My husband said to me this morning "Your blogroll's down."
Well, actually, I removed it. I've been using Bloglines recently (although I may switch to NetNewsWire when 2.0 comes out), and I haven't been maintaining the blogroll. So I removed the lengthy list of sites, and replaced it with a link to my bloglines subscriptions up in the top left corner of the page.
I know that means I'm no longer giving "Google juice" to the sites I read, so I may reconsider when I redesign. In the meantime, if you want to see what I'm reading, you can follow the Bloglines link.
Last year, I tried this. You commented: "The valuable thing about blogrolls on the page is the pagerank and technorati impact on sites you like, which bloglines won't offer. :/"
And you weren't the only one. I got enough guff via email that I ended up reinstating it. The problem is really technorati's. They should consider taking in the public bloglines feeds.
Anyway, if you do it (and do a better job of not caving to popular opinion), I'll follow suit.
Well, the other problem is that Bloglines doesn't know how to associate one of its lists with a blogowner. It's easy to witness this firsthand: check your "My Recommendations." Chances are it will tell you to read your own blog.
Bloglines does some exporting; it might be possible to grab that list and plop it down on a page. Haven't tried it, though.
Bloglines does the blogroll thing. Here's your "Wise Women" folder as a 'roll, ready to include through JavaScript or PHP. Check out "Sharing Your Subscriptions" for more info.
Yes, I know it does that. I was trying to cut down on the stuff on the page. Still weighing the pros and cons.
Oh good on you! I prefer it this way - and tried your new tactic a few weeks back, but with a link to my Kinja digest instead. Like Alex I got email objections, and so I put the blogroll back - but I really find it ugly and long and unwieldy and it's just so LONG I can't see how useful it can be.
I think I'll probably remove my blogroll again, although in a poll most of my readers said they like the traditional blogroll, even long as it is.
Oh, here's the poll, if anyone's interested.
Actually, there is a middle road. Before a capitulated and put the blogroll back in, I had included it in (CSS) hidden text, so that it still got scanned by Technorati. Still hurts the load time (depending on length), but doesn't mess up design.
I'm doing a redesign this weekend, and I'll be moving back to that model, along with a "column" that includes brief periodic reviews of my favorite blogs. That way, I'm actually providing more rather than less.
I tried to compromise by moving the blogroll to another page, and I've had some complaints but not too many. But it's a page I seldom look at myself, leaving it for the use of readers.
Another approach is the one I've taken over on my blog, which is to put the entire blogroll there as (like Alex) CSS hidden text. Unlike his (I think), it's available if you want to read it, just by clicking on the "What we read and recommend" link. It's PHP + CSS + JavaScript, but not too much of any of them.
If you want to see it, it's there. If you don't want to, it's not. Google and Technorati, so far as I know, see it just fine.
Folks like my Bloglines blogroll... I like that I can present just some of the feeds I follow.
I don't know hard it would be, but maybe if there was a way to script it so only a few of the blog roll appeared (for example the top 10 most recently updated) -- that way the one who stay updated get the 'privlege' of getting put on the roll; but also keep the list shorter for page load and the overall look of _your_ website.
I don't know if that would be an easy task though. Just a thought