I've been using Blogger off and on for about 6 months, but I've recently became more serious about the direction I'm going and I'd appreciate some input on a few things. From the perspective of a guy who isn't up to speed on programming does it make sense to switch to Wordpress.org if I want to accomplish the following.1) Create a website address brand without having the annoying blogspot.com in my address name? Perhaps I can buy an address and forward it to blogger. 2) If I switch to wordpress.org and find a hosting service is the site building similar blogger? 3) Blogger is easy to maintain when it works. Is wordpress more reliable (Note: I am becoming increasingly annoyed with google blogger because I cannot update my blog as often as I want because it will not save, delete, etc. or save my work. Even though I clean my cache once a day this doesn't solve the problem.4) Does have a blog with blogger automatically increase my ranking? 5) I created a new account at wordpress.com and picked out a template I like a lot. The only problem is I cannot create ads unless I fork out $300 p/month. I just started using adsense and I'm nowhere near those earnings on a monthly basis, so it doesn't make sense to pay that much money without having everything in place. 6) Are there are other blog builders that I can look into? 7) I posted an issue about adsense's search option and that is a major issue for me down the road as it defeats the purpose of my blog about providing the ability for my readers to search my site for a specific topic I've written about. I'd like to pick out a template I like, unless I can keep the one I have with wordpress.com and modify the html coding to my liking as I learn how to do that. I welcome your input.-J.R.
