I am switching my domain name from blogspot to ".com".Blogger will remain my host. My blog has PR3 with around 500 backlinks.If I change my domain name, will it affect the PR of my blog?
Yes, the unfortunate reality is, "myawesomeblog.blogger.com" and "myawesomeblog.com" are two distinct URL's, and therefore are judged as two distinct websites and therefore your PR, Links and anything else do not transfer. If you were changing the name from "myawesomeblog.com" to "mykickassblog.com" you could use a 301 permanent redirect, which might transfer your PR but you cannot do redirects with Blogger blogs. This is why some people recommend always spending the money to buy a domain and not use a free service like blogger, at least if you intend to make money, own your product and be able to move or sell it some day. There may be a better solutions than this one, but you could try editing all your posts to include links to your new blog. At least that might send a little juice.
You need to use 301 redirect (permanently moved), and afaik you can't set it up on blogger. So you can try to use javascript with meta refresh redirect: http://www.dannytalk.com/2008/07/26/how-to-301-redirect-from-blogger-to-wordpress/. Though, I don't know, if Google will pass PR with it (I guess not).
Google will see it as a new site (new pr, new bl) since you can't do a 301 redirect on to your new site in blogger. You might want to consider writing new content too or port over all your content and just leave just a big link from your old site to your new one.
Thanks to all.DP members have been really helpful to me I think it is better to stay with blogger at this time. The transfer procedure has been neatly provided by Blooger helpers. How do I use a custom domain name on my blog? What I find interesting is the part: " * Your original Blog*Spot address will automatically forward to your new domain. That way, any existing links or bookmarks to your site will still work. " So does it mean that I would still get the traffic which I have been getting uptill now.Only the PR would be affected.
The new doamin will not show the PR until after the update. At that point all PR you had for the blogspot will transfer as long as you direct your domain to point to blogspot and continue to use them as your host. I done this and on the update, the PR was the same for both URLs. Both URL addresses will still work also.