This post looking at conventional websites vs blogs is by Suzanne Falter-Barns from Get Known Now.
Have Blogs Killed Conventional Websites?
It’s a question that’s been bugging me profoundly since I got into blogging over a year ago. Blogs are cheap, easy, efficient, wildly easy to find on the Net, super marketing-friendly, and just plain fun. They work rings around websites.
So are conventional websites no longer necessary? To find out, I interviewed Andy Wibbels, the original blogging evangelist and author of the excellent book, Blogwild!. Here’s the short version of what I learned.
- Websites are clunky and expensive; blogs are lean and cheap.
- You have to wait for someone to make changes to your website; your blog can be changed easily by you.
- You have to wait for someone else to set up your site; your blog can be set up by you in 15 minutes.
- You can update your blog at an airport, while you’re on the run. You have to call your webmaster … and wait … to update your site.
- You can collect email addresses, and download free reports and bonuses off of a website. Same with a blog.
- You can use a shopping cart to collect money for e-commerce of a website. Same with a blog.
- You can set up a press room with all sorts of cool links and forms on a website. Same with a blog.
- It takes three to six months for the big search engines to find you with a website. It takes two or three days with a blog.
- You can easily track stats of who has visited your regular website. Same with a blog.
- The media are more likely to find you on a blog.
- You can learn more about your audience from a blog.
- You market automatically with a blog. But not with a conventional website.
- You can make a lot more friends with a blog.
The list appears to go on and on, but you get the picture. Blogs are, quite simply, the next wave. So if you’re thinking about setting up a site, stop in your tracks and turn towards blogs instead!
Note from Darren: what would you add to the above list of comparisons between blogs and conventional websites?
I’ve always described a blog as a grouping of static websites. Each post stands as it’s own website, but under a common heading. So, if you have 400 posts on your blog, you basically have 400 websites. This is great for driving traffic, since you have 400 times the chance of being indexed by search engines.
I do think the days of customized static websites is beginning to decline. Too many wyswyg programs out there and most templates can be easily changed by the average person.
One last thing. I glad most businesses have not found out the great potential that blogs have for marketing their products. Just imagine how much competition there would be for top search engines results if Sprawl-mart decided to blog on all of its’ items. Maybe we bloggers should keep that secret to ourselves.
I dont think so the blog can take over conventional websites. The bloggers can the get as much information as conventional have. The resources of personal blog is sort of limited. But the advantage of bolg is that they can concentrate one or a few filed. The reader can get the latest information at the time.
I’m sorry, but this post is overly simplistic and complete bunk. Blogs are fantastic and a great tool for online communication, but you can’t make sweeping generalizations like this. Based on this there seems to very little difference between a blog and a website.
I don’t know who runs Suzanne’s sites or how, but I can update my sites from anywhere just as quickly and easily as I can my blog. I looked at the writer’s site and I’d really question paying for advice from someone who appears to have such a poor grasp of blogs/web sites.
I realize this is a guest post, but honestly I have come to expect better from ProBlogger. This is bad advice from someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about.
I disagree this this post, sorry. I’m someone who has made his own art web site for ten years, and my blog for about three years. There are things I can do with a web site that I can’t do with a blog, there are things I can do with a blog I can’t do with a web site. Both are very strong and all major companies run web sites usually supplemented with one or more blogs. All the top sites run web sites, like the BBC News. It does not take me such longer to update my web site than it does for my blog. Everything is hand coded on a simple text editor, which keeps my mind alert for html. That understanding of html help to understand blogs especially when things go wrong. My conclusion is, that web sites are here for the very near future and most web designers have plenty of work. Your argument is one sided.
blogs are content driven..
web 2.0 is content driven
blogs are web 2.0
the point is that, blogs are much more dynamic in their nature than conventional websites and dynamism defines the web..
Websites will always have their place on the internet. Since the majority of us who come to this site are in fact bloggers, it would be easy to surmise that conventional websites are dead.
However, while blogs are great if you are constantly updating, what are the benefits of having a website instead?
1. Static (and dateless) content- You can build a site with a ton of pages and just let it go. Two years down the road, someone finding your site won’t realize that it hasn’t been updated for two years. Now I know that you can change some of the php code to make it so there is no date but then again, that would require work and possible outsourcing if you use the same argument that if you own a website, you will need to find someone to update it, right?
2. With websites, you can easily build ecommerce sites- Ever try to build an eCommerce site around a blog? I have…and that requires (once again) some knowledge of php OR outsourcing the work.
3. With websites, you aren’t looking for readers…you are looking for buyers (in most cases)- whether adsense or affiliate links or whatever, it doesn’t matter. And that is primarily the big difference between the two.
So what is the BIG advantage that blogs have over websites? .xml files for RSS feeds (which makes blogs get indexed more quickly..or so they say) and site maps…both of which you could add to a website and make it equally as powerful.
Personally, I believe that by having both(assuming that the website owner wants to deal with the headache of updating constantly) would be the best bet.
As far as blogs being “web 2.0”..I can agree that is right. But to say that static websites are a thing of the past and should be shelved is absolutely insane.
Both have their place and will have their place in the future…..
I promote musicians online and this is a cool post to pass on for them about what exactly the differences between blogs and websites and their uses are. cheers.
Different websites = different functions. Not everything is going to have the same purpose. Blogs can only go so far, and I can only read so many opinions before my head is about to explode.
Problogger folks — I think the link to Suzanne’s website in the intro is broken?
I believe blogs will kill traditional websites in the end, because blogs are alive but traditional websites are not very alive. This is why common readers like blogs other than websites.
So I have begun to build my own blog since last year, I hope I can make it be successful.
I think I’ve seen this post before, but the last time I saw it, it said “if the only tool I know how to use is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
I like blogs, I think thy’re flexible, about half of the sites I’m putting up at the moment are blogs, I develop blogs, I support blogs, but they are never going to be all things to all people. Sometimes another CMS or web app model is a better idea. Sometimes a static advert site with forum or contact form is actually the right answer.
Sorry but I disagree.
“Websites are clunky and expensive; blogs are lean and cheap.”:
– Clunky? When I added a blog to my website I had to modify the WP theme to integrate it with my site. The blog code and CSS was considerably more complex and clunky than that of my website, which was lean and simple in comparison.
– Expensive? If you create your own pages, a hosted website with its own domain name costs the same as an equivalent hosted blog with its own domain name.
Points 2-4 assume reliance on a webmaster, but with a little knowledge you can update your own conventional website just as quickly as a blog. Most hosting packages have web interfaces so you can do updates from airports, or anywhere.
“It takes three to six months for the big search engines to find you with a website.”:
– not if you submit a site map to Google. When I add new static pages they are usually indexed within a couple of days.
“The media are more likely to find you on a blog.”:
– Numerous radio and TV stations and newspapers have found me … all through my website, none through the blog.
“You can learn more about your audience from a blog.”:
– Blog comments are indeed informative. So are comments in forums, which were a dynamic feature of “static” websites long before blogs became trendy.
Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but I see blogs and conventional websites merely as different methods of presenting content. In one, the content sits in a database, and in the other, it sits in numerous text files. Both have their place, and can complement each other.
Static websites are for people who like to do a lot of work ahead and be done with it. You have to pre-plan a good static site, but then the job is much easier once it’s online. Blogs, by contrast, are for people who have trouble finishing things (like me) because their content is aggregated slowly through repeated updates.
Blogs are also easier to network for the social among us (although obviously I’m excluding forums for this comparison). In the static pages world, you rarely develop friendships that lead to more than one link, because the site is there and done with, and there are no new posts to link to.
This is a fascinating discussion and thanks to Suzanne for kicking it off.
It struck me that a lot of the comments here identify the potential downsides of relying on a blog as your sole web presence – with lots of practical suggestions about ways to get round them.
(And vice versa)
Thanks everyone
Joanna
What’s a “site”? Site is a too much general term to be used when comparing traditional sites and blogs. If a site is a set of static html pages, a blog is an improvement over a site, making the pages “dynamic” with a distinct concept of page and post. The posts are the “news” of a classical site.
But a blog is only a different (even if great) view of a part of a site. A site can have a forum, which is a step forward in respect of a blog (posts are created by the users not only by the blog owner).
A site can have an ecommerce, which is completely different and not comparable with traditional pages, blogs or forums.
A site can be a set of tools for its users, not related to ecommerce, blog, forum, galleries and so on.
Still, I think many companies would run a blog instead of start with complex CMS. A blog helps you to focus in content-relationships and not in services. Services need competence by the site owner and if they aren’t the core business of the company they will surely fail.
Over the past few months I have found that almost every website I have setup for clients are using WordPress. I find that it is really easy for the customers to update and once I have set it up then the client is on their own. Blogs and websites are merging!
…and blogs are definitely easier to promote and have people link to you. I got more traffic for one of my blogs in a few days, just by writing a good post, than having for a website of mine in months.
This is going to sound repetitive but I had to chime in…
I understand that this writer is referring too updating “static” web sites where the pages are created individually, but she does fail to understand that very few websites are created this way anymore. Blogging platforms such as wordpress, blogger, typepad and such are merely CMS (discussed above). They are just created in the fashion to get information out as quickly as possible..
There is no denying that these systems are the easiest to publish quick information, they do have their drawbacks.
I also wouldn’t recommend them to small business owners or most individuals.
Their menus are hard to edit (if you are not a techie).
Its easy to add junk to the sidebars, but also adds more and more clutter to where the sidebars are longer than the content.
You might be able to see new content quickly, but thats not vital for most people. Most people want to keep their important information seen first and then the new stuff afterwards.
Joomla and Drupal are much better at this than traditional blog platforms.
In addition, these other CMS systems can be used to add blogs in themselves without ruining the structure of the entire site.
The final problem with blogs is that they neglect interaction for information. Yes, you can have comments, but thats where the interactions end. Most of the time it is about one person spewing information and the rest reading.
You can add additional forums and profile systems to the site, but these aren’t naturally compatible with the Blog CMS. You have to be a techie to know how to add this stuff.
Other forms of CMS are much more capable of adding these features with one click installations.
Truthfully, blogs are only beneficial for sites that want to update information quickly. News and opinion related sites. Nothing more. As a techie, I wouldn’t recommend a blog platform to a Small Business Owner and therefore don’t see blogs taking over the CMS world.
Finally, check out my blog: http://www.altnoise.net :)
—- I would like to add that Blog platforms might be good for ranking high on SEO’s, but they are limiting in their potential for Small Business Owners. Its nearly impossible for someone to get to your “buy me” pages from most blog pages.
Theres my rant and I am right
it’s misleading. the only difference between “oldschool website” and “blog” is how you organise information. actually “old websites” can be more structurised (topics, subtopics etc.) than blog. and both can contain topics and tags for usability.
actually sites can contain both old style pages and blogs. moreover – with blog engines like wordpress you can build websites and website tools – blogs.
“You have to wait for someone else to set up your site; your blog can be set up by you in 15 minutes.”
Fifteen minutes to set up a blog?
Anyone who operates their blog by that belief is destined to fail. In order to attract large amounts of traffic, you’ve got to constantly be working to improve the performance and content of the blog. Fifteen minutes of blog preparation will leave you with a half-ass end result.
Other than that one notion, nice list!
“#1 – blogs are websites. Distinguishing between the two does not make sense.”
I tend to agree here. I think the article hits on some good points, but it is slightly misleading in that a blog is a website as well.
A lot of the projects that I work with are “websites” that are powered by WordPress. They function similar to a blog, but they act and look like a company website.
So I think what you meant with this piece is “Dynamic vs. Static” websites, not “Blogs vs. Websites”. And how the software that powers the two differ.
Great post though!
This distinction is quite flawed, as are many of the points. When a “site” has more than a “blog” on it, I consider it a web site. Problogger was “just a blog” until you added job boards and other functionality. Then it’s more of a web site.
Many of the successful tech “blogs” are really much more than just blogs. When you start forming distinct site sections that are different from the usual blog posts and articles, you’ve gone outside of just a blog. Tagging really gives blogs some flexibility in organization and a fluid structure, but sometimes you need additional metadata for different entries (such as reviews if you want to save the score as a separate field and sort by rating, etc) and then they are not just a blog post any more. Sure you can “blog” reviews, interviews, product info, events, etc. but they may be better organized and found outside of the typical blog structure.
>>You have to wait for someone to make changes to your website; your blog can be changed easily by you. You can update your blog at an airport, while you’re on the run. You have to call your webmaster … and wait … to update your site.
This is idiotic. A Blog is essentially a stripped down CMS. CMSs were around before blogs and powering sites.
>>It takes three to six months for the big search engines to find you with a website. It takes two or three days with a blog.
This is riddled with assumptions and an insult to educated bloggers and web site owners.
This is quite frankly one of the worst articles I’ve seen on ProBlogger. If there was some preface about what a blog is, it might make some sense, but I find it misleading and way off the mark.
A blog is a just certain type of web site embodied by a format and taxonomy. On the back-end a blog is a mini/focuesd CMS. There is NOTHING a blog can do that a web site cannot do by broad definitions of the two — except maybe the scripted setup/install based on the blog being a piece of reusable software, that in reality most web sites are not, yet some may be if they are based on a packaged CMS. However, there is plenty that a more researched and information-specific approach to information architecture of a web site can accomplish that a blog cannot.
Darren,
Ever thought of a “rate this post” on each article? Would certainly give you another metric to look at. Of course if this article generated record number of comments, it might be good, but if your users really think it is rubbish, you might want to take a look at the possible impact on your site as well. I don’t think you’re only concerned with traffic here.
The real question I am asking myself is: what are the main differences between a blog and a website? More specific, the differences between a blog CMS like WordPress and a website CMS like Joomla or Drupal.
I’m not experienced with all of these Content Managament systems… The only CMS I have used is Joomla. When I started my blog I didn’t know about WordPress… so I used Joomla. Later I thought this was a bad choice, but with some tweaking, I got Joomla to look VERY similar to a blog.
Some of the things that I don’t agree with for 100%:
1. Joomla, the website CMS i’m using, is also free. Some of the plugins are commercial and must be paid for. But that’s probably the same with WordPress.
2. You can make changes to your website just as easy as with WordPress… Just write an article, pick category and/or section and submit… Even layout, modules and menu’s are customizable in a matter of seconds.
3. A blog does have an “out-of-the-box” factor that’s definitely higher than websites — Can’t compete with that. Just sign up at blogger and you can publish within 5 minutes.
This does result in many similar looking blogs everywhere…
4. When you use a static content cms you can access your content anywhere and at any time as well.
8. I’ve been ‘blogging’ with Joomla CMS for about a month, and all my pages are indexed, several of my pages are even listed in the top 10 SERPs for several key phrases. My last post was made 2 days ago and is already indexed. So I don’t know where the “6 months” idea comes from…
Things Joomla doesn’t have:
– Pinging (No plugins for this, I think. It’s the biggest flaw in my CMS). Yet my posts are being spread just fine by using feeds, social media or just google.
– Comments (can be added as a plugin)
– Trackback (can be added as a plugin, I have this, but don’t understand the whole concept)
You can visit my “blog” @ http://www.prohealthblog.com
Quite funny how my blog actually is a website. But what’s in a name?
Darren,
yeah, blog is a clear winner. But people still look onto websites as real authority and not the blogs.
I agree with a lot of the prior comments. A blog IS a web site. ’nuff said.
Ditto to Matt above.
A blog is a website. A blog to me is just a term to indentify a flavor of CMS.
If you have a CMS you don’t need a webmaster to update, they have plugins, etc etc.
Most decent CMS’s you can use to blog, you are not confined to WordPress – Drupal, Joomla, etc
To stand out in the crowd among millions of sites you still need someone to design a good, unique template..using off the shelf stuff won’t do.
So I guess in short, I don’t understand the distinction the author is trying to make…unless he is talking about static html website vs. CMS
I don’t know if websites are dead, but I definitely agree that blogs present a fully viable alternative to conventional website development, for establishing a web presence.
I think it’s best to incorporate a blog into a website. Our whole site is built on WP.
We get the benefits of being able to update the website whenever, as well as interact with clients!
If I subscribed to a newsletter on a traditional website, and they emailed me every day, it wouldn’t take long to become annoyed.
Yet, I look forward to daily emails from blogs. So to me, there is a difference.
There will probably always be a place for non-interactive websites, but, we haven’t yet seen the real potential of blogs.
I don’t agree with “It takes three to six months for the big search engines to find you with a website. It takes two or three days with a blog.” My Website was in Google and Yahoo! (and maybe others, I didn’t check) within 2-3 days of launch. I just linked to it from another one of my unrelated sites.
Also, with “wait for someone to make changes to your website” are we assuming that site owners can’t do their own building and updating? I think the list generalizes too much.
I believe “killed” is a bit strong. How about looking at it as an evolution. You can be nimble with a blog and more often than not, the big static sites (I’m talking ginormours corporate-driven) have so much invested in them, there’s resistance to start over with anything more than a simple makeover.
Based on my own experiance sight: Both of them have pros and contras, for site its depend on what kind of content, if you create the website which build the friend matching such as friendster or my space than it will be more seach engine friendly and automated update daily. Blog more slower compare with website.
This entry is a bit biased I think. Websites are clunky? Only if they’re designed in such a way. You can setup your blog in minutes? Not if you’re a non-technical person and not if you want to do it right. (Just say “no” to free blogs) You have to wait for someone to update your site? Not if you’re technical and not if you use a nice content management system or Dreamweaver!
Anyway, not a fair assessment. A rare miss for Darren.
Don’t completely agree. Blogs are an easy entry point for everyone. However, when you look into the code behind your blog, you can get a heart attack! Even after years of running my own website with PHP, I still get lost in the massive mess that blog widgets and tools cause in the background. And when something screws up, do bloggers REALLY know where and what to look at? More than half of the bloggers I know rely on cut and paste solutions to solve their problems, not knowing that they may be causing an even messier mess. You even have to tell them WHERE to paste the code! When things get out of hand, they press the reset button : reinstall WordPress (or whatever).
I love my websites because I control the code behind it. I can’t with a blog, because EVERY damn thing is interconnected with a million and one variables. If I adjust the left toe, the right ear turns into a nose etc. etc.!!!!
Another issue I have with blogs is that every tom, dick and harry can now have a massive (spam) presense on the Internet built around content stolen from webmasters who have spent years working their tails off. I call these leeches blog(block)-heads.
Thanks for the linky-loo Darren/SFB!
I think that blogs are the simplest way to get a reference website up and running. I decided to blog my three week vacation for friends and family. I’m done with the trip, but there’s enough content and Google search traffic that I am going to put in a couple of days to redesign the theme to be more of a reference site – less emphasis on chronological posts and the RSS feed, more on re-categorization, add monetization, links to “random” posts, etc. I just need to find the time to think it through!!
I’ve done simple 5-page reference sites before. The tough part is that you lose access to all the great plug-in work and theme design that people are contributing. With over 50 pieces of content, giving up something in the short run to get it running with WP got the project going.
If someday I get a tremendous amount of hits for the static blog, I can always put in the investment to have somebody convert the content to a non-blog format.
I had a big surprise this week. I was talking to my wife this week about switching our church’s website to a blog. As the conversation went along it got more an more confusing. I realized after a while that she thought anyone could go to any blog and post an entry. Now I have been blogging for 4 years (and podcasting 2.5 years) and my wife has both an engineering degree (biomedical) and an MBA. But she does not live inside the bubble as I do. So while I agree with your conclusion, don’t assume that everyone knows.
I understand the blogs are the new way but i think that the decision to decide weather to build a blog or a traditional website is all about the structure that you want.
Of course you can change any blog to look like a website and vice verse, but if you want to choose the correct way. Just think, what is the structure to you need: is it more suitable to be a blog (more personally type, date arranged) or is it should a website ?
When you have this answers you can start and choose the right platform for your new website.
It’s not all blogs out some website can’t be transfered in a blog without loosing their core.
Last year I converted all of my websites to blogs for the simple reason of ease of updating. When I was building and working with Front Page updating was a time consuming process. My husband has his own site and he needed me to update for him. Now, with WordPress he can update on his own (geez, sounds like one of those potty training commercials! I’m a big kid now!)
The point is, I’m primarily a writer and now I can update my sites on a daily basis which is something I was never able to do before WordPress came around.
On the downside – as an entertainment reporter blogs that look like blogs are often disrespected when it comes to giving reporters access, etc. Because they’re so easy to build everyone can do it and that has made them appear less than “professional” I guess.
It’s been said several times already but since when isn’t a blog a website. It’s a site on the web. Hello?
Interesting points, but I disagree, as well. I had been happily tweaking my site for about a year using ebizwebpages.com, until I got into a “mentoring” relationship with an internet guru and he convinced me to move it to a WordPress blog. His techie said “We can make it look just like you want it”. NOT! First, it never looked exactly like I wanted it and I couldn’t change anything about how it looked myself. I finally gave up and went back to ebizwebpages.com. Costs me a little more each month, but I can add pages with different formats, change the colors, etc. all by myself. Oh, did I mention there is a blog feature, as well? It may be clunky for a pro, but for a relative newbie and non-techie like me, it works great!
I’d be willing to be Ms. Falter-Barnes has never done anything with her blog other than add content to it.
I found this column odd, really. My first site was created in 1994 and now I have four blogs and five static sites (although I’d not distinguish “static” as being the only non-blog kind of site, as some comments seem to–many dynamic sites are not blogs). The different formats serve different purposes.
Blogs have a number of drawbacks for some applications. For information sites, it is often much better for the VISITOR, to have the site created in some sort of hierarchal system, based on topics and subtopics, with the most basic, ground-floor info at the home page, working down. This makes much more sense for a browser, than a LIFO system that blogs serve.
IMO, real blogs (as opposed to a “regular,” dynamic site created with blog software) are best for a regular reader who is browsing within a theme, (like someone interested in the latest info on professional blogging), as opposed to someone wanting, for example, to take a tutorial on a piece of software.
That said, I think most of the points can readily be argued against (even forgiving the author for not realizing that blogs are a subset of websites and she should have used another term to name “non-blogs”).
(1) Websites and blogs can both be either clunky or lean; cheap or expensive.
(2) Learning to update a website (with decent software) takes not more time than learning to update a blog (with same). Both can be easily updated and modified.
(3) I actually found setting up a new site quicker than setting up a WP blog, due to configuration.
(8) Huh? My sites take about 48-72 hours to get indexed.
Not sure if it’s the same with paid hosting blogs, but the free ones like Blogspot & WordPress have a massive control over your blog as opposed to a website.
You can have your blog disabled in an instant if it’s a free one, just on the whim of a disgruntled or just maliscious visitor.
With Blogspot, you can usually get back online in a day or two. With WordPress it can take weeks or months.
It would be good to hear other’s experiences along these lines. I have paid and free blogs, but thankfully this has only happened on three occasions. Twice with Blogspot, once with WordPress. Both were free blogs.
Cheers,
Pete.
Pete,
I use BlogEngine.NET because I was looking for an open source, ASP.NET based hosting engine and, well, that’s exactly what BlogEngine is. Since I wanted something that would provide the higher level functionality of something like WordPress but also allow me to tweak things at the code level, it really fit the bill. I’ve been using BlogEngine on my site for a few months now and so far I’m happy with it.
I did, however, use Blogspot previously. For me, it was the inability to really customize and tweak things to the degree I wanted to that led me away from it. I never did have any problems with being locked out. Maybe I just got lucky?
Scott
Absolutely! I’m encouraging my clients to save their money on a website and go with a blog. In addition, I just closed down the email newsletter I’ve had for 8 years and encouraged all my subscribers to visit my blogs and sign up. I’m no longer interested in fighting the battle of bogus subscribers, trying to get through filters, and keeping up with folks ever changing email addresses.
Now, if they want the content, they can come and get it. I don’t have to keep multiple information sources going at the same time, and like you said in your post, it’s very easy for me to figure out which posts are most popular, which topics people enjoy the best and continue to refine my informal market research efforts.
Thank you for providing such a helpful resource!
Blogs VS Websites, I think that blogs have a certain audience and that Websites do also. I would have to say that I have the Internet and Also Television, I use both for different reasons, not “one or the other” – I think many technologies are this way, they become new “media” and “new ways” to access knowledge and information. I think the “real need” that I have while online is “targeting the best credible information that I am looking for” and generally that means I don’t want to waste time “surfing through sites and blogs that are not credible information” – give me the “worthy” Top 10 for a particular topic and I’ll be happy. More later- Brian Morgan
I believe that blogs have not killed conventional websites, of course this is based on the content of a conventional website and a blog.
But I do believe that blogs have come to a point where they have become a bit more relevant and faster source of information.
Well, I could be wrong.
I’m curious what do you call “conventional” website? Some non-dynamic-plain-HTML site? If so, they were dead long time before blogs were spread widely.
Now, even the minimal websites are usually manages by CMS, and usually owner can update site himself, fast and “on the run”.
I would say where is no much difference between blog run by individual and some big site run by organization (e.g. some news or informational site), just the number of authors, maybe.
OK, gotta add my 2 cents on this one.
I feel that the person who wrote this doesn’t quite have the facts strait. So let’s get technical.
A website is a website, a place on the Internet where you can store files, run code, access databases, and display web pages.
A blog a series of dated entries which can be distributed via feed and shown on webpages.
A website may have a blog in it, but it’s still a website.
Let’s use a metaphor: a house. Some houses have lots of rooms. Some only have one or two rooms. Some are used strictly for “home” living, while others are also used to run home-based businesses. No matter what kind of rooms the house has or how those rooms are used, the house is still a house. It’s not a living room. It’s not a bathroom. It’s a house.
Likewise, a website may have many parts, a blog, a forum, a file-sharing community, articles, calculators, etc. But it’s still a website.
If you run your own website, you can update it whenever you like, even at the airport. The same goes for the blog section of your site.
If you don’t know how to run your own website, or the blog on your website, then you can hire a 3rd party to do it for you. And yes, if you want to update it, you’ll have to contact the 3rd party and wait for them to update it.
And in my experience, search engines, customers, and media outlets find my websites just as quickly as they find the blogs on my websites and my sites with just blogs (usually within just days or weeks, faster if you start marketing them). And I’ve made lots of friends from my website. I’ve joined communities and added widgets. I’ve even added a commenting system to every article page, so I can get to know my visitors. Plus, here’s a little bonus, I can work out the kinks in an article, calculator, etc. by letting a small number of random online visitors test it and give feedback before I publicize and market it. This reduces the “oops I made a mistake on last week’s post” entries.