delete blogroll is it time?The blogroll: Once an integral part of the blogosphere, and a happy place to throw up links to your friends blogs, and other resources that you had found valuable. But now? Does the blogroll still have the same value it once did? I say no it doesn’t, and here are my three important points (opinions) for why it’s time to delete your blogroll.

Waste of Real Estate

Your blog only has so much space. The most important piece of real estate on your blog is above the fold, and you can’t afford to allow anything in that space except what is generating clicks, building your email list, converting sales, or otherwise contributing to the value of your blog. A blogroll takes up a lot of valuable real estate. If you are insisting on hanging onto it, at least make sure it is far below the fold, and that anything really important to your readers eyes is above it.

Takes People Away

The blogroll takes people away from your site. Sharing valuable resources is important in blogging, and there is a natural expectation that when you share these things people are going to click on links and be led away from your site. That’s okay (sort of, especially if it’s revenue generating ad clicks). The blogroll is different, a user clicking a link in a blogroll and being led away may never come back. On the other hand, a reader clicking an in-content link is far more likely to remember where they discovered this resource and return with a thank you comment.

Weak Links

This is my biggest issue with blogrolls and the primary reason I deleted mine. The links in a blogroll are very likely diluted and not valued nearly as much by google as in-content links are. A far better way to acknowledge important resources is with mentions and links to them within your articles. When you take the time to write about someone people are far more likely to notice. A blogrolls links become site wide, meaning they appear on every single page (so if you have 1000 pages you’ve just given 1000 backlinks to that particular site). Site wide links it is suspected do not carry nearly as much weight as in-content single page links.

A Better Alternative to the Blog Roll

Write articles that mention the people, websites and resources that are important and valuable to you. Include links to these sites within your articles. These links can be made ‘dofollow’ and that way you can show you value them and give them some quality link juice at the same time. What are your thoughts? Do you still have a blogroll? Does this article inspire you in any way to get rid of it? Is it time to delete the blogroll? Let our readers know.