Ex-blogspot users have a reason to rejoice - if you have migrated from Blogger to another platform like WordPress or TypePad, you no longer have to worry about your lost feed subscriber base.
Blogger now lets you redirect your Blogspot feeds # to any other feed service # in one simple step. Goto Blogger Settings -> Site Feed and type the new feed address. That makes this popular tutorial more or less irrelevant.
Basically if someone is subscribed to your old feed address, he'll automatically be redirected to your new feed which could be on WordPress, Feedburner, etc. Therefore your move from Blogger to Wordpress will be transparent to the subscriber base.
Positive Effect on Feed Count:
If you are using Feedburner, expect the Feedburner Chicklet to show higher numbers very soon. [Related: Count The RSS Subscribers Of Any Blog]
Blogger vs WordPress:
Google owned Blogger is fighting back to remain the top blogging platform. Here are some amazing things they have done recently to fend off competition from the excellent Wordpress.
1. Blogger Users can add polls which is impossible to do in Wordpress without the help of external plug-ins or widgets.
2. You can directly upload video clips from the web based editor of Blogger and that goes straight to Google Video - again not possible in WordPress.
3. Like WordPress, Blogger also provides comments feed per blog post or the entire blog.
4. Blogger can parse XML files directly - that means you can have Text Link Ads or RSS feeds on Blogger without installing any plugins or sidebar widgets.
5. The new search box of Blogger will help visitors search across all blogs / websites that you have ever linked to from your blog posts. Internally this uses the Google Custom Search engine but you can integrated this with Blogger in a click so anyone can make use of the Google Custom Search engine without having to worry about HTML code.
6. Google Adsense in also tightly integrated with Blogger dashboard making it easy for not-so-geeky users to add adunits if they using the default blogger templates. [Don't think WP allows advertising yet.]
The game is on. Blogger team have launched a Draft Blogger website to showcase more upcoming features in Blogger.
Disclaimer: I am a big fan of WordPress [site 1, site 2] but still find Blogger more convenient to use and easy to maintain - atleast I don't have to worry about security issues or installing frequent upgrades.Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/07/great-day-for-blogger-users-or-those.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
It's confusing the way you compare Blogger w/ both WP (self hosted) and wordpress.com at different points in your post.
Written on 12/7/07 2:16 PM
It's true that many things that can be done in Blogger cannot be done in WordPress.com (not the self-hosted one). But for a user who are not familiar with codes the web editor in WordPress.com is easier to use. For one thing, I can't understand why Blogger doesn't include "Read more .." feature in their editor. Instead, you need to know how to edit your template to make it work.
Written on 12/7/07 3:14 PM
The Google for Domains was the BIGGEST threat against Wordpress
Now I can have www.bruno.com as my blog without even having to invest in a web hosting services
Was that missed or intentionally not mentioned in your list, Amit
Written on 12/7/07 7:43 PM
I have noticed that wordpress hosted blogs are faster in loadtime. Even the Blogger's classic templates load faster than the XML one.
And about the default templates provided by Blogger only one thing comes into my mind - "ugly duckling".
I am wondering what Google designers are doing?
Again, I found that Wordpress hosted blogs get high pagerank easily. Meta tags can be easily tweaked for SEO.
Since you are familiar with both platform, what's your say?
Written on 12/7/07 9:08 PM
I couldn't find the new Search Page Element. Could you give me some direction on that?
Thanks!
Written on 12/7/07 9:39 PM
@mwgrl5,
to get the search box, log in to http://draft.blogger.com
I just added the search bar. Its nice, but:-
1.there is no way to integrate my adsense account with it.
2.if one has navbar enabled, then there will be two search box.
Written on 12/7/07 10:39 PM
Okay, here's a hypothesis which I am not in a position to substantiate or dismiss, but raising as a point to seek other opinions. It goes like this - Folks in slightly senior age group would prefer WP compared to Blogger. In teen and immediate post teen, Blogger would be a favoured platform... Would love to hear what others feel.
Written on 13/7/07 6:28 PM
I made this change, and my reader numbers jumped from 87 to 187 overnight! Thanks. :)
Written on 13/7/07 9:30 PM
While I have not compared the two blogging platforms, being a Blogger self-hosted user now I am beginning to feel some issues (some features are only available at Blogspot hosting). It looks like self-hosted users are being made to host the blog in blospot. This may not be good for businesses preferring their own domain for any hosting. Is google moving in the direction to monopolise internet?
Written on 15/7/07 11:37 PM
Thanks for this post. I was just wondering if Blogger has added feeds for comments for the blog. While it has added feeds for individual post comments, I've still not seen feeds for comments for the full blog. Appreciate your help.
Written on 28/7/07 1:43 PM
The new AJAX search is great, but I'm not sure I like the Google ads in it. They will compete with other ads on the page, and I don't think you get any credit if someone clicks them. Am I wrong about this? (I hope so.)
Written on 31/7/07 1:08 PM
Thanks for this post. I was just wondering if Blogger has added feeds for comments for the blog. While it has added feeds for individual post comments, I've still not seen feeds for comments for the full blog. Appreciate your help.
Written on 4/8/07 8:51 AM
@ Bombay Addict and Mr Family: The comment feed of a Blog*spot blog resides at: http://*.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default
Written on 29/8/07 1:36 PM
Warning: Dont do this (force redirect to a 3rd party feed service) if you're using Google Webmaster Tools > Sitemaps.
You sitemap may show errors like URL not allowed and/or warnings like Invalid XML: too many tags or Incorrect namespace.
Feedburner (whether using MyBrand or not) brings in a couple of ~ in the urls. Either sitemap tools isnt reading properly or feedburner isnt sending properly.
Written on 31/8/07 10:15 AM