I recently moved from Blogger to WordPress, bypassing several of the issues I mentioned before. Now that I have started using WordPress, some nice powerful blogging features have come in use which were missing on Blogger. I am only one day old with WordPress, nevertheless here are the first impressions.
WordPress installation could not be simpler. Just one click WordPress install with MySQL database creation was courtesy of my Dreamhost webhosting.
Importing Blogger posts and comments took a few minutes only by the WordPress Blogger Import script which I run via WordPress. It went smoothly, I had to fix nothing in Blogger and all was imported without any bugs. Thanks to WordPress 2.0
First notable feature is Categories. It provides a new navigation interface and easily clubs together posts of related interest. Though the task of categorizing 1000 posts will take some time. Also essential to realise is how many categories to make that effectively compile the content without spreading it sparsely across hundred of categories.
Next is the streamlined interface. This very effectively comines a lot of features. The power of plugins makes many tasks as easy as possible. And there is a plugin for everything if you look around.
Support is great. The WordPress Codex details everything you can possibly do as a developer, what errors and bugs you can encounter and how to fix them. It cover all basics of WordPress and advanced uses too (which I really like!). And the WordPress Support is encouraging.
Installing Themes cannot be easier with one click. Choose from an endless number of free WordPress themes. The template modification is more powerful with separate editors for all parts of the template. I am still figuring around the tweaks in different parts of the template. I changed to the beautiful Blix theme from the default Kubrick which was too common and less stylish. Blogger theme back up was easier as you just had to back up one template file.
Managing post and comments in one integrated interface is wonderful. All posts are aggregated by months and it is easy to edit them.
Trackback are easy and via the posting screen. Bye bye Haloscan, my excellent free trackback tool at Blogspot. I can also make posts private now.
Also a fear sets in that all errors and bugs associated with server problems, upload issues, upgrading WordPress, installing plugins, backing up databases, understanding MySQL and PHP is now my problems. Google was behind Blogger and took care of everything from upgrades to templates. So now I cannot get away with simple back of templates.
Now I will have to look out for bandwidth usage too. Blogspot provided unlimited bandwidth. My Dreamhost webhosting provides a huge 1 terabyte bandwidth, progrssively increasing every week, so hopefully I do not have to worry about storage or bandwidth issues.
I am getting really impressed by this blogging platform. Blogger is wonderful for newbie bloggers and nothing could be simpler. But as you advance it is better to upgrade. It is always better to get a domain name and your own web hosting. I took the step late after there was a page rank 6 which I got with thousands of incomming links. But I feel more in control of my blog and it should benefit me in in future…