Tyme’s thoughts: Blogroll cleanup
It’s ironic that Robert Scoble made his post today because for the past couple of days I’ve been struggling with my blogroll. I made some decisions and WOW is it making life easier.
1) I put all FeedBurner feeds in their own category. If FB goes down, I can ignore that folder.
2) I put all link blogs in their own category.
3) I cut out any feed that uses an excerpt of their post as a indication of what the feed is about. 90% of the time the first 20 words don’t cut it. Heck on a lot of blogs the first 100 words don’t get it. Make a description on what the post is about, with a proper heading. If I must deal with feeds that are not full-feeds, then a description works for me better than the first X lines.
#3 dropped my blogroll down considerably. Made room for me to find more goodies!
4) If there isn’t a identifiable name (blogger) on the site I toss it. It doesn’t have to be a real name, I understand the need for anonymity, but I will no longer refer to a blog by blog name unless it is a group blog.
5) If a feed does not properly attribute the source of the information, I unsubscribe. Which meant quite of the Weblogs, Inc. blogs got dumped. They give attribute on the site but not on the RSS feed - which means anyone reading the RSS can never click over to the source unless they go to the particular blog. That’s low down to me, sorry…and I won’t help other blogger lose out like that.
6) A feed that had ads on anything but full content. Ads on descriptions or teasers don’t work for me, sorry.
7) With very few exceptions (like niche blogs for example trade show blogs) I deleted feeds that were not updated within 30 days.
I’m still not done. It surprised me how many blogs I read but really didn’t know the person by name. The information was there on an about page or something but because the name is tucked away somewhere, I don’t associate the blogger’s name with the blog, I associate the title of the blog with the blogger. That’s not good. Now my blogroll will have the person’s name…that’s what is important right?
I also noticed that the quality of my feeds improved. I didn’t realize how much stuff I didn’t read because it wasn’t presented properly (to me). I feed as though I enjoy reading the categories I’ve completed.
That’s the beauty of RSS - I can subscribe/unsubscribe and tailor my reading list exactly the way I want it. What works for me might not work for you.
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Posted on May 28th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
I’ve never understood that either. Why wouldn’t someone use their name for their blog title? I think all blogs should be named after their author (except group blogs, of course) and then have the byline be something witty or whatever. When I first created my blog, it was called “Biz Ideas” because I had that domain (bizideas.biz) but then I realized that it was MY blog, not “Biz Ideas’” blog. So I renamed it to my name with a memorable subtitle.
Oh, and I don’t even have a blogroll. I figure if there’s something interesting at another blog at a particular moment, I’ll link to it within the text of my blog. But all too often, blogrolls become outdated VERY quickly. Plus it just clutters up the blog. Too busy.
Posted on May 28th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
Number 6 seems redundant, if you already removed all feeds that only give excerpts (Number 3) then there will be no feeds that have ads on anything but full content since all you will have left are full content feeds.
Posted on May 28th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
Sean - actually it’s not. I don’t have a problem with a feed that has an accurate description of what the post is (summary). I don’t like the first 25-50 words because rarely the blogger doesn’t get their point across that quickly.
I’ve seen ads on feeds that simply have a summary - and I don’t subscribe to those.
Posted on May 28th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
[...] Feedburner is used a lot but as I said earlier I put Feedburner feeds in their own category and I never link to a Feedburner feed if I can help it. I understand wanting to have the stats and I patiently wait for a developer to make something individuals can use on their own servers. [...]
Posted on May 28th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
[...] I had a bit of loyalty towards WIN but I dumped Jason’s sites from my blogroll before, Jason did eventually correct the issue and I added some back. [...]
Posted on May 28th, 2005 at 6:05 pm