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Google site vs Blogger site, which is the best place to start?
Both Google Sites and Blogger Sites are free. Both also allow you to get a custom domain. However, you will need to buy that domain name.
The good news is you can get most custom domain names now for between $10 and $15.
A Google site is good if you are only interested in blogging.
What’s great about a Google site is that it syncs in with your Google Drive as well as your other Google apps. In fact, you can access your Google site right from your Google accounts dashboard.
Another advantage of a Google site over a Blogger site is that you can easily collaborate with others.
Unlike Google Drive where you can also collaborate with others, Google Sites also allows you to publish those collaborations right on the web.
You can even give access to the whole world if you like as with any other website or you can set your privacy settings to a small group or groups.
On the other hand, a Blogger site is good to start out with, if you are looking for a more variety of web templates as well as ease of use.
A Blogger site also offers a variety of templates. Many more than Google Sites do actually.
In addition, Blogger has a much better interface that allows you to drag and drop features when designing your site, pages and posts.
Both a Google site and a Blogger site will allow you to monetize straight away with a Google Adsense account.
However, you will still need to apply first and be accepted into the Google Adsense program before applying AdSense to your Google site or to your Blogger site.
You can also theoretically add affiliate links to both a Google site and a Blogger site if you want to monetize it with more revenue streams.
Although if you want to gain access and be accepted into a premium display ad network, most premium display ad networks will not accept a Blogger site or a Google site.
I think it has a lot to do with access to the dashboard of the site and what they can do with it as far as ad placements are concerned along with A/B split testing, etc.
You would have to check with the particular premium add display network to confirm this.
Unlike WordPress, which also provides a free website plan, Google Sites and Blogger Sites will allow you a custom domain name, along with access and syncing to Google analytics.
You can do so through WordPress.com as well, but not for their free plan.
So in my opinion, if you truly want to get your feet wet into the potential possibilities of running a website, monetization, building a brand online without being too dependent on social platforms like Instagram and Facebook, then in the Google site vs Blogger site choice, I would choose Blogger hands down.
Blogger will allow you a wider range of website templates and design possibilities, whereas a Google site is pretty basic looking even in the new Google Sites version.
However, getting a Google site is great if you want something more than a collaboration effort going through Google Drive and have a common website that you and others want to collaborate on, blog about certain issues etc.
Starting a site on Blogger is a great way to get online with no or very little cost. Get free hosting, get your site on the web and you can eventually migrate your custom domain off the Blogger platform into WordPress, if you want to take it to the next level.
However, you should know two things. First, your Blogger templates will not transfer over to WordPress, so you will need to get a WordPress theme.
Thankfully you can start with a free WordPress theme and as your traffic and hopefully monetization grows, you may want to move into a paid theme.
Second, with WordPress, the CMS, you will also need to get a paid hosting plan, if you want full flexibility and freedom to take your website to the next level.
The good news is, you can start out with a WordPress hosting plan from numerous hosting providers for as little as a few dollars a month.
For around $10 a month you can get a shared hosting plan that will allow you to host unlimited WordPress websites.
Let’s move on to answer some frequently asked questions in the Google site vs Blogger site discussion.
Which is better: a blog or website?
Nowadays a blog and a website are pretty much synonymous.
The only difference I can see is that a blog is considered more of a journaling type of platform.
Whereas a website can include a blog as well as an ecommerce store and other features that normally a blog or especially a personal blog, might not have.
But for all intents and purposes, there’s not much difference nowadays between a blog and a website.
Does Google still support Blogger?
Google still supports Blogger. In fact, Google still owns Blogger. So not only does Google own Google Sites of course ,but it also owns the Blogger platform as well.
Is Blogger a good blog site?
Blogger is a great blog site, not only because you can get a free blog and have it hosted for free on Blogger, but their templates as well as their dashboard are probably one of the easiest to use simplest to set up and get your website online.
Even though WordPress doesn’t require you to know really any coding, it could be a little cumbersome if you’ve never set up a WordPress website before.
You have to not only deal with learning WordPress’s dashboard and CMS as well as the theme you’ve chosen.
But you will also need to learn how to get your new WordPress website onto a host and learn their dashboards as well usually a cPanel, if it’s shared hosting.
Whereas a Blogger site is really simple to set up and get going. It’s a great springboard to get your presence on the web fast.
Just remember to spend the $10 and get yourself a custom domain from the start.
This way you will have the flexibility to at least move the domain name to a different hosting provider, if you’re going to move on and use WordPress.
Is Google Sites going away?
No Google Sites is not going away. By the end of December 2021 Google Sites will have full become the “New Google Sites”.
So if you are comfortable using Google Sites, there’s no need to worry. The New Google Sites is just an updated version.
Is Google Sites better than Wix?
If you simply want to blog and collaborate with others while having that blog on the internet without any bells and whistles, then Google Sites is definitely better than Wix.
Even Blogger is better than Wix as far as getting started on the internet.
In addition, if your website really takes off, I would not even think of migrating it to Wix, but to a WordPress based CMS and a hosting provider.
You will have much more flexibility than you ever will with Wix.
Do you have to pay for Google Sites?
Google Sites is free.
Is Blogger or WordPress better?
WordPress is hands down better than Blogger. Blogger is great for getting started if you are bootstrapping your way on to the internet.
However, if you’re serious about running a website, there’s no better way to do it than with WordPress.
WordPress will allow you much more freedom and selection as far as themes, customizations, hosting as well as a number of other factors including monetization strategies than Blogger ever could.
Everything just opens up much more once you get onto WordPress. But a Blogger site is still a great way to start the little or no money.
Are Google Sites searchable?
Google Sites are searchable. After all, the most popular used search engine is still Google.
What happened to Google’s Blogger?
Google’s Blogger is alive and well. You can find it here: Blogger.com.
Is Blogger still popular?
Believe it or not, Blogger is still quite popular. Blogger has come a long way over the years.
Although it doesn’t have the wide variety of theme selections and other things like plu-ins and page builders that make WordPress websites superior, you’d be surprised with what you can do with Blogger’s templates.
Blogger has actually improved their templates quite a bit and you can get a nice looking website up and running for free in no time.
In fact, Blogger makes the whole process including getting an SSL certificate attached to it a very easy process.
That SSL will provide you with the HTTPS prefix in front of your URL so visitors to your website or blog will know it’s secure.
Is Blogger free to use?
Blogger is free to use.
However if you want to custom domain name for your Blogger blog and not have the blogspot.com suffix at the end of your URL, then you will need to buy your own domain name.
But don’t worry, you can get a domain name for as little as $10 to $15.
Can I use Google Sites with my own domain name.
Yes, you can use your own domain name on Google Sites. However, you will still have Google Sites in the URL and you will need to buy that custom domain name as well.
Can I earn money from Google Sites?
You can earn money from Google Sites with either Google Adsense or you can display some affiliate products and receive a commission if they sell as well.
You can even have your Google Site listed in Google Maps as well as in Google’s business listings, if you have a physical location. This can all be done for free.
Google site vs Blogger site, conclusion.
As you can see in the Google site versus a Blogger site match up, the clear winner in my opinion is getting yourself a Blogger site.
You just have so much more flexibility with a Blogger site than you do with a Google site.
Although a Google site can be quite convenient since it does sync in with your Google account and dashboard.
You can also opt for Google My Business and sync that with your Google Sites as well and have access to Google products like Google Maps as well Google’s business listings that you find in search.
If you plan on putting your business on the web and would like to be featured in places like Google Maps or in Google’s business listings, then you should look into Google Sites.
But for a low cost way to start a niche website, my advice would be to simply buy a custom domain name from the start. Then use that name on your Blogger website.
If you wait until you have content up to switch to a custom domain from the Blogspot.com URL you are given, then you may need to do a bunch of redirects to the new URLs you will create when you apply that custom domain name.
You can even take advantage of the free hosting that Google provides to get your website off the ground.
You can also still use Google Adsense as well as display affiliate products on your Blogger site as well.
However, once you start getting some real traffic, then you will need to upgrade to a WordPress CMS and get hosting from a private hosting provider.
As I have mentioned above, premium display ad networks will normally not work with Blogspot.com URLs or Blogger webSites.
Also, the customer service that you will receive from a paid host might be a little better than what you would receive from a free Blogger account.
So do yourself a favor, if you’re looking to really bootstrap your presence on the web get a Blogger site.
But don’t get too comfortable. Because if things take off, you will definitely need to upgrade tp WordPress.
