Are blogrolls still relevant? - eNidhi India Travel Blog

Are blogrolls still relevant?

During the early years of blogging, Blogroll was a cool thing. (it is a list of links to other blogs, usually placed somewhere on the sidebar of the blog)

Being on someone's blog roll was a proud factor and exchanging links by adding each other to the blog roll was a common practice. Many bloggers used to maintain a list of blogs they liked in their sidebar, with the idea that readers would click on some of these once done reading the blog article.

But I feel blogrolls are loosing their relevance now.

Earlier, people used to go looking for content- search, subscribe etc. But now that is no longer the case. People want contents to come to them. If one has 20 minutes to spare, he/she is more likely to scroll through facebook wall for latest contents, than browse through web to figure out what's interesting.

This implies that likes and shares on facebook carry more value, traffic than a link on blogroll (Except for Google PR purposes). My observation says that people landing at this blog from someone else's blog roll or people clicking on blog roll section of this blog is very low a number.

Lot of blogs in my blogroll were inactive. Blog roll also eats up lots of real estate, delays page loading. Most of the modern templates, if you've noticed, do not really focus on blog rolls, but only social media links/sharing utilities.

All these has forced me to re-look at blog roll arrangement. I have removed it from sidebar to a separate page. But this is only to solicit ideas

What are your thoughts?
  • Do you feel blogrolls are still relevant?
  • Do you see lots of value in blog roll or do you prefer people liking and sharing on social network instead?
  • Are you getting traffic from blog rolls on which you're listed or do your readers navigate away by clicking on blog rolls?
  • If your blog was listed in my blogroll and if I move it to a page, is that fine with you or you prefer it to be there on the sidebar? 
Other similar topics: Is blogging still relevant? *

7 comments:

  1. Hmmm... I do have a blogroll and I believe it is good tool as you can keep tab on few friend's post if required esp the one that has writing prompts etc. Besides, it's a good tool for bringing more traffic to ur blog via other readers.

    www.numerounity.com

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  2. Indeed you are true..The way people want in now-a-days is to easily get the contents of whatever they like and social sharing is the best example..

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  3. still dey serve a bit of relevance i guess as u can hv ur frnds n ur fav blogs on ur page ...

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  4. I have a separate blog for blogroll as it helps me to keep track of my friends blog :) But for now, it is not needed as we have many popular sites bringing bloggers together. :) Keep writing.

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  5. NumeroUnity:
    I agree with the potential, but of late there hasn't been considerable use of this... so with time, we may have to evolve to things other than blogrolls to share or keep tab on...

    Allresourceupdates: Thanks

    Hemant: Yes, the have some relevance, hence I've moved from home page to a specific page

    Someone is special: Thanks

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  6. I agree with your post. I have seen its presence years back. But now, not even a handful are present. With changes made in Google and with G+ presence, I fell a lot of it is gone. In my case, I felt that it required a lot of space on my blog's front page and this was the only reason for me. Though again, I would like Blogroll in smaller and decent format

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  7. Personally I still love Blog Roll, because I have come thru some most awesome blogs thru them. To have someone on your blogroll means you really like them unlike a follow for follow or FB likes

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