I must preface this post by saying that many of the blogs I visit are powered by Blogger. Although I had an absolutely horrible experience with Blogger, this will not deter me from continuing to support, visit, follow, and comment on your blogs. This, my dear readers, will never change. However, I needed to make a change for my own site. And since many of you have been asking me why I made the decision to leave Blogger and make the move to WordPress, I am going to dish right now.

Basically, Blogger was like a really bad boyfriend to me; he was always late, sometimes unresponsive, totally unreliable, never supportive, and acted like he owned me. A girl can only take so much before she reaches her breaking point. And this girl had enough.

Blogger Was Always Late and Sometimes Even Unresponsive: My own blog would take time to load and some blogs I visit frequently would take so long to load, and some not at all. This process proved that Blogger was never on time. Even worse, to try and comment on a blog that had restricted users to Google accounts only? Blogger was never on time. Most often, I couldn’t wait around long enough for Blogger to show its face. Is this an Internet Explorer issue? Perhaps. Did it happen to all users? No, but I was certainly one of the lucky ones. Even when I downloaded Google Chrome and other “tricks” that were suggested to me, these problems still existed. This is when I totally reached my threshold.

I need a platform that will always be on time and responsive. I want my page to load easily for readers and make adding a comment a pleasure, not a hassle. No need for logins, passwords, page loads, pop-ups, none of that garbage. One quick form without any login necessary.  Completely a fast process that’s consistently easy, seamless. Effortless.

Blogger Was Unreliable: Aside from sometimes not being able to leave a comment all together, there were a few occasions when I was completely locked out of my own blog! I received either a Google server error message or one of those crazy error messages full of code that actually would not let me on my own damn blog! I couldn’t even get to my Dashboard to post my sheer frustration with Blogger. Did it happen all the time? No. Enough to spook me? Absolutely. Enough to make me leave? You better believe it.

I can’t be worried that every time I login to my blog, there is a chance something has gone terribly wrong. I don’t want to have to hold my breath every single time to make sure that my Dashboard will completely appear. Blogger showed me time and time again that it’s simply not reliable. I need a platform that will give me peace of mind when I login to my blog, it will be there!

Blogger Was Not Supportive: With the many issues I was facing, Blogger never came around to help me. I would share my frustration and issues on the help forums and the administrators would never respond to me; not in an email or on any of the Blogger help forums. My time spent there was completely useless. I worried that there would come a day that I would be locked out of my blog for more than a few hours and then what? Hope the Google police would rescue me? Not a chance.

I need a platform that encourages support. I need a community of users that will help you when you need guidance, be there for you in time of need, and help you to find your way through code when you’ve screwed something up. You will get a response from some WordPress gurus on twitter almost instantaneously, let alone the hundreds of users who login to the help forums to chat and support hourly. There is always someone there, regardless of your issue or time of day. Especially since I am a new user, I foresee myself chatting on these boards a lot, and that’s the kind of support I need.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying WordPress won’t have its own issues. Give me some time and I’ll probably find some pitfalls, but at least with WordPress, there is an entire community ready to provide support and give you the help you need. To me this is priceless, and it’s something Blogger could never and will never provide.

Blogger Owned Me: Need I say more? Although I wrote and owned my content, I was always at the mercy of Google. If Google was down, so was my blog. If Google EVER decided one day to erase my little blog out of the blogosphere, it could be done instantly because my domain was pointed to Google, and technically they could do whatever the hell they want with it. This goes for all blogspot addresses as well. Using Blogger, you will always be at the mercy of Google. I have come to realize since I am paying a hosting company as well as my domain name to have a dot com, I want a little piece of that action and I certainly deserve that.

On the WordPress platform, my blog is mine and all mine. I own it. All of it. If Google crashed tomorrow, I will still be standing.

So you see, Blogger was like a really bad boyfriend that I finally realized needed to go. Was I scared to leave? Totally. Was it a leap of faith? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, I had to follow my gut, and my gut was telling me to move on.

As for WordPress? Well, he’s the kind of guy that I want to stick around for the long haul. I see a real future together; one full of stability, reliability, and endless support.

And the best part?  He doesn’t own me.

I do.