For the first-time blogger, deciding which platform to sign up with, comparing features is important. How much is advertising and how much is truthfully telling what you can really do? Today marks the start of a new series, comparing the features of WordPress and TypePad, as they are advertised on the TypePad Features website and the WordPress Features website.
It’s so funny. A year ago, after testing both systems, I knew very little about everything WordPress, but I fell in love with everything TypePad in an instant. Today I know I should have stayed with WordPress. A year ago I probably would have sided with johnny on his post about TypePad for serious bloggers. Today, I’m actually defending WordPress more than I thought I would ever do, hence my compulsion to leave a long comment on that post.
One of the biggest differences between TypePad and WordPress is how to insert images in post. As a long-term TypePad user I am really confused by this.
Just like WordPress, TypePad too has an easy “insert image” button/icon in the composer toolbar. But what happens when you click this button in WordPress is very different from TypePad. In this post I will try to explain the differences as best I can. As it turns out, WordPress does have some tricks up the sleeve that TypePad has not. TypePad on the other, seems more straightforward and intuitive for the inexperienced blogger. Which one is better I leave up to you to decide.
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What amazes me is how different image display works in WordPress versus TypePad. A thumbnail in TypePad pops up neatly on top of the post in a new window the exact size of the image. Nice and as it should be; to me that is the whole idea about having a pop-up image. In WordPress, there’s a whole new window blocking my post, see examples below.
The ability to preview posts as they actually will appear on your blog is one thing where WordPress differs considerably from from TypePad…in favor of WordPress, huge favor that is. As soon as you have saved your post, before it is published, you can preview your post on WordPress, thus allowing you to do some more editing or tweaking, change line breaks or paragraphs, move images around or whatever, until you are completely satisfied. And then you can publish. TypePad cannot do this.
One of the things I don’t like about TypePad is the way TypePad handles image URLs if you’re having multiple domains or blogs in one account. TypePad is unable to separate one domain from the other when it comes to inserting images. All images are linked to the main domain or the default blog associated with the account, not with the domain mapped to the blog you are inserting the images into. However, there is a workaround.
Why keep only one blog? If you’re serious about blogging you will soon realize that maybe you should keep several blogs, each hosting its own unique topic. One fun blog, one serious blog, and maybe one (password-protected) for family and friends only?
In WordPress that is no problem. Because with WordPress you can have an unlimited number og blogs in one account, each with 3GB space, and what more could you possibly want?
At TypePad, the TypePad “Basic” account at $4.95/mo only allows one blog, TypePad “Plus” at $8.95/mo allows 3, and only starting from TypePad “Pro” at 14.95/mo you can have unlimited blogs. That’s rather expensive, but if you prefer TypePad, maybe it’s worth it.
In conclusion, WordPress is better than TypePad if you want to have many blogs for free.
Starting to use a new tool like TypePad or WordPress, you will often frequent the help section to find answers to your problems or issues or how-to-questions. Before you read any further, let me make it clear from the start that I am talking about online support or online help, not the support you get by asking a direct question to customer service. So, is TypePad better than WordPress, or vice versa?
When I moved my old static website to a blog format I was faced with a seemingly unsolvable dilemma: My domain had been up for some 8 years, with a Google PR of 5, and with a considerable numbers of links coming in from Google or other searches and/or websites. How could I retain my links in and not loose readers? I assumed that Google eventually would update its results, but could I be sure? That’s where TypePad’s File Manager came in handy. It allowed me to create directories and files to “mirror” my old site and automatic redirect the old html-file to the new html-file of the posts on TypePad that had been created from my old pages, i.e. creating a “www.mydomain.com/mydirectory/myfile.html” on TypePad, which auto-redirected to “www.mydomain.com/blog/year/month/mynewpost.html”, which was where my old page was now sitting in my new blog. This way no search results or old links in would get lost. Many pages also had links to uploadable files, so instead of re-writing all links in all posts I just re-created the directory the files were sitting in and uploaded the files to there using the File Manager.
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