That is the question I am posing this morning my lovelies.
I wrote briefly about the importance of an up to date blogroll in October 2010 after I lost access to my google account for a couple of days. Not having access to my google mail was an annoying glitch.
Not having access to the hundreds of blogs that are in my google reader was slightly more problematic as my google reader is my archival tool. I use google reader to store those blogs that I am invested in, as well as the blogs that are a bit more obscure. I have some beautiful blogs stored there, that have long since closed down and all that is left of these blogs are the ghost of their words in my reader. I have numerous ceramic blogs with interesting posts starred for ease of reference. The same goes for news and tech blogs, environmental sites and all the myriad other blogs that I am interested in across the whole sphere of political and philosophical divides.
Once I had lost access to all the items in my reader, I felt quite bereft for a few moments until I remembered my blogroll. Then I started to breathe again.
My blogroll doesn’t list all the blogs I read, as I am seriously disorganised and easily distracted. I always think to to update the blogroll,when my hands are covered in clay or I am driving the car. Once I am home again seated at the computer I faff about on twitter or google plus and the blogroll is forgotten again.
Some bloggers only include their friends on their blogroll, or only include the blogs they read and comment on. Other bloggers treat their blog roll like an internet version of an honour board with only the most worthy of blogs being placed reverently on the gold plated triple A list. I am sure us lesser bloggers must be required to ring the hidden bell three times and chant a secret phrase before being allowed to reverently gaze upon these lists, but I digress.
Back to the question at hand, A blogroll to have or not to have?
How do you use your blogrolls? Are they an important blogging tool allowing new bloggers access to a myriad of other blogs?
Do you use them simply to store all your must reads and advertise your blogging preferences.Or had you not really thought about a blogroll before I asked you this question?
On an average day I will have about 3 or 4 people who leave my blog via my blogroll. Once or twice a month I will have people stay on the blogroll page for a couple of hours clicking merrily away.
I have now run out of puff and will press publish as I am very interested in your answers.
Comments on this entry are closed.
I’ve never thought of my blog roll as a place to keep track of blogs I read/enjoy. That’s an interesting approach. I think of my blogroll as endorsement and hat tip to those blogs that I love. I also think it’s a good way to show new readers what niche(s) and communities you are part of. Similar to blog badges, listing certain type of bloggers helps show what type of blogger you are. It reminds me of Twitter lists.
Nice post!
Yes I agree with you and I have seen that a lot. ie gardening blogs with lots of other gardening blogs in their blogrolls etc. But I also notice that blogrolls can be very exclusive affairs as well, akin to those celebrity tweeters that have a zillion followers but only follow 3 people back.
One thing I’ve still not sorted out for my new blog is a blogroll because I have no idea how to approach it.
Mine is set up as a separate page. Just add your favourite blogs first and go from there. I reckon you would have an interesting list of Autism resources at your fingertips Marita and that would be of interest to all other people, not just bloggers. Just start with F for frogpo….
butting in here… but wordpress has a nifty links took built in that you can categorise and get to display on a separate page. Check out the ‘links’ section in your admin panel 🙂
It does! Fantastic. I’d put it in the ‘look at later because this is all too hard’ but might pull it out again.
I can’t see your blog roll at all. I must be dense. I have google reader and I have bloglines as well. Just in case. I also have a saved copy of the OPML file. I expect at a pinch I could look in my history, but I often read in the reader and don’t click through. Good post!!
If you look on the top of my page there is a tab that says blogroll, just click on that. You have been there since 2007 Cindy 🙂
Oh, yes. I AM dense. I was looking down the side!!! A good thing I’m not in charge of anything important!! Well, except for Labradors!!!
Labradors are very important 🙂
I use mine both to acknowledge blogs that I visit regularly (and I am tech spaz so don’t understand readers etc, so I use it to click over to them) and that I feel that people who are interested in mine will enjoy.
I would be a little lost without my blogroll…..
I was very lost without my reader and it was with a huge amount of relief that I remembered my blogroll.
I’m planning on updating mine shortly Froggy. My main motivation for keeping a roll is to share the love. I don’t have a huge readership but like the idea that someone might click through to a blog I like.
Yes, I like that aspect of the blogroll as well. Though my blogroll now is very broad as anyone that asks can be on it.
I have my blogroll over on another page and I use it to keep track of all the blogs I enjoy reading – and there’s a lot I enjoy reading – otherwise I’d lose them all!
I roughly sort them out into history, photos and general, more for other readers than for my own need, as I’ve noticed that if someone likes reading a blog they generally check out that person’s blogroll to find similar bloggers.
Yes. I also use peoples blogrolls to find new blogs. Especially ceramic blogs, which reminds me I need to update my ceramics list. and weed the garden and make some pots and and….
I don’t have a separate blogroll, I just have the bloglist on my sidebar which alerts me to updated posts which I then click on to read. It serves me well enough as I’m a slow reader and it takes me several hours to get through the new posts listed. I’ll sometimes click on the link to a commenter at any of those new posts if I like what thye’ve said, from that I’ll find a new blog to follow, which is then added to my list when I get around to updating it.
Blogrolls are great to discover new blog, especially if they also show latest post titles. I often click on them on blogs I read. It doesn’t matter if it’s just your friends or if it’s a blog that you used to read 6 months ago and just forgot to take it off. Your readers may still discover something that interests them there.
I love the ones that show that blog’s last post! I click on those all the time!
That is why I rarely remove blogs from my blogroll, Once they are there they are there. I am always surprised by the blog names that people click over to.
Blog rolls remind e of best friends or siblings. We all want t be in there first up but often we don’t even rate. I’m not technologically savvy and one day some time ago I tried to list all the folks I follow. It took too long and since then the list has expanded so I leave it as it is and hope that those not on my list who’d like to be on my list do not get offended.
hehe they are fiddly things to update. I am always “meaning” to update mine.
I’ve been thinking of getting rid of my blog list altogether. I like my blog to look quite streamlined and uncluttered. If I listed every blog I followed then it would make my pages disproportionately long, so I tend to put a few up and try and remember to change them every so often. It actually serves me no real purpose at all though because I read updates from the blogger dashboard.
As I dont use blogger anymore I rarely go into the dashboard part of my old blogspot blog. So I rely on links from twitter and facebook as well as using my reader to see what people are up to. I like a nice streamlined look to a blog but I find myself gradually cluttering up the place with widgets and the like. When I get sick of the clutter I ask SleeplessNights to do a re design for me.
I have limited space for a blog roll (well, considering I follow a couple of hundred blogs, some closely, some now and again), so I struggle with this. I have a few friends that I put up there. A couple of the big ones are there, but not because they are big, IYKWIM, just because I enjoy them. I find I’m on almost no blog rolls, including the ones who’s buttons/badges I have on display, so obviously I don’t have the right code. 😀 But I can think of probably another 30 I’d like to have.
Maybe I’ll have to change my tactics and start a seperate blog roll page. I’m seeing more and more of them.
I have added you to my blog roll 🙂 I had been meaning to do it for ages.
I use mine for moments, like you did, when my reader isn’t working for some reason – or when there are far too many unread items for me to dare tackle it! It’s basically got my must-reads in it. Though I may not comment on them all the time, I always… *always* read. 🙂
I mostly ignore mine, until something happens with google and I lose access to my reader. Or like now when I am writing about it and adding new blogs to the roll
I dunno! I just closed my old blog and started anew. I haven’t added a blog roll. I think it was important in creating a good google ranking. And while I love the idea of going up higher on google, I don’t know that now-a-days it’s something you do…
I don’t have a blog roll visible. I find them discouraging. When I’m online I visit people who’ve actually made a point of reading my blog, not just following blindly in the hope I follow back. So I don’t really need roll – LOL!
It’s a rather short list.
Even then, I admit, I run hot and cold. Sometimes I interact a lot, other times I just don’t want to know whats going on in the world, so I avoid the computer.
Anymore, blogging feels immensely like a popularity contest; who has the most followers, who’s who where. It’s like being in high school all over again.
Sort of like Facebook; sure they have 5,000 “friends / followers”, but how many do they actually interact with?
I once had a bloggy friend who’s blog gathered followers in leaps and bounds – and to be honest, I’m not sure why. She was one who posted “I follow back” on all of her posts, with a link to her site .. which I consider rather poor form.
Once she hit her 500th follower she put up a notice reading “Due to the overwhelming number of visits I receive, I will no longer be able to follow or return comment “favors” to individual posters. Thanks for understanding!”
I was floored. Someone had obviously gotten too big for their britches, and was a statistic whore, and I’ve never been back. Just me maybe. I kind of like the connections I make with people who actually spend the time to get to know my space on this vast web. … maybe I don’t list a blog roll because of that one blogger. – ? Perhaps Freud knows.
Does that make me the anti-blogger?
And the three blogs I did have listed on my Google page vanished overnight. Whatever Google did, they did it wrong.
I love the concept of a blog roll… and had all kinds of good intentions of keeping a nice organised list that would be good for me and helpful for others…. but … um…. er…. I’ve had intentions for the past three years but haven’t quite got there yet! LOL