Y’all, I’m in a quandary about blogrolls. For you non-bloggers, that’s the list of blog links on the sidebar. Do you click names on a blogroll?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t often peruse someone’s blogroll. Well, OK, I admit it….I look to see if I am on it. How vain is that? But it isn’t often that I click a name on a blogroll to go and visit other bloggers. A blogroll just doesn’t catch my eye. I’m curious to know if other people, or if non-bloggers click on those names.
Well…do you?
I’ve become blind to blogrolls, just as I am blind to advertising. To get my attention, the link has to be something “different.” I will click on a link in a Blogrush box, if the title entices me. I will click on the links in “More from BlogHer” at the bottom of those ads on the sidebar. But, the ordinary blogroll just doesn’t grab me.
I do, however, notice if someone doesn’t have a blogroll. To me that indicates that the person might not be the “generous” sort. That person doesn’t freely give Technorati links. To me, that’s what the blogroll has really come to mean. My blogrolls give links to blogs I read, bloggers who read my words, and folks with content I find interesting. I’m basically handing out Technorati links (for you non-bloggers, those highly coveted links measure our “popularity”).
I look on blogrolls as a “necessary evil.” Not that I think they are evil at all, but they sure are space hogs. I have mine on the sidebar, encased in a blogroll box with a slider. That keeps it from taking up the whole sidebar, but it isn’t easy to read. I have other blogrolls on a separate page.
Now, my sidebars get as cluttered as my feeble mind. Because of all the junk there, the blogroll slides waaay down, and I’m not sure that anyone ever even sees it. Those blogrolls that are on a separate page don’t do much good at all. NO one sees them, and neither do the Technorati spiders. The blogrolls I give on a second page are pretty much worthless for links.
Recently, at Oh My Stinkin Heck, I really noticed her blogroll. She has a wonderful “rotating blogroll” with snapshots of websites. Two pictures show at a time, and each time you refresh the page, two different blogs come up. She explains it in a post called “The Most Perfect Blogroll EVAH!”
Folks, if you show me a “purdy pitcher,” I’ll click on it! I found myself refreshing the page just so I could see who came up next and go visit. I was excited and consumed with “blog lust.” I wanted that blogroll on my sidebar. I wanted to show off my blogroll buddies in a way that would cause people to click on their sites.
The problem was that it requires much more than my meager technological skills, so I started Googling to find out how to do it. I discovered the flip side of the coin, so to speak. At In Case You Were Wondering, Brody talks about those rotating blogrolls in a post called “Rotation,” and there is a spirited discussion in comments. If you are considering a rotating blogroll, go read that post. He makes the point that on a rotating blogroll, the Technorati spiders only count a link to a blog if it is showing on the page when they crawl it. If a blog isn’t showing on the page, it doesn’t get a link.
Hmm. That defeats my purpose.
So, what’s the solution? Do I have a rotating blogroll (to get people to click and visit my friends) above my regular blogroll? Would you even click on a rotating blogroll? Do I just not worry about it? Bloggers, what are your thoughts? What is your answer to this blogroll quandary?
I DO click on blogrolls and look at them. It shows me where our audiences/friends overlap — and deviate. I’ve found new friends by following those deviating links.
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Actually, with WordPress, you can assign an image to a link. (Well, you could - I haven’t done it in a while, so you might need a plugin for it now) You can display that image next to the link. You can then call your blogroll into the sidebar and tell it to display a certain number of random links.
WordPress rocks.
I assume the blogroll is for that blogger, really. I click on links through comments (that’s why I love CA Credits so much). I put my blogroll on a separate page long ago, most of the people I visit are those who comment.
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I KNOW you think WordPress rocks.
I’ll have to check into the image thing. Expect questions…. Again, that blogroll on the second page doesn’t give Technorati links, and I DO want all my blogging buddies to benefit from that, if it’s what they seek.
I click on blogrolls and check them out if a title sound interesting…I do think it’s a necessary evil though. I love finding new blogs through blogrolls..but how much time do I really have to read all the million blogs I have on there?
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“Time” is the key word, isn’t it? It’s hard to get around and visit even the regulars. If the “real world” would just go away for awhile, I’d read other people’s blogrolls and follow.
I’m like you-I am usually oblivious to blogrolls but I do click on them occasionally. They do take a lot of room and you very seldom see blogrolls on the more popular sites. Actually, I like your idea of having them in a small scrolling box. Also, I intend to check out the rotating blog you talked about. Like everything else about blogging, it’s all about the time it takes to do all these things.
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Yes, it does take time to do the little fancy widgets (and more expertise than I can usually muster). The scrolling box would look better, and I wouldn’t mind it so much, with a wider sidebar. But, there you go. It is what it is. The more popular sites don’t have to care
I love blogrolls. When I find someone I love reading (like you) I often come and peruse that persons blogroll for one reason: If I like the way you right and you like the person enough to add them to your blogroll…they must be of a similar “type”. I have found tons and tons of new friends this way. In fact, I started blogging after I was on just one blog for a year. Then I started reading their blogroll and POOF a my blog community was born.
Oops! I guess I’d better pay more attention to my blogrolls, then, if you are reading them.
I don’t update them often enough.
You made me pop out of feed lurking to comment, as I am a big feed reader I don’t notice blog rolls as they don’t show up on feeds, just the posts.
But if its a new blog that I particularly enjoy then I do peruse their blogrolls to see if they have any fun links.
I would love to know what to do about them too
I think I will look into that rotating thingie as it sounds cool.
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Excellent point! I don’t care if people are reading in feed or coming to the site, as long as I’m not just sitting here talking for my own amusement. The “rotating thingie” is very cool. I’m not sure I could ever put it on there, so I’m going to have to win the lottery to pay someone to do it. I figure I’ll win the lottery before the Google ads pay off.
[…] Tucker wrote another great post today about the quandary of a blogroll. I think this is such an important subject to discuss. She raises and makes some very good points. […]
Ah this is a good good topic Shelly. I think I have too much to say for a comment box. I’ll post how I see blogrolls and the importance of pruning them at my blog.
Thanks, Damien. I read your post, and it’s a good one. These blogs can be high maintenance, can’t they?
I love Blogrolls!! I don’t put other blogs in my Roll unless they’re really worth looking at so I assume that’s what other bloggers do. I love looking at their fave blogs. At first I thought it was just something you had to do and I added blogs that I were OK, just to build up my Roll, but then I started viewing more blogs that I became addicted to and they are now the only ones I have posted.
That’s really the only way to run the blogroll. I don’t pay enough attention to mine, and I should. But, it’s a big blogging world out there, and so many blogs to read. I like to offer my readers an “eclectic” choice.
I have kept mine quite short and planned on redoing it. I am trying to link more within posts. Correct me if I am wrong, but somewhere I picked up the notion that the link only counted when you made it and then you had to redo in 6 months or something??? So… I do occasionally click on other blogrolls, but normally I follow comment links instead. That said, a few blogs open the comments in a tiny window and I can’t get it to expand once I get to the other site. So I have to try to peer at the actual address, go out of comments, and manually type it in. Needless to say that discourages me from it all.
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Linking within the posts is best for me. Those are the ones I usually follow. Yep, I’m with you ALL THE WAY on those tiny blogspot windows for comments. I’ve thought about writing just a sentence to put at the bottom of any comment I make on one of those, hoping they will change it. But, I hate to be TOO pushy. It is discouraging, though. And, on my Mac, I have a hard time reading everyone else’s comments. Pooh!
I click on blogrolls especially if I am on a blog I am enjoying and I want to find ones with similar content. Like others have commented I usually “just a blog by it’s name” and click away. Blogrolls are the main way that I found out about new blogs.
The only thing I hate about blogrolls are outdated blogs, where the blog hasn’t been updated in a year or so, or doesn’t exist anymore. That annoys me.
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Checking on the links is something I guess we should do regularly. It’s another thing I don’t always have time to do. I wonder if there is an easy way to test them all? WordPress probably has a plug-in, but I don’t know about you folks on Blogger.
I wish I had an answer for you. The two column seemed to work for me, but I can see where it causes other people problems. It would be cool to figure out some RSS type blogroll, where if it had to be rotating, the ones that were shown were the ones that were updated regularly, but I don’t know how that would happen.
Thanks for the links anyway. I’ll be sure to check back.
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Oh, Brody, there you go talking over my head. A totating RSS type blogroll? I’d NEVER figure that one out. Thanks for starting the discussion.
I love blogrolls and look at them frequently. I am a little lazy about updating mine but this is a reminder to me that I’d better get at it…ciao
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I followed more blogrolls a year ago, but it’s just not feasible now. Wish it was. I found lots of good folks that way.
I post the Manic Monday blogroll and then I have a “favorites” list of blogs I visit regularly that I think others might like, but in all honesty I don’t really pay that much attention to them when bouncing around the blogosphere.
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There are too many OTHER things to grab our attention, aren’t there? Again, I think it’s important to have one on that first page…but that’s about where I stop.
I love blogrolls. When I visit my blogging buddies..if time permits..I check out their blogroll in the hope that I can find other blogs of interest. I find it very weird when blogs don’t have a blogroll….where do they keep their fave’s?
I’m also thinking of making a little box…but then nobody see’s it…..and yes…the blog list takes up a lot of room on the side-bar.
I just wish the bloggers would clean it up once in awhile.
I check mine every 2 months and remove the one’s who no longer blog….and add the one’s that interest me. But you’re right..there has to be an easier way….and Everyone likes seeing their blog on your side-bar.
Hopefully you’ll come up with a solution…..something that’s easy for the computer illiterate like me.
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If I’m bored or procrastinating from laundry or dishes I will follow blog rolls around to see where I end up.
I haven’t updated mine in ages though! I feel like such a rude person for not having all my bloggy friends blogs listed on mine. Oh well. Life goes on. And if they want to dump me as their friend it’s one less blog to keep up on *just kidding!!!*
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Hmmm. Interesting points. I read by feeds, so I don’t read the blogrolls. Also, I learned that you can help a blogger’s technorati more by linking to a specific post, rather than the blog. So, I decided to write my posts with links to my favorite blogs, as I’m sure those will be noticed more than the blog roll.
But, I do like the rotating blog roll feature!
Sidebars are just too cluttered… so I prefer linking in the content.
Just got back in town… trying to catch up on all the blogs.
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I have to say, I do sometimes click on links in others’ blogrolls if I’m enjoying their blog. I can’t say it happens all that often, but it does happen.
My vote: don’t worry about the blogrolls! There’s plenty of other things to worry about
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You know, I actually JUST removed my small blogroll from my site. I really was thinking that nobody was even checking it out. I did enjoy getting to send people links, so it wasn’t an easy decision to nix it. I’m kind of thinking that I can find a way to incorporate links to people within my posts.
Haha I noticed that I didn’t make your latest cut (I also love seeing whether I make it on someone else’s). HOPEFULLY that doesn’t mean that you don’t read my stuff every now and again!
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You could always use the rotating blogroll for user interest and farther down have a traditional blogroll. Eitherway, too many sidebar images is distracting for me and I tend to ignore them all. The site http://www.ohmystinkinheck.com/ is an axample of too many images for my liking. BTW, your link in the post is missing the “K”
For me, a blogroll needs to be limited to the very best web friends. Too many links, and visitors may get overwhelmed with choices and forget the whole thing. But then again, some sites are all about community and that’s what the audience wants - just not my audience.
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I like blogrolls; if I find a blog I like, there is a good enough chance I’ll find some of the blogs they like interesting that I click on at least a few. If I don’t like those, then I’ll give up (on that blog) but I’ve found a lot of blogs I really enjoy by poking through other people’s blogrolls.
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I check out blogrolls occasionally, particularly if I’m bored and looking for something to read. I figure a blog that someone I like enjoys is often likely to be something I’d enjoy as well. That said, I’m a big feed reader too, so I don’t always see the blogroll. My own blogroll is in dire need of updating as well.
As for what you should do with yours? I say do whatever makes you happy and don’t stress over it. It’s not a major issue.
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