If You Use Blogger- There Is Something You Should Know

I finally decided to get my own domain and now I'm officially www.doghairaccessory.com! No more .blogspot for me. It's great. It's easy. It's shorter. And it's cheap! (I used godaddy.com)

After doing that, I thought, Wow! Nothing I'm doing is changing. I'm still logging into Google and typing up my posts in Blogger. This is great! But then I thought about something I read recently..

Tom's mom showed me an article the other day about blogging and whether or not we, as bloggers, own the content we're putting forth. I was obviously intrigued and started looking into it. I love that Blogger is a Google Service since I'm comfortable with Google and their security and I've been using their other services so long, I know what I'm doing. I never had thought about the possibility that publishing thru their service would mean the content is no longer mine.

I looked up articles, terms, FAQs and here's some interesting things I found.

Per Google's Terms Of Service:

"You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours"

That's a relief. But like the article says, that's almost false reassurance, because of what else it says-

"When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content."

Ok. So basically Google can take any and all of my ideas, quotes, and photos and do as they please? It goes on to add that they won't use these things for just any ol' reason. Only for...

"...the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones."

Right. So basically anything they want.

Now the content you're posting on here is YOURS. You can do whatever you want with the content. But by publishing it thru a Google Service, you are saying, "Sure!" to Google using it however they see fit as well.

Lisette went though terrible experience with Blogger/Google deleting her design site because she wasn't posting anything new. They just told her it was gone. Luckily she got it back but soon after she switched to self hosted Wordpress and seems infinitely happier.

So what's my next move? For now I'm gonna stay on Blogger. But I will be looking into switching. Mostly I don't want to spend a shit ton of money to move everything over and get a new design (assuming I'd have to). So you win Google. For now.

What are your thoughts and/or experiences with Blogger vs Wordpress vs self hosting? If it's too long to leave in a comment, email me at acosta0097@gmail.com



Now, I want you to meet Jenny! She owns an etsy shop called Hole In Her Stocking Designs and she sells some really cute jewelry! My favorite piece is the turquoise and silver bracelet. Learn a little more about her and her shop!



1. What is your the meaning behind your shop name? 
"Hole In Her Stocking" is actually part of the lyrics of the song "Dance With A Dolly" (my blog name) that my grandma and mother used to sing with me as a child. Some of my earliest memories. Song went as follows... "Gonna dance with a dolly with a hole in her stockin', While our knees keep a knockin', and our toes keep a rockin', Dance with a dolly with a hole in her stockin', Dance by the light of the moon"

2. When and why did you start your shop? 

I started this particular shop in 2011 because I love designing jewelry and always got compliments on everything I made and wore. I have just recently started to take this shop more seriously and will be adding a lot of new designs in coming weeks.

3. What is your favorite item in your shop and why? 

The Mint Beaded Bar Bracelet because I love the color and how pretty and dainty it is.

4. What has been the most rewarding thing about starting your shop? 

Having a great creative outlet and making money while at it. 




Meet My Favorite Texas to North East Transplant!

17 comments:

  1. Good info to know! Sneaky bastards! The only thing I loath about wordpress is commenting is a PAIN! I hate entering all that info every time. I thought word verification was though

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  2. Super good to know! I've always wondered why people switch to wordpress, makes sense.

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  3. I bought my domain name from godaddy awhile ago and I have not been able to figure out how to synch it with my blog or switch over my name or however you do it! Any tips? I'm usually not a tech idiot but I cannot seem to figure this one out!

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  4. I'm sure this is exactly how Google (and the NSA) want me to feel, but at this point in life, I don't think it's worth stressing about privacy/ownership. No matter what platform you use, people all over the world have access to your content and can use it how the please by pressing ctrl + c, ctrl + v.

    P.S. I would bet wordpress has a similar policy, but I haven't checked.

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  5. I have thought long and hard about switching to Wordpress, but I haven't done it yet. It means transfering everything over and a new design (I don't think the Blogger designs work in Wordpress). I just can't justify it right now. I think you need to make a good amount from your blog to make it worthwhile, and I just don't. So, I am sticking to Blogger too.

    Ever since Lisette posted that, I try to regularly backup my blog to make sure what happened to her won't happen to me. I've had good success with Blogger so far, so I can't really complain, but I have thought of switching multiple times.

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  6. If you're worried about your blog getting deleted (and even if you're not) you should always back up your blog every once in a while so if something weird does happen, you can just toss it straight back up! (You can do this under Settings - Other - Export Blog. I do it every couple of months just in case!)

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  7. Let us know what you decide. I thought of switching myself to a private domain but being a computer clueless airhead, I don't know what that entails... Live & learn.. & then teach me :)

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  8. Regular old wordpress isn't that exciting and is a lot more limited than blogger when it comes to customization/design/etc however a self hosted word press has been great for me so far. The biggest complaint I've heard is that Wordpress is harder to understand on the design end of things...which is why everyone charges more to create a wordpress blog as opposed to a blogger blog.

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  9. I do not not not want to switch all of my content over to Wordpress. When I first started my blog I tried setting it up through Wordpress and could not figure one freaking thing out. No thanks! I maintain my blog myself and do any design things myself now (hence it looking like hammered shit) and don't want to pay to play.

    I do second backing up your blog.

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  10. I tried a blogger platform for my brother and didn't like it so when I started my blog I started with a self-hosted Wordpress site. The only downside of self-hosting is security of your blog is your responsibility. I have had issues with Malware that I had to figure out with lots of research. Overall though I love it!

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  11. I went to a blogging conference last weekend and everyone was very pro-Wordpress for the same reason. Switching over sounds like a pain and does cost money but it may very well be worth it!

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  12. This is something I think about a lot too.... I would LOVE to switch to Wordpress, but it sounds really expensive. And I'm definitely not in a position to spend 100+ dollars on that.

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  13. These are nice things to know! I've played around with Wordpress a few times but I feel like following and reading other blogs is just easier with blogger. I get that they could use my content, but it's the same thing as instagram potentially using my pictures for their own purposes, right? Anything you put on the internet can be taken by anyone. I'm with you on trusting google though- for as long as I've used them I've been happy and I guess continuity rules out other rules... for now.

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  14. I was about to switch to Wordpress because I heard the same stuff but there is so much involved. I felt better about blogger when I saw some extremely successful blogs were run on Blogger. I am going to switch to my own .com though. Was it hard to do??
    P.S. Thanks for my awesome spotlight!! =)

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  15. I had thought to switch to wordpress but that one is a spoiled guy . Blogger's easy to use but SEO loves WP more . But I feel I'd always stick to blogger , SEO isn't my type.

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  16. I'm on blogger and have been since I started blogging four years ago, but I'm strongly thinking of switching to self-hosted wordpress. I know it's not as 'easy' as blogger, but I don't like the fact that google can shut me down any ol' day they feel like it.

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  17. Interesting! I just started a Blogger today. I wouldn't have expected anything less from Big G though ;)

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