It's common knowledge that it's better to get a self-hosted blog rather than use free hosting from Blogger or wordpress.com, because you technically don't own the blog and it could be shut down at any time. But I'm curious how this works if you use the custom domain upgrade on Blogger. Who really owns the blog? You own the domain, but Google is still hosting it for you. If I do this, do I really own my blog? Can anyone clear this up for me?
Yes... even though you use custom domain, but all host keep handle by Blogger. But custom domain always more secure then use default blogger sub-domain (.blogspot). If next day Blogger disable your blog, you can still built it back with new account. Just use export and import menu.
I have couple of blogs which are hosted in blogger but has own domains.But I still own the domain only.If blogger delete my blog then I wont have nothing to do there.All I can do is just keep backup of my blog and if blogger delete then I can host it using any other platform like wordpress.
I agree with everyone above, and i want to add something, if you change the host, example the hosting company is in Europe, your ranking in SERPs can be different. (because of the host IP). The best is getting your domain and a webhost (most webhost has the domain included in the package), it costs about a bottle of your coke a month anyways. So in fact it is not expensive especially if you want to blog for a long time, means you would work for your blog. I would choose my own domain and my own webhost.
That's what my understanding too when I previously used blogger. I upgrade my blogger account with a self-hosted domain.
@KimiGermany: So, where did you host your blog? Hostgator or Godaddy? Which one best between both? And how to analyze it?