Need Advice to move to a Paid blogger

[DigitDonz]

Dear Friends, I am a hobby blogger at blogspot (http://hackingdonz.blogspot.com) and now I have planned to buy a domain and I have also chosen ( decided )the domain name (www.softwaredonz.com), and my problem is choosing the service that I need to go for, google at blogger suggests with Godaddy they offer the domain for 10$ - is it a better choice to go or are there any better options, I am planning to blog with blogger and buy only domain, so if someone types www.softwaredonz.com it should be redirected to http://hackingdonz.blogspot.com, Please help me..

[goobimama]

Redirecting is very much possible with a paid domain. Costs nothing. However, why not add some space and you can then move out of blogger onto your own web space? You can even use Blogger CMS if you so choose to.

Remember, if for some reason Google thinks you are spamming in your blog, they will delete it without warning, so all your hard work will go down the drain. With wordpress you can backup your database, move to a different server whenever you feel like, and add endless number of plugins and templates.

As for hosting you can either go with hosting from Godaddy and such, or use one of our inhouse web hosting guys who have posted their services in the Bazaar section...

[DigitDonz]

Thank You goobimama, but I have posted 64 post on my blog and is not easy for me to switch to wordpress, again I have worked hard to make my blog visible to some readers - If I switch to wordpress now I will loose what I have done so far, What do u say?

Anyway I am very pleased with your detailed response.

[din]

Why not the reverse ? I mean if you have a lot of people reading your blog, why not a redirection like - when they type your blogspot address it goes to your site. Will that work ?

Regarding domain registration, yes Godaddy is very good in that. The control panel is pretty neat and we have total ' control' over domain. If you are looking for web space, follow Goobi's suggestion. But I will not recommend Godaddy for hosting. They are excellent in domain, but from my experience (some php stuff didn't work in Godaddy hosting, but that was 1-2 yr back, they might have fixed it now) I prefer other hosting providers than Godaddy.

Finally - did you register your domain yet ? If not, giving the name in a public forum is not a good idea. People may click it, some a**** company wil grab it using some techniques and you will lose it. So if you didn't register the domain, then remove that from your post - safety measures.

[iMav]

Well you see having your own domain name helps in shifting hosts. I have purchased my domain through GoDaddy and now can easily shift my hosts without any issues. So, I'd say get yourself the domain name, stay at blogger for some time, till most of you readers know about you new domain, hopefully you have feedburner for your feeds, that's it, you will face minimal loss in viewership.

[goobimama]

Moving 64 posts is not much. Besides, you can always for like two months or so till your readers figure out you have moved, post a full post in Wordpress, and just post an excerpt along with a link on your blogger account (don't post two full posts on both though). Also, use feedburner so you don't lose your RSS readers.