan
The pros of leaving it as is might be; if you have several websites you'd like to promote with it, or if your site would benefit more from links than from content. With this, though...there is a fine line between a blog and a "splog". Be sure the blog is really useful content and not just a bunch of stuff thrown together that is obviously spammy. Use the links very sparingly.
Just my opinion of course. Another thing I've never seen anyone mention that I will. One of my friends had a site done entirely on Frontpage. She decided to try to add a blogger blog to her site instead of leaving it on blogspot. The first time she used the Blogger FTP thing, it blew up her website. Took her several days to get it all replaced and back up.
Jan
their platform doesn't easily allow for categorizing, and the syndication is ATOM - the most difficult RSS to parse.
Well, that depends on what you mean - do you mean they are duplicating content from their site on their blog (no-no) or are some of the articles *about* their e-commerce site (not a "problem" per se).
>>>Are the links considered as inbound links.
Remember that inbound links need to be on a site with some "oompf" of its own to pass *anything* to another site. All external links on another domain pointing to your site are inbound links. Does the engine give these *type* of links credit - varies by engine. But, for the long haul - only a good site can give you a good link. If the blog is being run well, trafficked and linked to itself, I can't see any massive reason why it wouldn't pass *some* credit, even if it is small.
>>>Would I be better to also include the blog on one of the pages on my site?
Well, if you "also" include your blog on your site, you going to risk getting hit for duplicate content.
I personally put the blogs on the original domain. As I said, for the blog to pass anything "real" to a *smart* search engine, it will need it's own importance. Why build up a second domain to get a link? Much cheaper to pay a blogger money to drop your site than it is to spend hours and hours building up a second domain.
1500 links from the same blog aren't going to do your site as much good when looking at overall health and longevity. Hosting it on your own domain and getting all of the inbound links to the core domain/blog directory from promotional opportunities non-blogs don't have is a much better option IMHO.
Having a blog on a seperate domain for a logical reason (branding, wanting to cover additional areas not in theme with your site, diversification, you simply want a personal blog etc) is fine. But, I can't see wasting my time publishing a blog on a seperate domain and putting tons of effort into promoting it so that it indeed has credit to pass just so that I can get 100 links from the same IP.
I create blogs for additional marketing purposes and not to pose as link brothels. Market your sites guys... market. Don't blindly fabricate links for them. My two cents...
Added thought... the bigger concern should be making sure whatever blog platform you choose is SEO friendly. Some CMS's (which is what a blog essentially is) can have some SEO unfriendly characteristics.
Luvydavy - Thanks for the warning. I use blogger.com and my sites are done in frontpage, so you've probably saved me a horrid disaster. My posts are so variable in content that they probably wouldn't all fit in with my sites, to be honest. They're a sad case of what happens when you get up early in the morning and need to clear your mind!
You're welcome, Richer. I think they ought to have something very prominently on Blogger to warn people about that. I think everyone hears, "Don't use an FTP program with your site if you do it with Frontpage" but you don't think of the blog as the same thing, and it is. My friend has a million dollar Las Vegas real estate website that is her entire bread and butter and it blew slap up. She was freaking...:-)
Jan
