Which way to display your blog

Blog entries can be embedded in a site--that is, copied in as the content of a site page--or a blog can be linked to from your site, so that readers view the entries on the blogging site instead. If there is a carrot and a tomato at the top of this page, you are viewing the embedded blog. If the whole page is white with the header "Glass Pen Demonstration Blog", you are viewing the blog on the blogging site. If you are viewing the embedded version and would like to see how the blog looks on its own server, click on the title of the entry, "Which way to display your blog". You are now viewing this individual entry on the blogging site. Hit your back button or click here if you want to go back.

If you wish readers to have immediate access to all blog features such as commenting or searching for old entries, your site should simply link to the blog. If your entries are likely to be mostly informational, and not something readers will comment on very often, then embedding them on one of your site pages is the best option.

One drawback of linking to a blog is that it will look different from your site, and this can sometimes confuse readers. A blog can be made to closely match the appearance of your website, but this carries an extra fee of $100, plus $15 per year on Wordpress.

One drawback of embedding is that entries drawn from the blog are "cached", or stored on your own server. This is done to keep from overwhelming the blog server with real-time requests for copies of the most recent entries. This means that new entries or changes to older entries may not show up for as much as an hour.

Which option you choose should depend on what you want to do with your blog.