When I inaugurated The Glittering Eye (all of six months ago), I had a very selfish notion of my blogroll. I felt that it was there to show your readers (if any) who you were reading. I’ve changed my view since then.
Of course there are still some self-serving reasons to add blogs to your blogroll. There’s reciprocal blogrolling—you blogroll me and I’ll blogroll you. Some bloggers have an explicit reciprocity policy. I’ll only blogroll a blog if it’s a blog I like, respect, and, most of all, read.
And blogrolling is a form of networking. Blogs with similar focuses and interests tend to blogroll each other.
But the very nicest thing about blogrolling is that it’s a painfree method of giving something. Giving to your readers, giving to other bloggers—whether they have more traffic, about the same traffic, or, best of all, less traffic than you do. It’s a way of saying to your readers “If you like what you see here, here are some more sites that I think you’ll like as much or more”.
When you view it that way it makes you think much harder before adding to the blogroll. Who are my readers? What do they think? What do they like?
Kate of Electric Venom is refurbishing her blogroll in a typically Kate-ish fashion. She’s asking her readers to vote blogs on or off the island. I originally considered suggesting that Kate consider blogrolling The Glittering Eye. But on reflection I decided that, although I’d love any additional traffic, that might not be a service to Kate’s readers. I have, shall we say, a distinctly different style than Kate’s.
So I’m suggesting three blogs that I like and read and that might appeal to Kate’s clientele: Mind of Mog, The Key Monk, and Go Fug Yourself.
