This week’s Weekly Geeks asked us to “take a look at your blogs and do a little generally cleaning. Fix those broken links, straighten out those blogrolls, make some labels. Stuff like that.”
And although I didn’t participate in Bloggiesta this time, it did inspire me to do a little bit of maintenance on ye olde blogge this past weekend.
- I installed a plug-in (Simple Feed Copyright) so that a sentence about copyright appears at the bottom of my post in a feedreader. I’ve actually seen a few blogs that were rip-offs of other people’s content, so this was timely. Now if only I could find a plug-in that would deliver a kick in the ass to anyone who actually tried to steal my feed.
- I deleted my blogroll. This has been an ongoing debate for awhile in the blogosphere. As the community (and my feedreader) grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a blogroll (plus, they get a little long). And since I do use a plug-in that shows the last five commenters, there is already a little bit of love happening in the sidebar. So. Out with the blogroll. My sidebar is starting to look quite lean…I think I like it that way.
- I saved an xml file of my blog to my external hard drive, something I’ve needed to do for a Very Long Time. Jackie has a post with super-duper easy instructions, if you’re wondering how you can do this, too. I’ll attest to how easy it is to delete your blog (a wordpress upgrade gone horribly wrong)…luckily, Bluehost was able to restore it. But I feel better knowing I have my own back-up, too.
Another thing I’m trying to do is let go of comments. Not the leaving of comments, but rather the responding to comments on my own blog. I love comments (don’t we all?) and I occasionally will reply (either on the blog, or by email), but I am trying to get away from replying to every comment. Okay, yes, I haven’t done this in a long time. It would be more accurate to say I’m trying to let go of the guilt for not replying to every comment. Replying on your own blog is time consuming, and something just has to give. For 2010, that’s my give.
How about you? Got any must-do blog maintenance tips you’d like to share?
I gave up on my blogroll awhile back. I felt guilty for not including people who had me in theirs, and it was too much work to maintain.
.-= Amanda´s last blog ..Maus, by Art Spiegelman (+ news) =-.
I’m going to keep my blogroll and don’t think that it really is a distraction for any readers since it is so far down the sidebar. I just don’t want all of them (no offense to anyone!
) in my GR and yet can’t part with knowing I can check on old faves every so often…
And I get your comment-reply give up. I always wonder if anyone knows I’m doing it anyway.
.-= Care´s last blog ..Twenty in Ten Challenge =-.
Blog maintenance…I did just do Bloggiesta, but of course didn’t get it all done. So, just this morning I found a background that I am pretty sure I am happy with. I’ll leave it for a week and see how I feel about it. In the past few days I have gotten braver with changing the html so that is pretty exciting.
I’ve kept my blogroll for now, but I realize that blogs are fluid things…
.-= Helen´s last blog ..Blogsplash with Fiona Robyn (author of Thaw) =-.
I’ll have to check out that copyright plugin. I don’t want to go to excerpted posts in my feed, so that sounds like a great solution.
As for my blogroll, I moved it onto its own page a while back, with a link to the page from my sidebar. Lots of room that way! And it lets me separate my blog interests – right now I have a book blogs page and a writing blogs page, but I think I need to add an “other” blogs page too!
I vote you bring back the guilt!!!
.-= rhapsodyinbooks´s last blog ..Review of “The World to Come” by Dara Horn =-.
I need to do something with my blogroll, too – either update it or get rid of it. I just need to sit down and make up my mind.
.-= Kathy´s last blog ..Wondrous Words Wednesday =-.
All my comments are emailed to me, so I respond to the comments whose author has their email address connected to their blogger profile. Otherwise, like you said, it just becomes too much!!
.-= A Bookshelf Monstrosity´s last blog ..Waiting on Wednesday =-.
I always feel so obligated to respond to comments but perhaps I should let go of that too … unless I really have something to say.
.-= Jenners´s last blog ..FreeVerse: "General Review of the Sex Situation" by Dorothy Parker =-.
My blog roll went to a separate page a few months ago. A plug in made the move easy, and allows the blog roll to be segmented into travel, books, books and travel, and more categories.
I’m constantly juggling the display ads and the other stuff that accumulates in the side bars. Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle. It’s like dusting the furniture–doesn’t stay done.
.-= Vera Marie Badertscher´s last blog ..Travel to Uruguay with New Novel =-.
My blogroll is a google reader widget, means it shows the x number of latest posts from the blogs I read. It updates automatically. It’s good in so many ways. Means the defunc blog would never get shown and it’s more interesting to see what people post the latest (not just blog name). I have no idea if ppl ever click the link though… But I do follow the links sometimes.
About the backup, I set up my wordpress to backup automatically every week (or 2 weeks, can’t remember) and send the backup file to an email account I set up special for it. That way I don’t need to worry about backing up or even see the emails coming. I check it sometimes just to make sure it’s still going okay.
.-= mee´s last blog ..Waiting by Ha Jin =-.
i have always wondered WHY my blog id is missing from your blogroll on the sidebar LOL! i never asked though… thought it would sound a bit weird. LOL!
Go gguilt go, i dnt mind u nt replying to my comment, just knowing u read it is enuf ((grins))
I like my blog roll but I’m still a fairly new blogger. I have my comments emailed to me so only respond to them if they directly answer my question. I do make a point of visiting everyone’s blog who visits mine though, I figure that’s my way of ‘responding’ to comments. I liked reading all these comments though – it was quite the discussion!
.-= Amused´s last blog ..Flapper? Or Not a Flapper? =-.
Don’t worry about not responding to comments. If I responded to every comment, then I’d have even less time to go around and read what my friends had to say.
.-= Beth F´s last blog ..Weekend Cooking: Chocolate by Max Brenner =-.
I finally updated my blog rolls a few weeks ago. Ended up combining some into one longer list. I don’t really use it that much myself since I love Google Reader. Although it did come in handy when the ST blogs were experiencing problems with Google Reader updatee and it also comes in handy for me when I am traveling.
I have struggled with the replying to comments also as well as leaving comments on other blogs. I think it goes back to when we did the Feb blogging thing the first year. I feel guilty now not leaving more comments but it has just become much too much and am working on not feeling like I need to leave a comment on so many posts I read. I have also slacked off a lot on replying to comments. I sometimes only reply to a few and for photohunt posts, usually do a generic reply to all.
Thanks for the link to back up a blog. Even though there were no directions for ST blogs, I did find the import/export tab in our settings and have backed up my blog. I am assuming ST also backs it up but just in case… especially of some day I go solo and go with an independent blog (not with ST).
.-= girasoli´s last blog .."jiggly"~ PhotoHunt =-.