I know this. It’s why I left blogger for a self-hosted WordPress blog over a year ago, but you’d like to think that seeing people leave them would inspire Google to greater heights. Nothing would have pleased me more than to see Blogger become a great option for bloggers and to make me eat my words, but alas they do nothing but validate my decision.
Recently Blogger decided to remove the ability for those that comment on blogs they host to link back to their own blogs. What galls me about this is the total ignorance of what blogging is about. One of the best things about what blogs have done to the Internet is how encourages community, sharing with your peers, to circumvent the structure that we’re so often asked to adhere to for no good reason. It redefines what we call a friend. I had three people at my wedding whom the relationship we have was built primarily through blog comments.
What further galls me is that this change was unannounced, and with all the controversy, there seems to be no response from Google. I talk about poor customer service all the time, but it seems no one gets it. The #1 key to keeping your customers is to talk to them. This change happened at least 11 days ago and nothing.
Apparently Blogger is planning a move to a different system called Open ID at some point, but there are no details of when, does it matter? People need to move off of this system or demand more. If you just look around the web you’ll see that this is raising a big stink (I’ve added some links below). What do I suggest? I moved my blog off of blogger over a year ago and have nothing but good things to say about WordPress. They offer their blogging software for free for self-hosting or you can have WordPress host it. If you don’t like how something works in WordPress, it’s easy to change it. Plus they have a built in tool for moving blogs from blogger. That’s my first thought – otherwise people need to tell Google they’re wrong for doing this.
Suburban Oblivion – Blogger.com No Longer Allows Links to Non-Blogger Sites in Comments
Matts Nutts SEO and Blogging – Google Lets Down The Bloggers
What’s Wrong Around Us? – When Brilliant Men Have Dumb Ideas
PENSIEVE – Blogger Backlash (ooh – talk of boycotting commenting on blogger hosted blogs)
Hey,
Sorry it’s taken me a few days to get back with ya…it’s that time of year ;)…but I’ve updated my post and I’m adding yours.
Have you heard any updates from Blogger? I haven’t, but s u r e l y they’re workin’ on…right?
Thanks for the links here.
This is a dumb move for Blogger.
I have been thinking about moving to WordPress or another platform, but I don’t know what the differences are from blogger. I’ve only ever used blogger.
Haven’t heard a word. Sad – just poor customer service.
Jess – I should do a Blogger/WordPress comparison. Bottom line is that with WordPress you have much greater flexibility in changing how your blog works. With that flexibility comes more work in installing plug-ins and templates that Blogger does for free for you.
I love WordPress – it makes me feel like I really own my blog. It wasn’t too hard to make the switch, and I think my blog has improved greatly in part because of WordPress