5 Major Differences Between A Blog And Website

Differences between a blog and a website are highly searched in today's online arena. Blogging/blog terms are so intensely used around the net, that many newbies get stuck on the point here. So i thought why not to mention the basic differences between the two ways by which we can publish our content online.

To summarize, blog is a type of a website (Web log= Blog). Website is a general term. (site on web=website). You might have heard about those static sites and dynamic sites.

blog vs. website major differences and comparison

That idea supports the Blog vs Website theory. There are few technical differences, as to how the data is presented to the readers. We would also discuss couple of reasons due to which blogs are highly considered now days, to present data online.

As the saying goes:

�All apples are fruits but not all fruits are apples.�

Similarly,

�All blogs are websites but not all websites are blogs.�

However, what some of you might not be aware of is the major difference between the two and how these two make a difference to the global world with their presence. Let me put some light to the major differences between a blog and a website.

And yea, if you are wondering about the eBook series, its not finished yet. In fact we are onto the interesting part. So stay tuned for it in the coming days. Its always better to change some taste. Isn't it?

Blog vs Website - Characteristics Match up

According to Wikipedia, a blog is as follows:

A blog (a blend of the term web log) is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time

Examples of blogs are famous news magazines such as buzzfeed, techCrunch, Lifehacker or news sites such as The New York Times, CNN, BCC etc. that publish stories on daily basis. Or even sites ran by individuals on a specific niche such as this blog!

While a website:

A website is a collection of related web pages, including multimedia content, typically identified with a common domain name, and published on at least one web server.

Examples of websites is everything that exists on ! Because a website is the mother term given to all sites that you browse online including the blogs. Whether it may be social media networks like Facebook/Twitter or Ecommerce sites such as eBay, amazon, Alibaba or community forums such as stackoverflow, Google forums or Quora.

Blogs are generally more informally presented to the visitors. The language used is often much simpler than on websites. (though its not necessary as many webmasters now have started to use simpler language, to make their view point clear to a wider range of people, around the globe.)

In blogs, there is a feature called "posts", as what you are reading now. Every post have its own page (as the url suggests), but the main page (homepage) of the blog is dedicated to the
series of latest posts in reverse-chronological (latest to oldest) order.

Bloggers often prefer to show around 8-12 recent posts on their blogs main (home) page. Where as there is nothing such in a static website. Even if a website is about tutorials (like Lisa Arby's popular website, 2createawebsite.com). The website was launched years ago, when the blogging wasn't quite into the online world.

She did a pretty neat job with the sequence of the content. Interlinking was perfect. You could take a look to that site, in order to get to know the feel of a static website.

The major difference between the two types, blog and a static website is about the content refreshment. The major content of website remains the same. Though the webmaster could add additional pages to the website to increase the content, but the order by which the information is presented could not be later changed. (isn't changed).

That's where blog have started to gain popularity. Have you ever thought about the way you search internet now days? You either follow a specific blog right away (through bookmarks) or in most cases, you search search engines.

Search engines help you to get to a specific question (like how to add bla bla to blogger). It would take you to the static page, with the best information of the particular topic, either it comes from blog or website. So the content is basically searched the same way as before (through search engines), but blogs provide a different dimension to the way information is presented.

Another huge aspect of blogs due to which people have adopted them, are their ability to get crawled by search engines frequently. As the posts are updated on daily basis (sometimes many times in a day), so search engines crawl blogs many times a day in order to fetch new content.

Blog Vs. Website: What's The Difference?

These are five ways you can identify a 'Blog' when compared to any website found online.

A Blog provides a Commenting System
A Blog offers a subscription system to send free email newsletters to readers.
Articles inside a Blog are organized through categories and tags.
Articles in a Blog appear in reverse-chronological order, latest to oldest.
A Blog is managed by an individual author or a team of authors often called the editorial board.

1. A Blog Contains a Comment Form

If you see a comment form at the bottom of a webpage, know that you are reading a blog. Blog comment forms are a great way to interact with the author and share your insights or ask him queries regarding the blog post.

blogs have a comment form

These comment forms could be simple text boxes with fields for Name, Website/Email, Message. Or it can be a third-party comment plugin powered by Disqus, Facebook or Google+.

2. You Can Subscribe To a Blog Updates

Blogs are more like newspapers. Covering a vast variety of topics and publishing several articles each day or each month. Visitors to blogs who want to stay updated with latest blog posts, subscribe to the email newsletter.

blogs have a subscribe form

Blog administrators use difference email delivery systems such as Feedburner, Awber or mailchimp to send email updates to their readers.

3. Blog Articles are Organized By Categories & Tags

Blogs provide great navigation to its visitors thanks to the use of Categories and tags. Categories classify the blog topics into different groups and tags classify them into sub-groups. Users can then read their topics of interest with the help of these category pages.

blogs have categories

If you observe our blog menu at the top, you will find that, we have organized our content into different labels/categories. This helps you to better navigate our site.

4. Blog Content is always Displayed In reverse-chronological order

A blog will always display its newest blog posts at top and oldest at bottom. This sequence is adopted for both blog posts and comments, so that the readers could reach newly published articles on homepage easily.

5. Unlike a Website, a Blog Can Be Managed by a Single Author!

You don't need a big team to manage a blog. This is one reason why blogs have become the best source of online earning for enthusiastic people who love to share their knowledge with the rest of the world. I started this blog all alone and I am running it for over 8 years without a big team.

blogs can be managed by a single author unlike a website

You can surely increase the number of authors on a blog to publish content more frequently. Large corporate blogs have no more than 10-15 bloggers on its editorial board, who publish content regularly.

You can

create a free blog on Blogger, Tumblr or even Wordpress. Unlike building a website, you don't need to have advanced technical skills such as web development or knowledge of web hosting or FTP to start a blog. Thanks to free blogging platforms like Blogger, you can start your blog without worrying about the coding part!

Any Confusions?

Let me know if you need any further clarification on the differences between a Blog and website. I would love to hear from you and help you with all your queries.

To get slightly off topic here, we also recently posted : How To Find Ideas For Blog Posts Daily?. So while writing this post, I feel like making another one for 'Importance of Blog over a Website'. :) As there are many things that I should keep safe for the next posts.

Differences between the two content sharing techniques could be better explained there. Hope this posts gave a general overview.