September 3, 2007
Blogrolls
Arrrrrrrrrgh! I just lost a really good post about blogrolling. Silly me. I can’t remember all of the brilliant words I used, so what follows is a poor substitute. Go ahead and read it anyway, just because you love me and crave the knowledge I can share with you.
There’s a lot of debate among bloggers about the right way to do a blogroll. How you do yours depends on how you’re planning on using it, but be prepared to make some of your readers unhappy once you make your decision. That’s okay. It’s your blog.
I hang out with a lot of folks in the sponsored blogging community. Yeah, we make money from our blogs. Some folks think that sucks, but that’s another debate for another day. (Pardon me for a brief detour. You won’t mind if I pause for a colon cleanse, will you? Ahh! Much better. Now where was I? Oh, yeah - blogrolls.) Folks who monetize their blogs have a lot to say about blogrolls. That’s because the amount of money you can make from blogging is directly related to the worth you have been assigned by Google. No one knows the exact algorithm Google uses to compute page rank (I’m pretty sure that no one at Goggle even knows how it works,) but the links on your blog figure heavily in there somewhere. There are two primary schools of thought about how to get the best Google juice from your blogroll. One side says that links are counted every time someone clicks on the page where they reside. It therefore makes good sense to put your blogroll in a sidebar that shows up every time someone visits your blog. You get a little linkjuice for each outgoing link, and all of the folks you’ve linked get some linkjuice, too. The folks on the other side of the fence say that the Google robots were taught in bot school to ignore sidebar links. If you want your blogroll links to count for something you need to put them on an inside page because Google bots love to crawl around your pages.
I’m what’s commonly known as cyberstupid. I wouldn’t know a Googlebot if I met it on the street. I don’t know which way of doing a blogroll does the most good. I let practicality dictate my blogroll placement. I had one on my sidebar. Then I had two, to separate the blogs I was reading every day from the links that I swapped with other bloggers for their link value. My sidebar got ridiculously long, so I moved my blogrolls to separate pages. You can see links to them at the top of my right sidebar. I honestly don’t know if I’m doing things the right way. I’m doing things the way that works for me.
This post was inspired by my new friend, the Frogster, over at The Frog Bog. He recently installed a new blogroll and there were some people who were happy about the way he did it and some who weren’t. He’s a diplomat and smoothed things over, but my belief is that it’s a debate that shouldn’t have happened anyway. What you choose to do on your own blog is your business, no one else’s. If you agree to a link swap with someone, you’re obligated to follow up and post their link. They don’t get to dictate how you do it. If they choose to link you without having made an agreement, you have no obligation. Do what you want. The same rules apply when you link someone in a post. I started to say something like that in a comment to the Frogster’s post, but started talking about Google and link value and stuff and it got too long, so I turned it into a post. I chose to link Frogster in my post. No reciprocity required. It’s a small payback for the inspiration.
[tags]blogging, blogrolls, Google, linking, page rank[/tags]
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September 4th, 2007 at 3:49 am, Dirk Star Says:
I think function is far more important than form in this instance.
What I really want from my blog roll is an address book for my friends. My blog roll is intended to be a quick way to peruse the people I enjoy reading.
I’ve given up on climbing the blogger ladder of success. Friends are more important…
September 4th, 2007 at 5:00 am, pelf Says:
I don’t use blogrolls not because I’m stingy with the blog juice or whatever fancy name it carries, but because I feel that my Bloglines is doing a very good job and having a blogroll on my blog that I need to manually maintain from time to time is just too redundant =)
September 4th, 2007 at 8:23 am, Sarakastic Says:
For some reason I’ve always pictured the googlebot to have scary red laser eyes lol, that was a pretty accurate picture of it
September 4th, 2007 at 10:23 am, jo Says:
No teaser today?
September 4th, 2007 at 10:44 am, Lori Says:
Nice post Skeet. I actually have mine on my sidebars but am considering moving them to their own page. They make my page load much slower. Colon cleaner?…hilarious!
September 4th, 2007 at 10:56 am, Phoebe Says:
I hope some day soon to know what the hell you just said. My brain is so bogged down right now. Perhaps it needs a kind of cleansing too.
September 4th, 2007 at 1:41 pm, skeet Says:
I agree Dirk, and that’s one of the things that was in the post I lost and forgotten as I recomposed. I miss having the reminder of friends to visit right there where I’ll see it every day. I’m looking for a good drop-down menu to use in the sidebar, similar to the one I use for categories.
September 4th, 2007 at 1:43 pm, skeet Says:
Blogrolls do take a lot of maintenance,Pelf. I haven’t updated mine in ages and need to do that soon.
September 4th, 2007 at 1:44 pm, skeet Says:
I went with what I could paste and rig for a googlebot, Sarkastic. I dont’t photoshop, so my options are limited.
September 4th, 2007 at 1:45 pm, skeet Says:
Sorry Jo! The holiday made today feel like Monday, lol! The Tuesday Teaser is posted now.
September 4th, 2007 at 1:47 pm, skeet Says:
I, too, thought my colon cleanser was a clever contextual link, Lori.
I’m looking for a drop-down that I like for my blogrolls, but will also keep them on an inside page after I get them back in the sidebar.
September 4th, 2007 at 1:48 pm, skeet Says:
Anything to do with page rank is designed to be confusing, Phoebe. Did I manage to fool you into thinking I knew what I was talking about?
September 4th, 2007 at 3:57 pm, the frogster Says:
Nice post, Skeet, and the way the comments on my post went, and your thoughts, and the comments on this post as well are going, obviously a hot topic. I’m still not really a blogger, just someone who writes on a blog, and my interaction with other bloggers led me to wonder what they thought. The fact that there are more comments on that post on my page at this point than on any other post is testament to the fact that everyone has an opinion about blogrolling. As you know, I moved my blogroll to the front page, because it’s not really big enough to cause headaches at this point and that’s what seems to keep the masses happy. I’m planning to stick you on there as well, but I’m sorely in need of some shuteye tonight. Thanks for the shout out.
September 4th, 2007 at 4:21 pm, the frogster Says:
OK, I lied. You’re on my frogroll tonight, because I dig your site and I’ll be back often. Keep up the great work!