I see a lot of people trying to market there web site using someone else domain. Like bloggers.com People seriously buy your own domain. I looks more professional and your not making someone else rich.
Plus another advantage - if you have your own domain it's yours for life (well, as long as you keep renewing). If you transfer to another host - not an option with free blogging platforms - you don't need to worry about losing all your traffic and backlinks.
Whoever is serious about web site business MUST have a domain of it's own - and budgets are so small it is ridiculous to say 'no budget' - what do you need a few dollars per month that you spend anyway??? My guess is that people are going into it too 'see' how it works and then they might decide to buy a domain name or not...but therre is a big pitfall to that - imagine that you run a blog and you are growing - more users more traffic more everything --- and then you decide to buy your own domain. Well, you have to brand your name all over again, redirect your users - which most of free hosters won't allow you, build up links again...a lot of work and problems - so I suggest that if you are serious about it buy your domain name and go for it!!!
With domains as cheap as they are these days I don't see how anyone could use the words "no budget" as an excuse not to have one.
100% agree with the above. i had a bad experience with a free Yahoo website. After 3 years of work, suddendly the url was banned without reason or explanation. Never again with a free service, free blog etc. Never!
I would never make a website that i wanted to become successful. But, if people are just starting out on webdesigning and wanted to try things out before they invested money, by all means its okay.
you forget that a lot of sites like blogger and myspace and such are hooked into vast networks of people who often go from blog to blog or page to page without ever leaving the network. this can be a great advantage if you work it right.
I mean I bought my domain it costss me $7.17 then hosting I pay to get hosted on a actually decent server the minimum is $5 dollars. If you cant put 5 dollars a month into your business then you shouldn't try to have one
The blogs are just a way for people to get connected, very few use them to make money off of so I dont see anything wrong with it myself.
For those who do though. I mean even If i were to lets say get a blog and get it hosted I still wouldn't use one of those services I'd get hosted on a real domain :\
Theres no such thing as a small budget! I Started with $10 bought a domain for 7.99 and sold it for about 50 cuz someone liked it then I started my empire which is pretty big IMO I have well over my $10 that I started with! And to get that $10 I did sites like treasuretrooper! NO suck thing as no or little budget!
The domain doesn't cost much. It's finding a host that's not too expensive per month. Then, can you FTP? How many pages do you get? Email accounts? etc.
We have several clients with their own domain but still use Blogger against our advice. Our biggest argment for utilizing their own domain is "branding" of thier blog. Other considerations about using third party solutions is that the solution provider can cancel your account anytime for any reason. Kiss your traffic and rankings goodbye. The could also start charging a fee determined by them for the service. They could also monetize your blog at their discretion.
some people use free service coz they need a "convenience" they dont need to worry about register, dont have to worry about file upload/download, dont need to worry about hosting and so on. those free service can make them set up quick and easy. ^^
If your just trying to get your feet wet think about this: somebody might take that name you really wanted. Unfortunately you have to be a risk taker if you want to start your own business.
To build any kind of site takes time and lot of patience - there is no get rich overnight scheme - too many people think that they will get rich on the net and do NOTHING, but all those guys that are making a living out of it or are on the good way to make it happen, they know how much effort you have to put in it....ehhh, this is not the subject... BUY your domain and WORK on it!