Reality Check WordPress vs Blogger

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Paul Whybrow

Full Member
Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
I’ve sounded off about the complexities of using WordPress to run a blog and website in a couple of old threads:

https://colony.litopia.com/threads/the-help-paul-with-wordpress-thread.6139/#post-73076

As I’ve said before, I find WP needlessly complex and downright obstructive. Just looking at the dashboard makes me feel confused and annoyed. To do anything on my PaulPens writing blog and the Cornish Detective website usually requires me to search on Google for how to do so—it’s not an intuitive site.

2021 is going to be devoted to self-promotion, so last night I visited my two sites for the first time in four months intending to add posts and information about my foray into creating audiobooks. Foolishly, I updated the blog to the latest version of WP—it’s one of the most hacked sites in the world, so I figured that any increased security would be sensible. I always included pictures on my posts, but the new block way of posting frustrated me, so I gave up before going medieval on its ass! :angry-face-with-horns:

I’m also out to promote my post-American Civil War Art Palmer series, which I recorded as audiobooks. I didn’t have a website for him yet, so decided to try out Blogger as a venue, as I’d read that it was simpler to understand. I penned two posts, one portraying Art, the other describing my motivations for writing the first story and opened an account with Blogger—easy-peasy, as it’s a part of Google and much of the information needed is already in my Gmail accounts.

I was delighted with how simple it was to upload my posts to Blogger and it was intuitive to understand, with pictures and videos easy to embed. I felt calm and confident doing so...the opposite of how I feel trying to use WordPress.

It’s true that WP has loads more features than Blogger, but for me, they’re unnecessary fripperies! I love the bare bones design of Blogger.

Put it this way, using Blogger feels like taking the saddle of a fairground carousel, whereas WordPress feels like trying to tame a bucking bronco!

Which do you prefer?

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I’ve sounded off about the complexities of using WordPress to run a blog and website in a couple of old threads:

https://colony.litopia.com/threads/the-help-paul-with-wordpress-thread.6139/#post-73452



As I’ve said before, I find WP needlessly complex and downright obstructive. Just looking at the dashboard makes me feel confused and annoyed. To do anything on my PaulPens writing blog and the Cornish Detective website usually requires me to search on Google for how to do so—it’s not an intuitive site.

2021 is going to be devoted to self-promotion, so last night I visited my two sites for the first time in four months intending to add posts and information about my foray into creating audiobooks. Foolishly, I updated the blog to the latest version of WP—it’s one of the most hacked sites in the world, so I figured that any increased security would be sensible. I always included pictures on my posts, but the new block way of posting frustrated me, so I gave up before going medieval on its ass! EMOJI

I’m also out to promote my post-American Civil War Art Palmer series, which I recorded as audiobooks. I didn’t have a website for him yet, so decided to try out Blogger as a venue, as I’d read that it was simpler to understand. I penned two posts, one portraying Art, the other describing my motivations for writing the first story and opened an account with Blogger—easy-peasy, as it’s a part of Google and much of the information needed is already in my Gmail accounts.

I was delighted with how simple it was to upload my posts to Blogger and it was intuitive to understand, with pictures and videos easy to embed. I felt calm and confident doing so...the opposite of how I feel trying to use WordPress.

It’s true that WP has loads more features than Blogger, but for me, they’re unnecessary fripperies! I love the bare bones design of Blogger.

Put it this way, using Blogger feels like taking the saddle of a fairground carousel, whereas WordPress feels like trying to tame a bucking bronco!

Which do you prefer?



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ADDENDUM

I should add that although I adore Blogger, posting on it caused me some confusion at first.

There’s loads of advice online, including on YouTube, but it’s outdated and not applicable to the latest version which was released in October, 2020.

I write a post in LibreOffice Writer, then cut and paste it into the blog. At least, that’s how I did so with WordPress. The first time I posted to Blogger, the first line showed fine, but the rest of the sentences were piled on top of each other in a horrid black smudge! :confused:

A bit of online searching showed me that I had to make the post by choosing HTML view instead of Compose view—click on the pencil icon at the top left of the page. Paste your post there, which will bring it up in the usual HTML gobbledegook, then click on Compose view to return it to normality.

Inserting pictures and videos is simply done by choosing their icons on the toolbar... the same as the Colony uses.

One warning about images is to find a pic that will fit the page - that is, not a huge file size unless you don’t mind altering your photo with an adjuster app.
 
I haven't tried Blogger. I use WordPress. I agree their new editor sucks--I always click back to 'classic' editor to edit my site. It's going to kill me when they remove the classic editor entirely. I did once work out how to insert a photo in the new editor, but promptly forgot and couldn't figure it out again (I'll admit I didn't try too hard, but went back to the classic editor instead. LOL!).

I used to create my website from scratch using Dreamweaver. By comparison, WordPress is so easy, I can't complain. The lack of control over every aspect of my site annoys me from time to time, but the trade off of not spending days on end fiddling with little details is probably worth it.
 
I haven't tried Blogger. I did struggle a bit at first, getting used to the new Block Editor on WP. Adding categories and tags still bemuses me at times. But I love the features.
 
Using WordPress makes me think of looking at the flight deck of a Jumbo Jet, whereas using Blogger is like folding a paper aeroplane!

One disadvantage of using Blogger is that I couldn’t make my site self-hosted by using CloudAccess.net, which I’d used for my writing blog Paul Pens and the Cornish Detective website, as they only provide internet space for WordPress and Joomla. The easy solution was to pay Google for domain space. They offered me a long list of addresses based on my blog name Art Palmer – Civil War Survivor and I chose a .com version as .com addresses are the most clicked on. It cost £10 for one year.

I’m going to make the new blog look more like a website (I hope) by following the instructions in this article:

How to Create a Regular Website With Google Blogger

The other thing that urgently needs doing is to optimise my sites for access by mobile phone users.

I used to be a writer, you know….:rolleyes:
 
I enjoy blogger @Paul Whybrow because it is so innovative. The themes or backgrounds are fantastic and you can change them if you get fed up of one without having to make too many adaptions. Here's a taste of what my favourite themes look like in practise-

MAGAZINE version © Eva Ulian- The best and the worst- and not only...
FLIPCARD version © Eva Ulian - Il meglio e il peggio- e non solo...
SNAPSHOT version © Eva Ulian DOGS and CATS... A PICTURE A DAY KEEP THE CATS AT BAY

I didn't know you can also create a regular website with Google Blogger- this is one of the first things I will look into as soon as I have a moment free. If I can get it fixed up that would be an extra bonus since the general advice is that your blog and website should all be in one unit so as not to disperse your visitors all over the place.... as is the case with me at the moment.
 
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