Blog setup - On domain or 3rd party?

[chowell]

Does anyone have information on which type of blog setup is more effective?

1. Blog hosted on my website, ie: www.mywebsite.com/blog/
   or
2. Blog hosted on 3rd party, ie: mytopic.blogspot.com

Just looking for a general consensus on which helps more.

Obviously the blog hosted on my website will build content and internal link benefits, but a 3rd party blog would be able to pass link value from an extremely relevant site.

Take a quick second and just reply - "blog on website" or "blog on 3rd party".

Thanks in advance!!!

[GunRunner]

Every pro blogger I have read, recommends you host your own blog and put it on a sub-domain. Also make sure you enable the option that allows each post to have it's URL with the headline in the URL. This allows for more keywords if you are writing your headlines properly.

[joshua_snl]

that is not quite true in my opinion.

that is much value of having external links pointing to the original domain from a well established blog hosting site such as blogspot. from my "experiments" doing these, i can actually up my ranking of my "main" site by doing that.

but to qualify my statements, i am NOT a professional blogger.

[bhartzer]

I would always put it on your own domain. You have a lot more control over it there and you'll have better access to the blog's log file data for web analytics purposes.

A subdomain is really not required but may be helpful. Having it at www.domain.com/blog is just fine.

Another reason you'd want the blog on your site is for link building purposes. If you're happy with the content of your current site then adding a blog will allow you to add content on a regular basis, keeping your site "fresh", which is what the search engines really like. Furthermore, you can promote your blog's entries using social media/social bookmarking techniques.

[Shane]

I have a blog, I host on a subdomain of my own website. I also use Blogger to actually publish my blog entries, setting it up to automatically publish to my own domain.

This allows the links to go into my own domain, but still allows for the extra traffic that is generated via Blogger's navigation bar.

IMHO, the best of both worlds.

[bhartzer]

Shane, that sounds like a good plan...but what about your blog's stats? And do you have the ability to add to/edit your blog's ping list?

Can you get to your blog via your blogger address and via the subdomain? Wouldn't that be duplicate content? Can you set up a 301 Permanent Redirect from the blog site to the subdomain so you won't get dinged for having duplicate content?

[Shane]

Originally Posted by bhartzer

..but what about your blog's stats? And do you have the ability to add to/edit your blog's ping list?

Can you get to your blog via your blogger address and via the subdomain?

There are many good ways to keep track of statistics. The nice thing about using a subdomain instead of a folder name is the separation of logging. A subdomain is tracked completely separate from the main domain, enabling me to effectively separate very easily what traffic was blog specific. I happen to use AWStats on my hosting server and there is always google analytics tracking code that can be put in place for even more statistical information.

When setting up my blog under the settings tab for "Publishing" you must choose one method you want to use for blog publishing. This effectively removes the chance of duplicate content. At anytime if I chose not to host my own blog I could always switch back to Blogger's free servers.

Because I use Blogger for publishing though, my blog is automatically indexed on Blogger.com - all links to my blog entries point to my own blog subdomain.

[Conficio]

Originally Posted by joshua_snl

is much value of having external links pointing to the original domain from a well established blog hosting site such as blogspot.

This is a (common) fallacy:

• Links are pointing to blogspot.com and may be to www.blogspot.com but not to myexampleblog.blogspot.com
• The SE are intelligent enough to understand that domein does not equal website. For example the often used home directory sites (www.example.com/~fred/) are recognized by any decent SE as separate sites (only Alexa is not capable to see real sites, but thins domain == site)

K<o>

[chowell]

I guess that maybe I should've explained my existing experiences a little bit further... I appreciate everyone who's responded so far!

I am an experienced user of Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, etc. so I'm familiar with how to setup each blog, put on all the social stuff, tracking, etc.

What I'm really looking for is insight on how effect each method is for helping the "main site's" rankings (not the blog's). Basically, is the "content king" on my own website or would I see more benefits from setting it up externally (content & incoming links).

So, does it help more to get the links from a 3rd party hosted blog or to host your own on a subdomain (or within a folder)?

Again, thanks for responding!

[craigmn3]

If you have a blog on a third party host you will get incoming links, but until you establish your blog and get highly ranked, the IBL you'll get from your blog isn't worth much

if you Host your own blog and do a good job posting what people want to see you will gain alot of IBLS as well as the content generated by the blog.

If you have the blog on a subdomain will you still get this benefit? I don't know

[Fitz]

Here's my two pennies worth.... absolutely host the blog yourself. With sensible use of keywords-in-hyperlinks and cross-linking to other relevant pages of your main site, you can't fail (famous last words I know) to help your main site rank better than it would have done and, in my opinion and past experience, better than it would have done using a blog hosted via a 3rd party (Blogger or whatever).

Here's another reason to host it yourself:
Assuming your own blog cross-links to your main site pages as I suggest above, if you write something on your blog particularly interesting (!), people will link to your own main site pages or, in a worst case scenario, your blog post. So, whichever way you look at it your main site will get the link juice if the blog is hosted on your site. In contrast, had you hosted the blog at Blogger or Wordpress, THEY would have received the IBLs and your main site would benefit far less because the link juice will be second (or 3rd) hand and therefore much diluted.

Lastly, who knows what may happen with Blogger etc in the future. Anything could happen and, along with it, your blog - and all that hard work - could go down the proverbial. As far as I can tell, that can't happen if you host all the blog info on your site.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by craigmn3

If you have a blog on a third party host you will get incoming links, but until you establish your blog and get highly ranked, the IBL you'll get from your blog isn't worth much

Exactly.

Originally Posted by craigmn3

If you have the blog on a subdomain will you still get this benefit? I don't know

I have found it doesnt matter much at all.

[mjtaylor]

Here's a thread worth reading on this topic: SEO vs SEO – Separate Blog From Main Domain? .. I had a client who couldn't host a blog and we had a nice discussion on the ramifications and solutions.

You may want to read this talk by Matt Cutts on white hat tops for bloggers: Matt Cutts 2007 SEO Wordpress talk at Wordcamp - Transcript | > There is also a video available: * Matt Cutts’ Lecture - Whitehat SEO tips for Bloggers*-*One Man’s Blog and here's mor, including Matt's ower Point presentation here: Whitehat SEO tips for bloggers.

Cheers, MJ

[mtheory]

Your main consideration should be control of your blog. Host it yourself.

[sanver]

Originally Posted by mtheory

Your main consideration should be control of your blog. Host it yourself.

mtheory, you are right. A blog is too precious to be used only for a source of links to your website. Keep it safe in your own custody rather than on somebody elses server.

Sanjay Verma
World Class Webhosting in India
SugarCRM Hosting and Implementation