Is it Worth Switching Blog Platforms?

I used to have everything on 1 blog. The blog software wasn’t ideal (still in beta), and I found it a bit frustrating being limited by the blog software; but also the problem was that I was trying to do too much on one blog. (blogging on unrelated topics) A few weeks ago I asked at Problogger, whether it was a good idea to switch blog hosts. Soon after asking the question, I decided to start new blogs on specific themes. For example, I moved SEO / blogging to netwriting (here) and economics to Economics Essays. I use my personal blog as general entertainment. I don’t even bother to monetise that blog.

Advantages of Starting New Blog

• I got to choose a relevant domain name for the niche.
• It creates more authority to blog on a specific domain, rather than lump everything together.
• Saves the hassle of switching blog platforms and importing all the old content.

Disadvantages of Starting New Blog

• You lose the benefit of an established domain and in bound links
• More expensive
• Have to start from scratch in getting links, building traffic
• A little more time consuming to have more blogs
• Some people have said that switching domains and importing old content is not too difficult.

Personal experience

• It was definitely worth starting this site from scratch. The site has a decent readership for a relatively new blog. I think if I had stuck to old domain it would have been more difficult to get Blogging related links.
• I am more motivated to write about SEO / blogging, - I used to feel guilty about adding technical stuff to my old blog, most readers weren’t interested.
• I enjoy using Wordpress; there are many plugins and customisations I will implement soon (recently have just been concentrating on content)

Is it Worth Switching from Blogger to Wordpress?

The next problems is that I also started several blogs on Blogger, using FTP publishing. However, I now feel there are many limitations to blogger compared to Wordpress, see Wordpress vs Blogger.

Advantages of Using Wordpress

1. Greater choice of plugins and templates
2. Easier to customise individual blog posts
3. I had serious problems with FTP publishing with blogger; even now most blog posts - “publish with errors”
4. Easier to use features like: “read more” - “next page” - These might seem small things, but I think it makes a big difference in the Long Run.
5. Many people have suggested it is worth doing: e.g.

• Search Engine Tigers
• Art of Making Money

But is Wordpress actually Better than Blogger?

• If you have a blogger hosted by blogger themselves, you can use their new features. However, using FTP publishing, these new control panels and widgets are not possible. If my blogs wer hosted on blogger, I would probably leave it there.
• Blogger is being developed and presumably Google will try to be the best
• Others strongly support blogger
• The BLogger text editor is arguably better
• Blogger is relatively easy to use. Less thrills and plugins, but a straightforward to start blogging.

Why I will Switch my Commercial Blogs to Wordpress
Overall I want to switch to Wordpress. It offers the best range of features. I see blogging as a long term investment, the longer I delay switching the more I will regret it, and also, the more difficult it will be.

However, I am uncertain whether to:
1. Import old content and keep same blog (It is not straight forward because I would first need to republish blogger blogs as .blogspot.

2. Start a new Blog on existing site.

I could just start a new wordpress blog and leave all the old content on the old blogger. E.g. At Mortgage Guide I could just add a second blog to the root of the site.

Since I have 5 blogger blogs, I may experiment with importing one and see how it goes. However, since they are relatively new, I wouldn’t lose that many links.

Related Links on Switching Blog Platforms and Redirects

• Cash Quests switches to new domain - Kumiko’s experience of 301 redirect seems to be beneficial. But stuck with blogger.
• Going from Wordpress to Blogger
• New Blogger Importer
• BLogger vs Wordpress comparison

If you would like to share your experiences of switching blog platforms I would be interested to hear. Especially, blogger to wordpress imports.