Blog Hosts

Blog hosting services

Although most reviews of general-purpose web hosts are fishy, reviews of blog hosting services are much more credible and helpful. Furthermore, reviewers generally agree about the relative merits of each of the major services. WordPress.com (basic service is free) is the consensus favorite in reviews.

WordPress started its life as open-source blog-management software. Its popularity induced the developers to extend the platform into a web-based service in 2005. In a ProBlogger poll conducted a year ago, WordPress already had the largest share of the market (37 percent). Profit magazine (March 2007) says, "You can use the free service to start a blog in seconds without downloading anything or having any previous technical knowledge. One nifty feature allows you to categorize your posts and keywords as you write them, instantly linking you to WordPress's 'global tag system' so people with similar interests can easily find you."

PC World editor Scott Spanbauer highly recommends WordPress, which he uses. Swiss blogging consultant Stephanie Booth tried 13 free blog platforms before settling on WordPress. TopTenReviews.com ranks WordPress.com as the best service. Overall, it is commended for simplicity and lack of ads.

WordPress makes its profit by selling optional a la carte upgrades. Those include extra storage (for photos or MP3 podcasts), a custom CSS editor, and a private domain name. A domain name costs $15 per year if you want one. Features include many visual themes, spell-checking, a private (members only) blog option, spam protection, statistics and a support forum. The company operates redundant servers in separate cities to ensure uptime and protection of data.

Other popular free services place ads on blog pages. Many use Google AdSense, which is keyword driven. That means, for example, that your environmental blog arguing against SUVs and leaf blowers might contain ads for such products.

PC World's Spanbauer and PC Magazine's John Quain say that Google's Blogger.com (free) is the simplest service to use -- quite suitable for beginners. However, if you want to control the look and feel of your blog, Spanbauer says WordPress is much better. Microsoft Windows Live Spaces (free, http://spaces.live.com/) and Yahoo! 360 (free, http://360.yahoo.com) also lack the customization of WordPress. Quain says both sites are oriented to social networking.

Reviewers recommend TypePad.com (starting at *est. $5) for professional use. PC Magazine's John Quain says TypePad is more sophisticated than the free services. The basic plan includes 100 MB of storage and 2 GB of bandwidth per month. The top plan includes 1 GB of storage and 10 GB of bandwidth.

LiveJournal.com (basic service is free), another popular blog hosting service, isn't generally ranked as one of the better services in reviews. LiveJournal is operated by Six Apart, which also operates TypePad.com and other blogging services.

All the services discussed in this section are dedicated blog hosts. They provide web-based software to upload your blog entries. You can also use any web hosting service for a blog. That gives you the flexibility to have your own domain and create your look and feel from scratch with any HTML-creation program. You can also use free WordPress or Drupal software to create your site. Both are recommended in reviews.