Blogger does have SEO capabilities, but they're minimal compared to self-hosted platforms. Google's blogging platform includes the essentials: you can edit meta descriptions, customize post URLs (permalinks), add alt text to images, enable HTTPS, and Blogger automatically generates an XML sitemap at yourblog.blogspot.com/sitemap.xml. You can also add custom robots.txt directives and meta tags through the theme settings. The major limitations become apparent when you need anything beyond basics. Blogger doesn't support structured data (schema markup) without manually coding JSON-LD into every post, which is impractical at scale. You can't granularly control indexing on a per-post basis the way you would with Yoast or RankMath. There's no built-in redirect management, so moving or deleting posts creates orphaned URLs unless you hack together JavaScript redirects. The platform also locks you into a blogspot.com subdomain unless you connect a custom domain, and even then, the technical SEO control is shallow. For Ottawa SEO's portfolio sites, we stopped using Blogger around 2016 because the ROI on time spent wrestling with its limitations didn't justify the free hosting. If you're running a personal blog with 20 posts and minimal traffic goals, Blogger's SEO features are adequate. You can rank for low-competition keywords, especially if you're consistent with content and basic optimization. But if you're building anything commercial or planning to scale past 50-100 posts, the platform becomes a liability. You'll hit a ceiling where competitors on WordPress with proper schema, optimized Core Web Vitals, and advanced internal linking will outrank you even with equivalent content quality. Migration off Blogger later is painful because you lose link equity on the blogspot.com URLs unless you maintain redirects, which requires keeping the old blog active. Bottom line: Blogger has SEO, just not enough of it for serious organic growth in 2025. It's a starting point, not a long-term strategy.