Did Google get taken over by Microsoft recently or something?
Not content with libelling anyone who has so much as written about PayPerPost (whoops! there I go again!), and hunting down the scourge of paid links to protect the sanctity of the internet…… I see that they’ve now stopped non-Blogger users from leaving any form of URL on a blog when they leave a comment.
In the past, as long as the Blogger user hadn’t chosen to block ‘anonymous’ comments (which were no such thing), you could choose to leave your name and a link back to your blog. Now, if you don’t have a Blogger account, all you can do is leave a ‘nickname’ with no link whatsoever.
Now I’ve never obsessed about leaving comments for SEO purposes, as it seems a little like hard work, but if I’m commenting on a blog for the first time, how are they ever supposed to find me? What about community & building relationships? Of course what happens is that people either start dropping their URL in the comment itself, which looks spammy, or they give up and stop visiting Blogger blogs.
I can’t imagine who thought this was a good idea, but I’ve no doubt it’s linked to the protectionism that’s rife within Google right now, and will be followed shortly by something else linked to driving up their revenues. Imposed adsense anyone? Try and keep everyone on a Blogger blog from going elsewhere, thereby keeping them constantly exposed to more ads, and induce them into more clicks? I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
I’ve seen a few other people comment on this, and lots of people giving tips about installing Haloscan, complaining to Google etc. but I’ve got a far better tip for you than that.
Leave Blogger. Now.
Really, there’s plenty of other free blog platforms out there, but more relevantly the best paid system will cost you around $100 to setup, including a domain name, and if you can’t make that back in a month, let alone a year, just go for a free WordPress.com blog instead.
But Google aren’t worth your time anymore, and speaking as a comment leaver, I’m not sure Blogger blogs are worth my time anymore - and that’s not your fault, it’s Google’s.
11 users commented in " Use Blogger And Miss 3/4 Of The Internet "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbackgoogle has gone mad with trying to stop paid links
I’ve noticed that sometimes my login works for blogger blogs to leave comments but sometimes it doesn’t. At these times I struggle to visit and comment and as you say, what’s the point of the nickname bit? So if anyone thinks I’ve ignored them by not commenting back, it’s because I can’t.
I’m glad you posted about this as I thought I must have broken it!
I almost never commented on Blogger blogs because I didn’t like the old commenting system. This just kills the remaining chance that I’ll make a comment. There are a lot of people like me, so anyone who has a Blogger blog - it’s time to move, as Chris says.
Sigh… I have a couple Blogger blogs that I make a few hundred bucks a month with in adsense–no big deal, really, and comments aren’t a big thing on them. But still, this sucks.
It’s a bloody annoying nuisance as I wrote in my latest post as well. I’m urging people to give up Blogger. I’ve never used Blogger myself.
As for blog software, I use b2evolution myself, not WordPress. I used to use WP initially, but then converted it to b2evolution using an importer script I wrote myself.
Also what were they thinking? A link from a Blogger comments page is not worth the bytes wasted on it. Nobody in their right mind uses comments for SEO purposes, especially on Blogger.com. I think the reason they removed URLs is different.
I agree Hari, it’s something to do with preventing Blogger users from realising there’s another world out there, silly as that may sound.
Make it a closed community, attempt to keep people within Blogger. Weird.
I read about your B2E perversion
I think it’s just a case of self hosted & self-installed, whaterver the platform, is the best way for all bloggers.
No way to transfer them Michael? It’s really going to make building a worthwhile Blogger community difficult.
I actually have a blogger account just so I could leave a message but their commenting forms are antiquated and totally piss me off because they don’t work 95% of the time.
Well, if about Blogger comments, then there is some solution I think - I installed IntenseDebate for one of my Blogger blogs, only thing it’s in beta stage and a bit slow loading sometimes…
Don’t get me started on the number of comments those Blogger forms have eaten!
Blogger is well past its sell-by date.
There was a hell of a lot of flack about Google limiting comments to blogger folks, and apparently it was worth it. Blogger comments still suck, but at least they’re back to letting you post without a blogger ID. And for what it’s worth, there are some good blogs on the platform, and it’s nice to be able to comment without succumbing to being a Google slave.
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