BlogRolling

A blog is a constantly evolving regularly updated website that usually acts as the personal journal of the person who writes it. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are very old, dating as far back as 1994, but most are quite new, with a large majority of them having been started in 2006 - 2007, this being the big "boom time" for blogs.

There are literally millions of bloggers, most of who own at least 3 blogs. With all those blogs, it can be quite hard to narrow down your search and find just the one or two blogs that you really enjoy reading. To help you in your search for more blogs to read, the invention of blogrolling came about.

A blog roll is a roll call. The owner of the blog, usually has a list of blogs that they enjoy reading. The point of blog rolling is, if you like reading my blog, and I like reading this other blog over here, than the chances are good that since you like reading my blog you'll like reading that blog too. Therefor the blog owner creates a list of their favorite blogs, the blogs they they enjoy reading the most, and they add that list into a side bar on their blog.

Adding a blog roll makes it easy for blog readers to find other blogs they may be interested in reading.

The problem with this is, in resent years, bloggers have started the trend of adding any and every blog under the sun to their blog roll, wither they read it or not, and often, what gets listed on the blogroll is not useful to the reader. Just as a well organized blog roll can keep readers coming back to your blog, a poorly organized blogroll can lose you your readers.

Chances are you have a blog. If you do have a blog, than it's a good guess that you also have a blogroll.

What does it take for you to add someone to your blogroll?

What is your criteria?

What is it that made you add "this" blog to your list but not "that" blog?

What does a blog have to do to make it onto your list?

What does a blog have to do to get kicked off your list?

I have two different answers, because it depends upon the blog.(I have 32 blogs):

Answer #1:

For my personal blog, http://eelkat.wordpress.com ,I add any blog I like to read so that my blogroll acts as an index of blogs I enjoy reading, so that I can go back and read them when ever I want to. Because there are well over 200 blogs on this blogroll, I have arranged them by topic.

Answer #2:

For my many niche topic blogs, I only add blogs that are on topic with the topic of the blog. For example on http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com I talk about CosPlay, historical reenactment, sewing costumes, embroidery, and sewing in general, therefore it's blogrolls (it has one for each category) are other blogs and websites that are about those topics and would therefore be of interest to my readers.

I don't care much about ranks or whatever so just long as the blog is interesting or if it pertains to something I am blogging about. It's like, if I don't read the blog myself, than why should I add it? I got to assume that my readers are basically interested in the same things I am, otherwise they wouldn't be reading my blog, right? So why than should I promote a blog that does not interest me, because if it doesn't interest me, it's not likely to interest my readers either.

I say forget about rankings and just add to your blog, things that you think will make you blog better for your readers.

I don't care how much traffic they get or how much rank boost I would get if I linked to them and they linked back to me because of it. If the blog is not one that I would not read, that it does not belong on my blog roll! It has to be a blog that I would also be interested in reading. I don't link to blogs that are just looking to increase traffic (theirs or mine) that essentially say nothing of importance to me. Sure, maybe what they are saying is important, but would I read it? Is it something I find important?

The way I see it, adding blogs for the purpose of boosting rank, will in the long run decrease your rank, unless those blogs are of a relevant topic to the topic of your blog. If you start blogrolling all willy-nilly, than your readers are not going to bother with your blogroll at all, because the topics will be of no interest to them. And isn't the purpose of a blogroll, to promote blogs your readers might enjoy?

Comments on blogs are common place. They come in all forms, all shapes, and all sizes. Some are good. Some are bad. Many are spam. A few are blogroll exchange requests. Many bloggers add every single blog that requests an exchange, to their blogroll. The question is, should you?

I say: No.

My blogroll is for like-minded individuals, not just people who want a free ride. Every single blog in my blogroll was hand picked by me. It is very rare that any of them got added via an exchange request. The reason is, that it is very rare for an exchange request to have even been made by someone who read my blog! More often than not it was only a mass sent comment that went out to thousands of blogs all over the net, and the poster did not look at a single one of the blogs, or is even aware of which blog their software choose to send the blogs to!

What I am saying, is that in order for your blog to be added to my blogroll, it has to be a blog I would read myself, otherwise, it won't get added. I do not feel right promoting blogs that I myself do not read. I mean, if I don't read it, than why should I recommend other people read it? I see the blogroll as my place to recommend things I enjoy to my readers.

That being said, I'd love to be added to anybody's blogroll, so sure, if you want to add me to your blogroll, go ahead. Feel free to tell me you did, and I'll check out your blog. I may or may not add it to my blog roll depending on wither it's on topic to my blog or not. But again, don't add me just for the sake of adding me. I would rather be added to blogs of those who enjoy reading my blog, than to just be stuck in someplace because you thought it would help boost your rank to link to me.

So many bloggers say this! Ugh! That has got to be the worst advice I have ever heard!

You know... I have some 400 blogs linked on the blogrolls of my blogs (I have 32 blogs) and I think only a dozen or so actually link back to mine. I don't add them to promote my blog or raise my ranks or because I want them to add me to their blogroll. I add them because I enjoy reading what they had to say, and I think my readers would enjoy reading them as well.

I say: WHO CARES! If they decide they like my blog and link back to it, than "yay me!", but if they don't link back to me, than it's no big deal, cause that wasn't the reason I added them to my blogroll in the first place.

Post page blog rolling is like Z-List blogrolling, and it is good for bringing in traffic, because the links go right into the posts themselves.

On one of my old blogs from about 2004, I have gotten good traffic from using "The Z-List" blogroll.

This is done, by taking every single link in your blog roll, and writing a post about why you choose these blogs to add to your blog roll, and putting the actual link to each blog in the post itself.

Than every time you add a new blog to your blog roll, you take that entire post, copy it, and paste it into a new post, than add the additional link and info about the new blog you've added to the list.

You do this each time you add a new link to your blogroll, so if your blog has 50 blogs on it's blog roll, than it should also have 50 posts about your blogroll: the first post has one link, the second post has two links, and so on, until the 50th post has 50 links.

Each time you repost this list, it adds one more link to it, and it pings each of the blogs on the list by sending them a backlink telling them that you have linked to their blog (providing their blog host has the service).

That is one way to use the Z-list. The other way, which really drives traffic in droves, is to add a message to the top of the post asking all blogs you added to this list, to copy and post this post onto their own blog, than add the links to their blog roll to it as well.

If they do this and than add your blog to the list, you than copy their edited version and repost it on your blog.

Z-List blogrolls were pretty popular in the late 90's early 00's, but you don't see them being used very often any more, because a lot of people just don't want to take the extra time involved in making and reposting it.

Here is my favorite blog host: