I am asked this question in every Blogshop. Here’s the short answer:
A website uses pre-entered data on its pages.
A blog showcases new content on a regular basis.
Ready for the long answer? Here’s what’s the same for both:
Both websites and blogs are hosted on a server, consist of web pages, have hyperlinks, and a homepage that is accessed through an internet address (or URL). Both can contain text, images, video or other content. Both are accessible via the Internet. (There are also privately-accessible websites called intranets.)
Both websites and blogs can be static or dynamic; either their pages are written in a code (often HTML) that is the same to anyone looking at it —static, or the content is changed “on the fly” depending on such things as searches, logins, or date-driven data—dynamic. Blogs, technically, can be both static and dynamic, but in almost every case, a blog uses programming code (php, MySQL) to create and manage its regularly changing content.
The important difference between a website and a blog is the ability for the blog owner to change her content regularly and easily without going into the code.
This may not be everyone’s definition, but for those of you looking to put up your own blog, it is a big distinction. Search engines like Google love regularly changing content, so a blog should have new articles as often as possible. When I am posting 3-5 times per week, and I am using social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to link back to my posts, the traffic on my site is high. This changing content along with the comments on the blog, raise a green flag for search engines.
Here is a good question: Why does Google or Bing or Dogpile like changing content? It’s not much use asking the search engine companies themselves because of the status of proprietary information; they’re not going to freely tell you their trade secrets or long range plans. But, if you think of a “Googlebot” out searching the Internet looking for new content to index, and all you had were pages and pages of the same data, don’t you think the little bot would be hungry for something different? It may be a self-serving aspect of a search engine’s MO, but finding new content feeds its purpose and keeps it alive. The fact that the Web changes every nano-second, keeps the whole thing teeming with information and, of course, revenue.
So blogs are perfectly placed to receive indexing love because, like plankton in the ocean, rich content is the most basic form of food. On the Web, new thoughts, ideas, and blog posts make it possible for everything else to keep functioning. Anyway, that’s my theory. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me why you think search engines adore changing content.
Here’s another question I often receive in Blogshop: Can your blog be a website, too?
Yes, it can! There is an exciting change in the business world. Blogs were often tacked on to the last place in the navigation bar of a website to generate some of that indexing love. But if you are a small business owner without a website, you can start a blog and have it do double duty as your online presence until you can design one.
A blog has both posts and pages. A post is an individual article, like the one you are reading right now. Once each post is published, it slides into chronological order on the home page of your blog. By default, a blog’s homepage is the series of posts, (but you can change that in Settings/Reading).
So if you self-host your own site (instead of using blogspot, blogger or wordpress.com), when you create new pages on your blog, you are in essence creating a page just like on a website. Close off comments, publish, and you have begun your website-like navigation bar.
I hope this helps clarify the similarities and differences between blogs and websites. But if you still have questions, or would like to add your own thoughts, please leave a reply, below.
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Illustration source: Webology.ir, Infographic Labs and the Blog Herald
