For those of you who use Blogger as your platform, are you aware that you may be losing comments?
Blogger has changed their comment fields and eliminated an important feature for us non Blogger users. When us non Blogger users would respond to a Blogger account comment, there was a field in the comments section for “other” that allowed us to use our name which would allow a link back to our site when clicking on our name. Sometime last week Blogger (Google) eliminated that feature. Non Blogger users are now forced to either just leave their name with no link back to their own site or setup a Google Blogger account and from there include their site. Or not leave a comment at all which is what I have been hearing. Let me tell you it was a pain this morning but I did end up setting up a Blogger account.
So for those who use Blogger, do you think this will affect your blog? And eventually affect your traffic? Have you had other complaints?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
We selected Blogger for the OBS because some of the founding members use it. I don’t use it for the Hunt Smart Think Safety Blog, and I won’t use it for anything I do personally, for precisely the type of reason you just illustrated.
It is more work to set up your own blog and you have to be somewhat web savvy, or have friends who are and will take pity on you as I do. Still, in the long run, having absolute control over your content is worth it, at least in my opinion.
I can’t speak as a Blogger blogger as I used TypePad, but I can tell you that between the ridiculous WV that makes you enter it three times even when you get it right the first time, the fact that the comments box loads, you type your first sentence, and then it refreshes losing what you’ve typed, and now this total bullshit about not being able to link back to your site, I comment on fewer and fewer Blogger blogs.
Given that most people get new readers from people following a link from a witty or insightful comment, it’s pure arrogance on the part of Blogger to pull this crap.
When I started out researching a blog I setup a blogger account and a wordpress.com account. I was just getting myself familiar with it all then quickly switched over to a wordpress.org account. Which I am still learning but have loved it so far.
Willowtree, thanks for the comment. I have heard that people are complaining to Blogger about this issue and hopefully for the bloggers using Blogger, they will make a quick change. Last week I thought it was an error on Blogger and left no comments but over the weekend I realized it was no error. So I setup an account because I do have friends on Blogger and wanted to leave my comments.
Hey, thanks for your comment on my blog; I’m linking to your post here in my post today about this very thing.
Thanks Robin. I know a lot of people are really complaining about this issue.
I came here from Robin’s -
I will not succumb to Blogger’s ways – so, I’ve just typed out an “a” command a link back to my blog – copy and then whenever I comment on a blogger blog, just “Paste” at the end of the comment….so, at least the reader has a direct way to get back to my blog. It’s a pain, but I’m sticking to it.
Thanks for your comment Karmyn. Robin sure has a list of those that are not too happy with the blogger change.
Since this started I’ve gone back and forth trying to figure out what to do. I really wanted to stick with Blogger, but I can’t hold out any hope that Google will rescind the change to the commenting system. I have to go to WordPress now. I didn’t get into blogging for all this administrative stuff. I’m a relatively new blogger (4 months), so I can’t afford to lose a single reader due to the inability to leave me a comment.
Kathy, thanks for the comment. I started out using blogger and switched to wordpress.org about 3 months ago. There are so many more options with wordpress.org that, at the moment, you can’t get with blogger. It was a fairly easy changeover and I didn’t lose any of my information.