I’ve grown frustrated with my collections of links on the sidebar. I need to do a bit of spring cleaning, and remove the dead links and inactive blogs I know, but that’s not it. It is the growing length of the links I put up there.
I have to admit I’m conflicted. On one hand I want to promote the bloggers from the Arctic (I know there is Nunavut Blogs! but I’m talking about my personal space), on the other hand there are 70 blogs there. Do you visit them. I want to promote the blogs that promote me, but again, the list is growing large. Do you check them out?
There was a blog I used to visit from the Southern US. It ended up on hiatus and I stopped going there. The blog was interesting, and the writer had wide ranging interests so there were always different reasons to stop by. I mention it only because his sidebar had links to every conceivable topic, every conceivable blog that fell within his interests. It was a huge list that carried on well below the posts. The point is, I never visited any of the links, there were too many and it was overwhelming.
I’m trying to get a handle on the links I point you to. I want them to be useful and used, and I fear they are not. What do you think? Do you follow the links on the sidebar, or ignore them? What would you like to see.
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12 responses
I use Google Reader to continually refresh my sidebar with new posts I think my readers will find interesting. I think this works well because if it’s on the sidebar, it’s new. I really don’t like going through a list of links to blogs that are never updated.
The downside of doing it this way is that you never know what you’re going to get. You can’t use my blog as a reliable way to get to anyone else’s site.
I actually use your blog when I’m up north for it’s motherlode of links to other blogs- but if you take it away I can follow your link (wait- do you have one?) to Nunavut blogs instead. (and because I can’t usually remember how to spell “kiggavik” when it’s not in front of me, if you were wondering about all those creepy stalkers across the territories who plug your family’s names into google, that’s probably just me, lost on the internet. It works, very unique set of names you have in blogland!)
Links can of course be moved onto separate pages, but bloggers don’t get much Google juice or Technorati credit ffom a link that isn’t on the front page. My solution was to substitute a dynamic blogroll for a static one, courtesy of Google Reader. What you do is put all the blogs you want to include in their own folder; go to Settings -> Tags and make that folder into a public page; then click on the link that says “Add a Clip to Your Site” which will let you configure the javascript (for color scheme, if you choose “none” it should adapt to the styling of your sidebar). Not only is this kind of read-out of latest posts from your favorite blogs shorter than a full blogroll, but i think it’s also more likely to tempt visitors into clicking on the links.
That’s one option, at any rate.
Clare–I like periodically, when I’m searching for new ideas and fresh images, to follow the links on various blogs. I use your links and have explored various of the Arctic bloggers. Thinking about Dave’s comment and blog–I really liked his old way of doing things better than the new way; and I especially liked the way he would highlight an interesting passage from a blog post that caught his interest–it was a valuable introduction to new blogs for me.
A follow-up: I just went for a look at Dave’s feed reader–it’s cool; although still retain a fondness for his old blogroll.
Clare, I don’t know all the technical stuff but I do use your site as a link to other blogs, occassionally even exploring a new one and like your list of resources.
Okay, this is a lot to digest. I have like the idea of the blogroll that shows updates Megan. I’m not sure how it works, or indeed if it would work, on Typepad. I was looking the other day for a widget that does just that but couldn’t find it. The other similar thing I’ve seen is the blogroll that shows all the sites but indicates that they’ve been updated in the last little bit.
I do have Nunavut Blogs! linked on my site Nancy, its the Nunavut badge on my left sidebar. (All of the badges are links) Perhaps I should put one in a more prominent place. And I was wondering about those Google hits. I actually get quite curious when someone Googles me, I figure the repeat ones are someone looking for the House, but there have been some from strange places. The hits on Hilary I just assume it’s someone interested in the US Presidential race.
That’s great help Dave thanks. A couple of questions.. The instructions you give, are they for Google Reader? or for your blogging platform? I assume from the look (the fine fine look I might add) of your blog that you use something like WordPress or Vox. Do you know of anything that works with TypePad?
Thanks larry, and I agree I miss the Smorgasblog of Dave’s. Although I assume that it was very time consuming as I imagine it wasn’t an automated feature like the recently updated site feature that he has now.
Thanks Bonnie. I think I’m even more torn now about what to keep and what to change.
Time for a coffee in the warm spring sun, and some pondering methinks.
I use the sidebar links sometimes. I mainly use the blogger profile from people who’s post I’ve found interesting. If I find their post interesting, their blog should be also. Or so I think.
Coffee sounds good.
I don’t use the sidebar links, but check into Nunavut blogs semi-regularly to look for new ones.
It’s completely a Google Reader thing, and I’m almost postiive it would work on Typepad – y’all can paste in javascript, can’t you? I’ve seen a few GR feedrolls (for lack of a better tem) on Blogger blogs, though usually people use the widgety style, a colored box with rounded corners. I’m not crazy about that look, which is why mine is unstyled.
In repsonse to Larry’s point, yeah, I preferred the results of my old “smorgasblog” too, but that was very time-consuming. Now qarrtsiluni takes up a lot of my time instead (especially since we started posting audio there). However, one can also use Google Reader to post a selection of blog posts instead of an automated feedout from a subscription list, via what they call shared items. The difference there from what i used to do is that there wouldn’t be quotes, just post titles with blog names. One can also use Del.icio.us in this fashion, of course.
Dave’s system is the same one I use. I love it. It is no extra work: I just “tag” the posts I want to put on my site as I go past them in Google Reader.
The hardest part, and it wasn’t hard at all, was getting myself set up with a Reader account and subscribing to all of my favourite blogs. Google Reader will give you a code that you just stick in your sidebar or wherever you want your links list. You can pick the way it looks on your site or even set it up with separate boxes for different types of blogs — mine roughly correspond to “family & friends” and “other great blogs” and are gray boxes to match the background colour of the site.
I go in about once a week to clear out the old posts.
Coffee’s on Dave. Your mug has been waiting here for some time. Bring Ghost.
Thanks Kate, the earlier comment by Nancy and your comment makes me think I should link to Nunavut Blogs! more prominently.
I think I have it figured out Dave, thank you. Still some bugs I’m working out.
I used the “none” options like Dave suggested Megan, and it seems to blend perfectly with the blog.