Blog Rolling with the Changes

Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets and whatnot's of Home School Dad

Tonight's Episode: A Simple way to improve your Blog Roll.

I have been doing a lot of meta-blogging lately. The majority of my posts have been about my blog rather than about stuff that is actually interesting to readers. At least that's my wife's take on it. The other day after reviewing my post about videos, she said in her BMPV (Best Miss Piggy Voice) "I don't understand any of this."

Well, I have good news and bad news for those who agree with her. The good news is that I will soon be posting again about the subjects that made me famous in 3 counties. The bad news is it does not start with this post.

Today, I am going to take up that provocative subject of Blog rolls. A blog roll is a list of blogs that you follow with a link to them. In the past I had always been tweaking my list of blogs on my blog roll. This was due in some part to the fact that I am always finding new blogs I want to share with the world. But it was mainly due to the fact that some of the blogs I follow post so periodically that I wanted to only feature blogs that were more current. It's kind of a publish or perish sort of thing.

This was working out okay, but it meant that every once in a while I had to go back and see if those other blogs had put out anything new lately. Than I happened on a cool way to list only current blogs but not lose touch of the old ones.

On Blogger there is a feature on the blog roll that allows you to limit the amount of blogs that shows on your list. While I now have 50 blogs on my roll, only 25 are listed at any one time. These are the 25 that have posted the most recently. Currently, the 25 listed are all less than a week old.



What I really like about this is when, a someone in the lower 25 posts again it automatically springs up to the top. Some of my favorite blogs post intermittently. Allen Levi's blog essentially went silent after his 7 songs in 7 days this past August. But every couple of months he puts something on and I will be one of the first to know. Out Walking took a bit of a summer sabbatical but is now putting up his usual 1 -2 provocative pieces a week. With my new system, he came back to my attention without my having to search for him. I mentioned the blog, Rocks in My Dryer when talking about Works for Me Wednesday last week. She hasn't posted since July, But if and when she comes back I (and my readers) will know about it.

Now it is essentially true I could do the same thing just by subscribing to these blogs. Yes, and no. I like having what I like available for everyone to see. This method works much better for me. If you go through my blog list and do not see a blog you have seen before. Click on the See All button below the last blog on the list. It is very likely you will find it there.

So now that I have proved once again that Boring is just not a suburb of Portland, I will wrap up this look at the making of the making of this blog.

Next Time: An Unpaid Political Pronouncement.