Question

Is there any SEO disadvantage in using a subdomain to host a blog on WordPress or Blogger? I don’t want to go to the trouble of creating a blog module for my site – I’d rather just set up a CNAME entry and point a subdomain to a free WordPress or Blogger account. Will Google punish me for doing this by claiming that I have ‘duplicate content’ – i.e. the intro text for each blog entry will be on my main site and the full details will be visible on WordPress/Blogger? Is it better to incorporate the blog functionality into my main site? Are there any other potential disadvantages to this subdomain/external hosting approach using a free blog host?

Answer 1

There are a lot of advantages to self-hosting your blog.

1. You can do whatever you want with your own self-hosted blog. On WordPress you could get banned and lose all of your content.
2. You can host ads or and do other commercial stuff not possible on WordPress. (The free wordpress blog doesn’t allow any advertisements other than their own ads).
3. Better ranking opportunity in search engines by using your own top-level domain.
4. You can modify your functionality at will.
5. It looks more professional and gives you bragging rights.
6. On WordPress you may run up against bandwidth restrictions if your blog gets really popular – you won’t be able to do anything about it.