For a long time, the natural way for finding multiple, random blogs was "Next Blog" surfing.
After a while, spammers found out about this, and "Next\\\\Porn Blog" surfing became the norm. A couple months ago, Blogger developed a new "Next Blog" link which has turned out to be safer - and boring.
Fortunately, "Next Blog" surfing isn't the only way to see what's out there in the Blogosphere.
We have a number of alternative strategies, which give you various choices to focus or randomise your surfing.
Blogger Profile Surfing
This is easy to focus, and it's symmetrical. While you are finding out about other folks, they are also finding out about you.
You fill out your Blogger profile with key words describing your interests. Your key words, separated by commas, become links to search for other profiles with identical key words.
You link from your profile, to SERP lists of other profiles, and to other blogs. The options, which focus your surfing here, are based on the keywords which you add to your profile, then which profile you examine from the SERP list, and finally which blog you select from a given profile.
Following Surfing
Following Surfing, like Blogger Profile Surfing, involves your profile. The Following profile, though, links blogs and profiles asymmetrically, and provides focused and random surfing alike.
You link from anyone's blog, to random and miscellaneous personal icons of the Followers, to profiles of the Followers, and to other blogs. The options, which focus your surfing here, start with which Follower icon to select, then what blog linked to the profile of the Follower selected.
Google Blog Search
Like Blogger Profile Surfing, this is easy to focus. While the latter is symmetrical (as you are able to surf other profiles, others are able to surf yours), this option allows you some anonymity.
This gives you the ability to specify a number of interesting criteria to narrow down your interests, then randomly accesses multiple blogs in a search based upon your criteria. One frequently requested "Next Blog" feature has long been language selection, and that is one key selection for Google Blog Search.
You link from the blog search options "command line" interface, to a Google SERP list - and to the blogs of interest.
Google+
Google+ is an interactive search process, where you contribute as you benefit. With Google+, you get recommendations of blogs and web sites, based upon what you recommend to other people.
When you share what interests you - and as your universe of friends expands - your friends will share, with you, what interests them. If your friends are interested by what you share, then some of what they share will interest you.
As your universe of friends expands, you'll have more friends who are interested in what interests you. As your friends are interested in what you share, they will share what you share, with their friends - and their friends will become your friends.
As your universe of friends expands further, you'll have more friends with other interests. As you explore your friends interests, some of what interests them (now) may interest you (later).
Google+ is much more dynamic than any literal "search engine", because it is constantly expanding. Google+ lets you surf, based on your friends recommendations - and as your universe of friends expands, so will your universe of interests.
Next Blog Surfing
No longer accessing blogs that are recently published, and supposedly engineered now to access only other blogs of similar subject to the current blog displayed, the "Next Blog" link will still access random blogs. It just uses additional filters, with language and subject identified so far.
You link from any blog, to other blogs, one at a time. There are no options here - you take what you are offered, or continue surfing.
Each strategy has its advantages, so try them all and decide for yourself which one suits your needs.
Showing posts with label Surfing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Surfing. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The New "Next Blog" Link - What Next?
Up until last week, I would advise folks looking for traffic to their blogs that they should publish, publish, publish.
This gives us two concerns, which we did not have earlier.
Instead of the "Next Blog" link bringing you random visitors, you may get more focused visitors.
Having found other blogs through any of the above techniques, you can attract traffic to your blog by becoming a Follower of blogs that interest you. You can find other blogs by surfing from those blogs, and other people who surf those blogs may, similarly, find your blog.
None of the above techniques will attract traffic based upon posting activity, though. Whether you post daily, or yearly, you'll be just as likely to attract traffic. And you'll be more likely to surf to other blogs with subject similar to your blog. And this brings us to the final (and possibly primary) result of the new "Next Blog" link.
Spam blogs, published by the thousands, will receive significantly less traffic, and our blogs will receive, relatively, more traffic.
This will reduce the benefit of spammers who post splog farms, since 1,000 splogs today will probably attract as much traffic as 1 splog last week, and updating a splog once / year will likely attract as much traffic as once / day. This should contribute to decreased visibility and presence of the hundreds of thousand member splog farms, so common these days.
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Besides friends and family, your initial readers will come through the "Next Blog" link, randomly. You get more "Next Blog" traffic from posting more, less from posting less. And, you'll need this initial traffic.Last week, with the new "Next Blog" link, all of that changed. Now, people hitting "Next Blog" get another blog, but with 2 major differences from the possibility last week.
- The "next blog" linked to will be chosen for similar content / subject, and same language, as the blog being displayed currently.
- The "next blog" linked to will not be chosen relevant to updating activity. You're just as likely to get a blog published to 5 years ago, as 5 minutes ago.
This gives us two concerns, which we did not have earlier.
- Finding other blogs of random subject and recent updates won't be as simple as hitting the "Next Blog" link.
- Getting initial traffic to your blog won't be as simple as merely "publish, publish, publish".
Instead of the "Next Blog" link bringing you random visitors, you may get more focused visitors.
- Blogger Profile surfing. You create your Blogger profile, and indicate your various interests. You can find other people like you, when you click on your various interests. People like you will find your profile, and others like yours, when they surf from their profile.
- Google Blog Search. Once your blog has value to the search engines, people searching for subject related content will find your blog.
- Next Blog surfing. People will still find your blog using "Next Blog", they will simply start from a blog similar to yours, not one of random content.
Having found other blogs through any of the above techniques, you can attract traffic to your blog by becoming a Follower of blogs that interest you. You can find other blogs by surfing from those blogs, and other people who surf those blogs may, similarly, find your blog.
None of the above techniques will attract traffic based upon posting activity, though. Whether you post daily, or yearly, you'll be just as likely to attract traffic. And you'll be more likely to surf to other blogs with subject similar to your blog. And this brings us to the final (and possibly primary) result of the new "Next Blog" link.
Spam blogs, published by the thousands, will receive significantly less traffic, and our blogs will receive, relatively, more traffic.
- Unless you start from a blog dedicated to hacking, porn, or spam, "Next Blog" will be less likely to bring you to a blog with hacking, porn, or spam.
- Publishing a blog 100 times / day will bring a spammer as much random traffic as publishing once / week, or once / year.
This will reduce the benefit of spammers who post splog farms, since 1,000 splogs today will probably attract as much traffic as 1 splog last week, and updating a splog once / year will likely attract as much traffic as once / day. This should contribute to decreased visibility and presence of the hundreds of thousand member splog farms, so common these days.
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Friday, November 13, 2009
The New "Next Blog" Link - What Now?
Long ago, I observed that getting readers for your blog started with publishing posts. Thanks to the "Next Blog" link in the navbar, as you published posts, you'd get readers who randomly surfed to your blog. As you got more readers from random access, some readers would become return readers, which would encourage you to publish more. Which would bring you more readers. And so on.
That was a great strategy on Bloggers part, for a Blogosphere with
Unfortunately, the spammers of the Internet figured that was the perfect way to get readers to their splogs, too. And BlogSpot splog farms were born.
This week, we have The New "Next Blog" link. For any blog with any given subject matter, a reader hitting "Next Blog" gets another blog in the same language, and with the same subject matter.
As noted by several readers of this blog, there's one thing missing now.
"Next Blog" now makes no attempt to look for blogs with recent posts. Any blog, whether published 5 minutes ago or 5 years ago, is eligible by language and by subject matter.
Along with removing incentive for spammers to publish thousands of splogs / day, this removes incentive for us to publish. A blog published 5 years ago will continue to receive random visitors, as long as there are other blogs like it.
This makes "Next Blog" uniformly random. The more blogs that there are like yours, the lesser the chance that any one of you (your blog, or a competitor's blog) will be chosen by the link, when anybody surfs a competitor's blog. Balancing that out, though, the more blogs that there are like yours, the greater the chance that there are people surfing blogs like yours, which increases your chance that your blog will be chosen by somebody hitting "Next Blog".
I'm not a mathemetician, but instinctively I suspect that this gives each blog in the Blogosphere an equal chance, with each other blog in the Blogosphere, of receiving a "Next Blog" inclick, at any time.
That being the case, how do we get readers for our blogs? We'll explore that question, in my Next Post, The New "Next Blog" Link - What Next?.
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That was a great strategy on Bloggers part, for a Blogosphere with
- Relatively few blogs.
- No spammers.
Unfortunately, the spammers of the Internet figured that was the perfect way to get readers to their splogs, too. And BlogSpot splog farms were born.
This week, we have The New "Next Blog" link. For any blog with any given subject matter, a reader hitting "Next Blog" gets another blog in the same language, and with the same subject matter.
As noted by several readers of this blog, there's one thing missing now.
"Next Blog" now makes no attempt to look for blogs with recent posts. Any blog, whether published 5 minutes ago or 5 years ago, is eligible by language and by subject matter.
Along with removing incentive for spammers to publish thousands of splogs / day, this removes incentive for us to publish. A blog published 5 years ago will continue to receive random visitors, as long as there are other blogs like it.
This makes "Next Blog" uniformly random. The more blogs that there are like yours, the lesser the chance that any one of you (your blog, or a competitor's blog) will be chosen by the link, when anybody surfs a competitor's blog. Balancing that out, though, the more blogs that there are like yours, the greater the chance that there are people surfing blogs like yours, which increases your chance that your blog will be chosen by somebody hitting "Next Blog".
I'm not a mathemetician, but instinctively I suspect that this gives each blog in the Blogosphere an equal chance, with each other blog in the Blogosphere, of receiving a "Next Blog" inclick, at any time.
That being the case, how do we get readers for our blogs? We'll explore that question, in my Next Post, The New "Next Blog" Link - What Next?.
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Thursday, November 12, 2009
It's Here - The New "Next Blog" Link
Just a couple days ago, I observed that the "Next Blog" link in the navbar was being redesigned. So, it's here. Click on "Next Blog" from above. Now, you'll get other blogs in English, and for this blog, other techie blogs.
No more hacking, porn, or spam blogs, from clicking "Next Blog" - unless the blog that you're currently viewing contains hacking, porn, or spam. Which means no more hacking, porn, or spam from this blog, from clicking "Next Blog" - period.
The end of hacking, porn, and spam in the NextBlogosphere. Bravo, Blogger.
Maybe you'll see a third difference. Now, any randomly accessed other blog may, or may not be, recently updated. This won't please everybody, unfortunately.
So next, we'll have to look for alternative strategies for publicising your blog. We used to start with publish, publish, publish. That's still a good goal - you want to write content that's interesting, and relevant, if that's what your readers like. But that won't get you readers, even random ones, now. No more random traffic to our blogs, from increased posting activity.
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No more hacking, porn, or spam blogs, from clicking "Next Blog" - unless the blog that you're currently viewing contains hacking, porn, or spam. Which means no more hacking, porn, or spam from this blog, from clicking "Next Blog" - period.
The end of hacking, porn, and spam in the NextBlogosphere. Bravo, Blogger.
Maybe you'll see a third difference. Now, any randomly accessed other blog may, or may not be, recently updated. This won't please everybody, unfortunately.
Before it would often bring me to sites I had no interest in or were not in english, but at least it brought me to recently updated sites. Now when I do it I often get stuck finding a ton of sites all on a single topic, and many of them haven't been updated in months/years.You can't please everybody. You can have exciting, or you can have safe. I don't think that you can have both.
So next, we'll have to look for alternative strategies for publicising your blog. We used to start with publish, publish, publish. That's still a good goal - you want to write content that's interesting, and relevant, if that's what your readers like. But that won't get you readers, even random ones, now. No more random traffic to our blogs, from increased posting activity.
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Coming Soon - The New "Next Blog" Link
I've been writing about the navbar, and the "Next Blog" link, for some time - about its random nature, about its dangers, and recently about its design changes. Soon, we are promised a major functionality change in "Next Blog". Blogger Buzz: Coming up Next... suggests that soon, the link will let us surf to blogs with both language and subject affinity to our blogs.
This is a great idea, and one that's been long overdue. This has been coming, since well before January 2008.
But like all great ideas, one should consider the details.
It will be interesting to see what a blog with a totally unique language / subject pair will link to. Also, how granular will the subject association be? For that matter, how will blog subject be determined? What of blogs with multiple subjects - or of course some blogs with no subject, simply ramblings?
And will this allow folks to intentionally (or un intentionally) surf to porn or spam, if they are currently viewing porn or spam? Will it be possible that the bad guys could build blogs that would have the right content, to intercept a blog viewer surfing non porn / spam, so they end up surfing through a ghetto of porn / spam blogs?
For that matter, maybe porn / spam wouldn't be the only types of hijackings. How about someone surfing blogs about automotive design being hijacked into a blog about the ozone layer (hopefully, you understand the connection there). Worse yet, into automotive insurance issues.
Take 10 minutes, see how many subject hijackings you could imagine. Soft spam / propaganda hijacks, nothing blatant. Still, opportunities a plenty, for abuse.
Ten minutes after this change hits the Blogosphere, the bad guys will have a hijack in design. Bet on it. As people start to trust the new "Next Blog" link, it'll be like wolves in the sheep pen, with no shepherds in sight.
Like many Blogger ideas, this one may deserve skeptical optimism.
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This is a great idea, and one that's been long overdue. This has been coming, since well before January 2008.
But like all great ideas, one should consider the details.
It will be interesting to see what a blog with a totally unique language / subject pair will link to. Also, how granular will the subject association be? For that matter, how will blog subject be determined? What of blogs with multiple subjects - or of course some blogs with no subject, simply ramblings?
And will this allow folks to intentionally (or un intentionally) surf to porn or spam, if they are currently viewing porn or spam? Will it be possible that the bad guys could build blogs that would have the right content, to intercept a blog viewer surfing non porn / spam, so they end up surfing through a ghetto of porn / spam blogs?
For that matter, maybe porn / spam wouldn't be the only types of hijackings. How about someone surfing blogs about automotive design being hijacked into a blog about the ozone layer (hopefully, you understand the connection there). Worse yet, into automotive insurance issues.
Take 10 minutes, see how many subject hijackings you could imagine. Soft spam / propaganda hijacks, nothing blatant. Still, opportunities a plenty, for abuse.
Ten minutes after this change hits the Blogosphere, the bad guys will have a hijack in design. Bet on it. As people start to trust the new "Next Blog" link, it'll be like wolves in the sheep pen, with no shepherds in sight.
Like many Blogger ideas, this one may deserve skeptical optimism.
>> Top
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