The blogging platform wars are getting really interesting and a lot of the discussion I find myself in lately revolves around what’s going on with various CMS systems. The market can essentially be defined into 3 main fields: remotely hosted, self-hosted, and community-based systems. I have used almost every blogging platform available and each has its ups and downs. In this article I will cover the best options for each area taking into account price, usability, market share and of course SEO potential.
All of these products are either open source, completely free, or have a working free version. The links have been removed from this article, so you may want to check out the best original blogging software. [http://www.profitpapers.com/reviews/best-blogging-software.php] article in Profit Papers.
Remotely Hosted Blogging Software
(Note: I can’t really recommend either of these from an SEO standpoint, as optimizing a domain you don’t own or control is obviously not a good marketing plan.)
blogger
Blogger is completely free and currently has the majority of the user base hosted remotely, but not by much. Bought by Google in 1999, Blogger essentially ignited the blogging trend we see today. It’s by far the easiest overall solution to use and if you’re a novice user looking to throw up some recipes or poetry, this is for you. Blogger is completely free and includes some great features like comments, photo blogs, and a basic community feel with user profiles. Because it’s so simplified, you may not find some features with Blogger that are only available through third-party plugins. As a side note, Blogger weblogs do pretty well on search engines and this was recently exploited and became the first choice for spam blogs or splogs. A splog is a weblog used for the sole purpose of getting inbound links or generating thousands of keyword-filled pages with AdSense and the like. The recent update to Google Jagger removed a large part of this. Free.
type pad
Released in 2003, Typepad is a product of Sixapart, the makers of Movable Type. It is largely based on MT but there are some important improvements and differences. Your blog can accommodate one or more photo albums with automatic thumbnail generation. You can easily add music, books, and other media to Type Lists, which take a thumbnail from Amazon and other retailers for easy display in your sidebar. Typepad is also much more technical than Blogger, so some knowledge of HTML is recommended. On that note, editing your blog to look the way you want it to is pretty easy too and Typepad blogs are known for being very easy on the eyes, intuitive and easy to navigate. In Sixapart’s business model, Typepad is aimed at home and small business users, while Movable Type is aimed at larger companies or for internal intranets. Price: Basic, $4.95 per month; premium, $8.95 to $14.95 per month.
Xanga
These Guys originated in 1999 as a site for sharing book, music, and movie reviews. Although it quickly morphed into a full blogging tool, Xanga still maintains the ability to run a powerful review site. Xanga pulls data from various retailers like Amazon.com, including thumbnails, prices, and a front page. The software is also very useful for newbies with a powerful WYSIWYG editor that allows easy editing of HTML, adding smilies, links and other symbols. Using the blog rings, it’s also easy to interact with the other 3 million Xanga users to share interests, ideas, and of course, traffic. Xanga comes in a free and a $25 flavor.
Mentions: Blogsome, Blogster, MindSay, Multiply,
Self Hosted Blogging Software
WordPress
WordPress originally started as a modification of an older open source package known as B2. WP is the biggest competition to MT and is often the bath of endless WordPress vs Movabletype style threads on the internet. Although it was launched just over a year ago, WP has really taken the blogosphere by storm. And for good reason: WordPress is completely free under the GNU license and is packed with features you won’t find anywhere else. It is also much easier to install and get blogged for novice users and has a very large and helpful community. WP runs on PHP/mySQL and is quite scalable judging by some of the very large and heavily trafficked sites I see using it. It also has utilities to import Movable Type, Textpattern, Greymatter, Blogger and b2 files. WordPress recently upped the ante when Yahoo recently included them in their hosting packages, in addition to MT. I have to admit that I find myself researching WP more and more and will probably convert Profitpapers to WP as I get time (it can be tricky business). WordPress is free.
Mobile types
Aside from perhaps Greymatter (the original open source blogging tool), Movabletype dominated the blogging market share in 2002-2004. Released in late 2001, the Perl-based Movable Type by Sixapart has held a large share of the blogging market, mainly due to the fact that there is a free version (supports up to 3 weblogs) and that it is incredibly powerful, intuitive and easy. personalize. Template-based Movable Type also boasts one of the largest communities of developers and blogging enthusiasts, which means lots of support, idea sharing, and of course, plugins. Movable Type can be configured to dynamically generate HTML, PHP, or any other page type you want, which means it’s incredibly scalable, fast, and loved by spiders. It is perhaps the best known blogging software for SEO purposes and is what currently powers Profitpapers and several of my other projects. Moveabletype is Free with 3 authors, 1 weblog and no support or $69.95 with unlimited weblogs, authors and full support.
text pattern
Textpattern is the brainchild of Dean Allen and was written to make publishing content easier for those who are not willing to learn HTML. Like WP and MT, Textpattern runs on PHP and mySQL for easy administration, backup, and power. What really sets TextPattern apart from others is the Textile integration. Textile is a tool to easily format content for those who don’t know HTML. WP & MT also have modules for textiles, but it is native to the Textpattern system. Another advantage of the app is its superior handling of comment spam due to its lower market share. On blogs I keep running WP and MT, I often find myself cleaning spam every day, while on some very busy text pattern sites I only get manual comment spam (not bot driven). TP is open source.
Credits: Blosxom, LifeType, Serendipity.
Community Based Blogging Software
slash
Soooo much in 1997, Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda launched a website known as Chips & Dips, powered through his student account at Hope College in Michigan. In 1999, Andover.net acquired Slashdot. Soon after, the underlying code was released as open source software called Slash. Like Movable Type and Greymatter, Slash runs on Perl, but it also has established links to MySQL and a strong track record of scaling to huge levels of traffic. To give you an idea, the term ‘slashdotted’ originated from acquiring a link on this now infamous and hugely popular tech news website and consequently watching their servers go down. If you’ve never messed with Slash, you should as it’s a pretty powerful platform. Slash is open source.
Ladle
Another popular Perl-based community blogging software is Scoop. Scoop is the software that powers Kuro5shin, DailyKos and many other busy community weblogs. Scoop took Slashdot’s idea and expanded on it, making discussion rather than news the focus of the app. Where Slashdot posts tend to be linked with added comments that point readers away from the site, Scoop targets stories written by community members that keep the reader inside their own weblog. Scoop is also well known for handling high volumes of traffic and a large, highly technical community. The scoop is free.
Drupal
Drupal is a popular open source community blogging platform with a large community of users and developers. Drupal is not only free, but it is very powerful. Instead of Perl, which is sometimes quite difficult to decode even if you’re a fluent coder, Drupal uses a PHP/mySQL framework. Drupal is also a very community-focused app with a built-in forum, download area, and hundreds of other mods and hacks. If you’re looking for a lot of functionality, try Drupal – the project has become quite mature. It’s also much easier to use and customize than Scoop or Slash. Drupal is also another open source project.
Mentions: LiveJournal, PHP Nuke.