Reasons Not To Use Free Blogs
Reason #1: Limited Assets
Posting content owing to a remotely hosted blog requires that you let pass a tremendous amount of control over how messages look and work. This is mainly because a remotely hosted blog by design is built to accommodate hundreds of thousands of bloggers.
For such a huge volume of activity, it can only afford to offer the very least. A blog that offers an extensive amount of features to a large number of people consumes much more assets than what its own servers can provide — ultimately running the risk of foremost crashes.
Even something as simple as a low-graphic poll can consume an insurmountable amount of bandwidth if over 100,000 bloggers choose to offer one to their visitors. A well loved blog already consumes more bandwidth than you can imagine.
Assets simply aren’t an issue with a self-hosted WordPress blog these days. With your blog web hosting, you can deck out your blog with as many plugins and widgets as your heart desires without having to dread server crashes or time outs.
In fact, you shouldn’t consume any more bandwidth with your own hosted blog than you would consume with your own hosted website.
Reason #2: Limited Monetizing Opportunities
We couldn’t count the number of people who want to monetize their blogs if we wanted to. The simple fact is that everyone and his “mom” wants to monetize their blog but the hideous reality is that many (free) remotely hosted blogs don’t allow it.
If you host a blog at WordPress.com for example, you’re prohibited from using any form of direct advertising like Google AdSense or affiliate links.
Limited assets could play a factor in this restriction, but since most monetized campaigns call upon the assets of a 3rd party, this restraint is mostly censorship. Providers than block third party ads usually do so because they want to promote their own services, or at the very least get more people to sign up for their free blog accounts.
With your own blog of course, you can advertise whatever, whenever, where ever. You’re only restricted by your conscience (or by the data exposed from your visitor stats) and the only policies that you have to follow are the policies of your 3rd party ad providers. This allows you to tap into well loved programs like Google AdSense, Chitika, Text Link Ads and much more.
Reason #3: Long Term Control of Content
One of the most overlooked reasons to get your own blog hosting is the complete control over content in the long term. Although several free blog providers like BlogSpot are unlikely to go our of business, some of the smaller ones eventually will.
And when that happens, it can be hard (if not impossible) for you to go your content to another free provider. Even in the case of BlogSpot or WordPress.com (free translation) you may want to go your content to your own blog host two or three years down the road.
Sorry to say, any search engine ranking you get, and the free traffic that comes along with it, will be lost. So even if you reflect you’re saving a buck or two today, in the long term you’re always on the bringing up the rear end if you choose not to host your own blog.
Web hosting blog blogs nowadays is pretty affordable – mostly below $7 a month – so there’s no real reason not to take your blog to the next level. The security, flexibility and professional image it gives you more than covers for the meager cost.
Reason #4: Bringing up the rear Content Due To Deletion
You may run the risk of having your content deleted as has been the case with many blogger accounts. This could turn out be a real bummer mainly if the content was coverting with a high ctr.
