Some blogs, like Jon Swift, feature blogrolls a mile long.
Others, like Cornwall SEO, display only a few select links.
What drives decisions on how big a blogger’s blogroll will be?
1. SEO considerations factor in. Blogroll links count for something, though too many links can do more damage than too few, as this interesting post by Gary Conn explains.
2. Social marketing. Just having a link on your blogroll encourages reciprocal links and opens the door to networking relationships. In addition, readers who follow a particular blog are likely to scan its blogroll for new reads, and that can drive a lot of traffic.
3. Personal preference may be most important of all. Some bloggers want to be very careful about what blogs they recommend to their readers. For them, maintaining high quality standards is paramount. They may feel readers are inundated with information as it is, and therefore the main purpose of a blogroll is to work as a filter. Bloggers with longer blogrolls filter as well, just not as rigorously.
Blogrolls are morphing. The new MyBlogLog widget (see sidebar of this blog), which is catching on fast, is a blogroll of sorts. It is far more powerful, though, because it personalizes the link, drawing far more attention than an ordinary text link.
I saw another blogroll approach on the Instigator Blog recently. TheGoodBlogs is a blogrolling concept that seems to drive traffic and promote branding. If anyone has worked with it, I’m sure curious to learn more.
What’s your preference? Long blogrolls, or short?
Hey there,
Thanks for the mention.
As you know my thoughts on this subject are mainly controlling your links. I use a secondary page for my blogroll. But I market it to help people who are listed in it get traffic by leaving the URL to my links page in the various sites that I comment on (such as this). Your home page (start page) is precious. It delivers the first impression and should be highly micro-managed. I have two links on my home page that point to my blogroll. And on my blogroll I closely monitor that page to make sure the page doesn’t exceed a total of 100 URLS. Not 100 links in the blogroll, but 100 links total on the whole page… includes navigational links, footer links, etc… Once this page has a maximum of 100 URLS, then I will start a second page to expand the blogroll.
Eventually my blogroll will be re-done to include excellent and high quality and SEO descriptions for all my blogroll entries. But for the time being, the links are there… and I market my blogroll more than I do my own homepage.
Why? Because I am honored every time someone takes the time to add my site to their blogroll… and marketing my blogroll page is the least I can do to return the link exchange favor.
Hi Gary, thanks for the comment and clarification. Really, really interesting. The only point I was trying to make in my post is that piling up blogroll links endlessly is not a sound SEO approach. Your commentary explains why that is so very thoroughly. Thanks, Brad
Brad!
I had no idea until I read this post that you were a Chicagolander! YEA!!! We’re going to have to talk on the phone very soon.
Thanks for the notes on my little blog there. I appreciate that you think my words are worth sharing.
Smiles,
liz
Hi Liz,
Surprised to learn you’re a Chicagoan! For some reason I thought you lived in California. Let’s chat!
Hi Brad
Upon reading this I decided to blog on this very topic just yesterday.
From an SEO perspective, I think we can all get a little SE centric at times. Whilst its a good thing to watch their moves and think accordingly, I do also believe that our ability to influence them directly will diminish overtime. Don’t get me wrong, links and structure and numbers will matter too, only not as much.
As you point out, the social marketing metrics will have an increasingly bigger impact both in terms of repeat visitors, networking and relevance too.
Personally, I tend to scan blogrolls and might well clickthrough on something unusual or catchy. Personal Names dont really do it for me, unless perhaps they are well known.
2c’s
p.s I couldn’t comment via IE6 or at least thats how it appeared, sorry for any multiple posts that may have appeared.
I thought you might be interested to know that I have written a post about blogrolling in general and my liberal blogrolling policy. Although I am a very promiscuous linker, contrary to the assertions of your SEO experts, it does not seem to have damaged my Page Rank rating at all.
Thanks for your post which helped me to clarify my thoughts on the subject. I’m more of the ’selective blogroll’ school of thought, but can see the case for the other side. The element which I missed from your and Garry’s discussion is that your blogroll is an inherent part of your reputation as a blogger. So even for a long blogroll, I would not add links casually.