How things have changed.
Used to be, quite a few hits and page-views were from other bloggers "Blogrolls". Not so lately.
Now, with the widespread use of Google Reader and other RSS feeds, blog rolls are almost extinct.
Used to be, in order to check up on a fellas blog, you needed to check in every so often. Not anymore. The instant someone posts, it shows up in my feed and I can usually skim right through the content. I might only click through to the page if I wanted to comment or see other comments.
I now view my Blogroll more ornamental rather than a functional tool for my blog. People on my blogroll are definitely in my Reader and are considered "Noteworthy".
Naturally, my hit count is down. Is my message still getting out? What is more important, meaningless hits or people reading your material? Obviously, the readers.
Your Thoughts ? Is your blogroll more or less meaningful lately?
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21 comments:
I was never a fan of the blogroll myself, because I feared an implied approval of the content within those blogs.
I am a huge fan of Google Reader for the "blog reader" in me, but I see definite drawbacks for the "blog writer" in me - the LEAST of which is decreased hits.
My bigger complaint is that there is less traffic to the comments section from casual readers and, in my mind, the comments section is where the action is......
hits may be down, but rss subscribers are up!
i just wish i knew how to subscribe myself.... which is why i scan my blogroll for interesting posts.
I was actually just thinking about this today, whether it was worth the effort to try to assess the blogs in my blogroll, or if I should just leave it alone and concentrate on building in other places, rather than dismantling the blogroll. Still on the fence, though - should be interesting to see if other people are actively using blogrolls, either as site owners or readers.
I know that readers do click to blogs on my blogroll. It's a way for me to acknowledge and support commenters. Probloggers are moving away from it, though.
I haven't gotten into reading blogs from a feed so I still have the blogroll.
I still use it to find new blogs to read.
your numbers might be down for reasons totally unconnected to your blogroll issues. Perhaps because of the frequency of your posting changing, perhaps the topics chosen are less appealing, or other reasons.
I do agree that the blogroll is on its way out. I see less and less importance. I too mostly read in my google reader and only open the article directly when I want to link to it or see the comments and possibly add my own. This is also why i comment less nowadays - because most of my reading is done in the my rss reader and not on the blog directly.
I get lots of hits from other people's blogrolls. So I am happy that they exist! Especially from blogrolls that include one line descriptions of the latest post.
For my professional blog, however, I haven't even set up a blogroll. I am thinking of setting up a blogroll page. But it gets tricky - do I link to the top sites? Or to those who link back to me?
G6: I agree with you regarding the "implied approval" only to a certain extent, that is, if you have a tiny blogroll and actively promote their content. Otherwise, its really not a big deal. Unless, you have "frum" people reading your blog only and not others.
MM: I just checked my rss numbers, got 102 subscribers! I had no idea. I feel better now :)
Its really very simple. You add google reader and then just keep adding subscriptions. I track over 150 blogs. Much easier.
Esther: You honor me with your comment. I think most people, well, oldtime bloggers, are on the fence about the blogroll. I used to get many more requests for link exchanges. Not anymore. having said that, care to exchange links ;) ?
MiL: Agreed.
Jack: How does teh blogroll help you find new blogs?
Actually, I also wanted to add that google reader also helps me find new blogs via their "recommendation" feature.
Rafi: Obviously, if I dont post frequently, my numbers will be down. Thats not my point. My point is that the hits that do come in are not coming from blogrolls.
Leora: Yes, blogger has the rss feed available so that new posts from various bloggers got to the head of the heap.
I agree and most of the stuff i could add was said already except of one: add blogroll to the bottom of the feed so you get in the Google Reader too. Shouldn't be hard with FeedBurner and Yahoo Pipes.
Or add FeedBurner's banner with other posts from your blog (it rotates them.
Also you may want to integrate some tracking into the feed so every time your post is read in the feed you'll get a hit counted in your stats app.
Contact me if you want to do some experiments - there could be interesting findings!
Feedjit reckons a lot of my hits are from blogs on which I'm blogrolled, so I'm happy. I just added a subscibe by e-mail feature, I've not got a clue how to do rss... will look into it out now though :)
I'm in the dark ages and rely on blogroll.
The traditional blogroll is definitely toast. But the "live feed" blogroll seems to be very popular.. showing up on more blogs and driving some real traffic.
One more thing: Unless you write on highly technical topics, your average reader doesn't have a clue about RSS readers.
I've actually got over 400 readers....
I use my blogroll to promote my friends' blogs and to catch up on posts. The reason I don't really use Google Reader is because last time I checked it had problems with Opera Mini.
@Moshe - use mobile version of Greader - I use it in my desktop Opera sidebar and love it!
meh, I'm a narcissist. I like looking at my blog while looking at others' updates. :-D
B"H
You raise an interesting point.
When I get I-Net at home again I may change one of my blog rolls to "Blogs I Read" or "Blogs I Follow," to show support.
I wonder if sharing through Google Reader is better, in order to get more traffic.
I still get a bunch of traffic from Facebook, and a handful from Haveil Havalim.
I think that the blog world is going through a shift. I have noticed that my hit counter that shows me where in the world people are coming from to visit my site is quite active. Yet, the way I used to gauge things was with the comments. I don't get as many anymore.
That could be because google is giving some of your pages a high rank and those pages are shown at the top for certain keywords.
You'd need to look at which pages are getting hits, from what source and how long a user spends on that page.
Ehav Ever, if your comments have dropped, you're not engaging your readers. You can have lots of readers and few comments, though. And like Moshe says, people who come via search are less likely to comment or return. Regular readers, especially bloggers, are more likely to leave comments.
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