I just wanted some opinions on a theory I want to test and how hard it would be to recover from it if it turns out to be a silly idea. I have a handful of small blogs at the moment, all of them self-hosted using Wordpress. This is because I'm generally quite a techy guy and like playing with the PHP, installing hacks and just generally like the idea of being 100% in control.

I'm about to launch a new blog (my last for a long while I can imagine!) which is much more "personal" rather than product orientated, in that the nature of the site relies on getting close to my readers and gaining their trust and respect, much more so than your typical blog. My gut instinct tells me that a blogger blog may be a better idea than hosting myself. I'm not sure why, it just seems to give off a less commercial atmosphere to me, so I assume it may feel that way for others too. I'm also interested in comparing growth rates in the beginning between a blogger blog and my new self-hosted blog, to see if there's any difference.

Is there any point trying this out, or will I find no difference between the two? More importantly, if in a few months I decide that I don't like being on blogger, am I stuck there? I imagine changing web address could hurt my blog dramatically - has anyone ever done this?

Any feedback much appreciated!

Tough call. I've heard of blogger blogs being vastly more successful but I've heard plenty tell of it being really limiting.

It's not hard to redirect to a new domain though.

I wouldn't do it. Im like you and I like to be able to play with things. You will lose all control over your blog really by not hosting it yourself. If you can afford the hosting, do that.

I have a personal blog that I don't feel is commercial at all: ilovecode and I love playing around with it. I wrote a script for myself to let people ask me questions and eventually turned it into a plugin. I wouldn't have been able to do that.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

It's not hard to redirect to a new domain though.

I was thinking more about things like incoming links, search engine rankings, etc.

I'm a hosting snob, so I'd say shell out the few bucks for your own setup. Blogger is lame.