Why I won’t join the “do follow” blogroll
A nice person helpfully emailed me and suggested that instead of a directory, I should really just join the “do follow” blogroll.
Although I appreciate the thought, I’ve decided that a directory is the best way to go, both for me and for other bloggers. This is why:
Getting ON: The blogroll is kept on Tricia’s site, and folks copy and paste the roll from her page and put it on their page. This is all well and good, but it means that if you have copied and pasted the blogroll over, you need to keep doing that as more blogs are added. No manual updating needed if you are in a directory. Also, as folks will invariably forget to update their roll, the most recent blogs will not get the exposure their earlier counterparts got.
Getting OFF: if you want to be taken off the blogroll, as Tricia is comtemplating, then there are dozens of places that this would need to be changed. Realistically, there is no way you can effectively remove yourself from the blogroll once you are on it.
I really do think a directory, over which the blogger has control of their entry, has got to be a better way to go that lists that get copied over and over ad infinitum in an out of control way.
Actually the blogroll I run is based in javascript. If you were to ask to be placed on the blogroll I’d go to my blogrolling.com account, add you to the list and your site would be listed on hundreds of other blogs who have the blogroll javascript code on their sites. Getting off the blogroll is simple. Let me know, I remove your site and BAM you’re also removed from hundreds of sites at once.
Yes some people have made their own html based copies of the list but I’m not associated with those people. Many who have done that are using the do follow blogs for alternative purposes such as the comment spam that you’ve discussed in another post.
I do not wish for my sites to be listed on any of the do follow sites that have lists and lists of bloggers - like Courts site for example. Actually if you’ve put any of my feverishthoughts.com blogs or thewebfiles.com blogs in your directory I’d appreciate it if they were removed because I’ve just been getting way too much comment abuse.
BTW my do follow blogroll is also set up so that blogs that have posted recently are shown at the top of the list. It’s dynamic. Perhaps that’s why you thought it was copied and pasted onto more sites that it is since it could look different on each site you go to because people are updating their blogs with new posts constantly.
I wonder if I join then. All of the sudden I will have about 100 links pointed to my site. Will google think something is up? I have read that you should be getting links at a steady pace… I guess nobody else has experienced bad effects.
Also with this list with my website link in it will that mean I should not have to comment anymore since I would be on the blogroll anyways…
Any blogroll rendered with JavaScript is useless, as far as link juice goes. Web search spiders (googlebot, slurp, msnbot, etc.) cannot read javascript.
Since google have set up systems that now nulify ‘Google Bombs’ I would guess that getting your site listed then linked across 100 sites in a few days time, then your site might get blacklisted — or at the least penalized.
The Spam can be stopped, but it will require much stronger anti-spam methods, which could deter real users. For example, a minimum length, checking for repetition, a maximum of one link, blocking copying and pasting, etc.
It would be a difficult task, but it could be done. I find with nofollow disabled I do get comments, they might not be too informative and spammy, but at least I am getting some…
I did have a blog roll but the sites on it were high ranking PR sites and the reason i linked to them was because i wanted to provide my users with alternative resources but i took the decision last week to remove my blog roll.