I think you’ve missed the point.
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As is common in the blogosphere, one rant begits thousands. I’ve read a few of them,here, here, and here. The rant of the day seems to be “buy a domain, don’t under any circumstances blog with a subdomain of blogspot, typepad, or any other service you do not own. Bah. Poppycock. I think you missed the train. It’s not about what domain you use, really. Of all the things to worry about, getting your own domain for your blog is not something that need to be a huge priority.
It’s difficult to get a decent domain these days anyway. I really think a subdomain like blogging.typepad.com is a lot more memorable than something like immobloggingthis.com (which is one of the better alternatives my domain registration service recommended when I typed in ‘blogging’), or even worse, i-am-a-keyword-spammer.info.
But, I may just be a curmudgeon.
Peter Davis is a web developer, investor, author, entrepreneur, and most importantly a father. 
Hi Peter,
I’m afraid you missed the point of my post on this topic. The reason why it’s so important to have your own domain is because you then control your blog because you own it’s URL.
As someone who started out with my How to Blog site on a subdomain of typepad (the abovementioned blogging.typepad.com), my biggest frustration is this: I no longer want to use typepad as my blogging platform. Now that I’m better educated about blogging, I GREATLY prefer WordPress to TypePad. But because I didn’t start out using my own domain name, making the transition is going to be an extremely difficult one. Every single one of my links will need to be changed, every single one of my inbound links (and I’ve over 700 of them) will need to be changed, I will have lost all my PR 6 (at least temporarily) and my search engine traffic and rankings, etc. All because I didn’t think ahead and buy my own domain name EVEN if I was going to start out using typepad (with their domain mapping feature). Had I done that, when I realized that typepad was not the blogging platform of choice for me, I could simply have changed the DNS entry for my domain to point to my server, install a copy of wordpress, and set up a set of 301 permanant redirects to handle the change in permalink structure. I wouldn’t lose any traffic. People going to my old site would automatically be routed to my new one. WAY better than the alternative that I’m dealing with now - modify each post to say “this post has been permanently moved to soandso, please update your bookmarks and email all of the people who have linked to me and ask them to update their links and then cross my fingers.
I didn’t think that using my own domain name when I started my blog was very important (again, the point of my post) — I was psyched to have scored the memorable blogging.typepad.com subdomain. I never realized how much I would get into blogging, how much time of each day would be spent dealing with spam on TypePad whereas WP with the right plugins eats spam for lunch, that I’d have to moderate comments and turn off trackbacks for many of my posts because of how poorly TypePad handles spam, how many themes and plugins WordPress has, and how badly I’d want to switch my main blog away from typepad. Now I’m in a pickle b/c I didn’t think ahead. My post intent was to save other’s the hassle I’m now dealing with.
When you first start blogging, who knows if you’ll want to stick with the blogging software you initially choose? Why end up having to feel stuck with it because your URL is on their domain?
The compelling points of your argument are all about SEO, not about the essence of your blog. While what you say about the backlinks is certainly true, the importance of those links is mostly about search engine positioning, the loyal readers of your blog are the essence, along with the words you’ve written.
And those are independent to the url.
For myself I have pretty much decided this month that I want to move to my own domain, away from a blog that I have been writing for about 1 year and a bit now, with around 300 posts.
Probably one of the main reasons for this is that I don’t like the engine, much like how Emily didn’t like typepad. I have used Wordpress in setting up sites for other people, and I quite like that, expecially the plugins that you can get for it. My current hosted blog doesn’t even have spam filtering built in, which is getting to be a bigger problem for me now, and at the beginning of this month the whole service was down for almost a week and a half.
There’s a lot of work in making this move, but for me it will be worth it.
[...] #8212; Peter T Davis @ 10:08 pm
I wanted to follow up on my earlier point, about bloggers who are missing the point. It seems to me that the reason I’m thin [...]
Trust me, Peter, I’m one to be cynical too. But I think you’re off your rocker if you think that you can separate SEO from blogging. Sure you may have a semantic point in saying blogging is just writing but I suppose that’s what drives us bloggers nuts about non-bloggers. Running a blog is not seen as important enough to try to make money with, the optimize for SE, etc. How asisine is that?!
Is making money and SEO necessary to run a blog? No. But it sure helps. And the domain DOES matter. I’m really surprised by this entry, Peter. I know you. That’s why it surprises me. It sounds like you have no idea what you’re talking about.
You’re mistaken if you believe that I was separating SEO from blogging. SEO is a part of running any kind of website, blogs included. My point is that SEO is a minor part of blogging. SEO is less important to a blog than it is to pretty much any other type of website. Well, of course the exception there being splogs, but I’m not wanting to encourage anyone to do splogs of course.
I’m also not saying blogging is just writing. When I reverenced the Clue Train, I thought that readers would understand the reference, blogging is a conversation. It starts with the bloggers writing, though, that being the most important aspect of it. Without it, you have no blog. You can easily have the same valuable conversation, though, with the complete absence of any search engine traffic.
It’s really easy, Aaron, for someone to set up a blog and proclaim themselves as an expert. That doesn’t make them one. When I think of experts on the subject of blogging, people like Biz Stone come to mind, he’s made some good money from blogs. If he talked down to me, I’d suspect I’m probably in the wrong.
If someone is blogging for the purpose of earning an income, sure SEO will be very important, but I’ll tell that person that a blog is a very inefficient way to earn income. Maybe it’s even the least efficient type of website when it comes to making money. And, when it comes to finding ways to make money off a website, I do have a lot of experience on that subject.
And yes, the domain is a very minor issue. In fact, did you know that a domain may actually be very detrimental to your SEO efforts as compared to a subdomain of an established service like Blogger? Yep, you may be putting yourself at a serious handicap if you’re not extremely careful what domain you use. SEO with a new domain is like wondering blindfolded into a minefield.
Peter -
Did you read through my entire comment? Like the part that said
Yes, there are SEO elements to my recommendation to get one’s own domain. But even if you strip that away, the base point is this: by using a subdomain on typepad, you are forcing yourself to continue to use typepad whether you like it or not. Want to switch to wordpress without having your user’s experience be disrupted because you can’t set up automatic permanent redirects for them? Too bad. The process of changing to another blogging platform when you don’t own your own domain name can be disruptive to your blog readers — “the essence of your blog” — and is an experience that is entirely avoidable by owning your own domain.
Peter–
I’m surprised you think I’m talking down to you. That was not talking down to you and I thought you knew me better than that.
I also did not disqualify your entire post, merely one aspect of it that I think you’re dead wrong on. Please don’t talk down to me because you think you can.
Aaron
Aaron, I’m happy to have a level discussion with you, but when you start off by calling me off my rocker and assinine, where do you think the level of the discourse is going to go?
Yes, Emily, I recognize that as a valid issue. Certainly, if one knows that they’re going to switch from Typepad to Wordpress down the line at some point they should make preparations for it. I can’t quote figures on what percentage of blogs do change platform, but I’d venture a guess that it’s rather small. Also, please understand that my attitude on this is from my own experience, not being dismissive of your concerns. Having been through url changes on numerous occasions on a variety of websites, my perspective on it is naturally going to be different than someone who hasn’t faced it before.
As a side note to this discussion, if you’ve been watching what’s been going on with Wil Wheaton’s blog, that offers a unique insight into moving platforms/domains.
Hi Peter,
My main point is that when someone is brand new to blogging, they likely have no idea what blogging platform really is best suited for them. How could they know they’re going to switch down the line when they’re only just exploring what it’s like to blog at all?
If they at least get their own domain, they have the option down the road of exploring other platforms. I’d suspect that if the percentages of people who change platforms is small it is in large part due to the fact that users feel stuck with what they started with.
When I started out with TypePad, I had no idea that I would end up blogging as much as I did. I also really loved TypePad at that time. But that was because I’d never tried WP yet. When I discovered WordPress, I realized that I’d been missing out on a lot AND dealing with far more spam than I should need to. The more I played around with WordPress on other blogs, the more frustrated I became with TypePad. And yet my URL is blogging.typepad.com. And that’s exactly why I, and everyone else who is starting a blog, should have used my own domain name from the start.
You have no idea the number of emails that I receive on a regular basis from people who want to switch blogging platforms but don’t know how or think they can’t.
Hi Emily,
I agree with everything you’ve said. Yes, a newbie is not likely to have the skills to evaluate blog platforms. Yes, owning your own domain eliminates some of the headaches involved with switching platforms. Yes, the platform we love today may be totally obsolete tomorrow (or just doens’t meet our needs anymore).
But, owning a domain doesn’t make switching platforms that much easier. It doesn’t help you at all with the technical issues. You still have to get your data out of the old, and into the new, not to mention if you’re hosting your own blog you need to install and keep your software updated, on your own.
Yes, owning the domain does reduce the SEO issues you’ll face. You won’t really have to worry about getting all the people visiting your old subdomain.typepad.com blog to visit your new one. There are some tricks to it too, for example, what if the new platform your using constructs urls differently? All the links to your individual posts will be 404 if you don’t know how to handle it. 404 traffic is as effectively lost as the traffic to your old subdomain.typepad.com, and how many people even want to learn about 301 redirects, let alone know how to implement them? Not that it’s impossible, but I think it’s a subject that can easily confuse people.
Thanks very much for making this an interesting discussion! Perhaps there’s a market opportunity here, for someone to make a tutorial website on how to migrate a blog from one platform to another.