Starting today you’ll notice a change in my website layout; I’ve brought back the blogroll.
If you’re not familiar, a blogroll is a collection of links to other sites and blogs a blogger finds interesting, reads regularly, and wants to share with their readers.
Blogrolls were a standard feature on blogs years ago. But fell out of favor until recently.
On desktop, my blogroll will display in the sidebar. For folks on mobile devices, it displays above the site footer.
Why the Change?
For the first few years I started blogging, I had a blogroll which included links to well-known web design and technology sites like A List Apart, CSS Tricks, The Next Web, Smashing Magazine, etc.
Sites that I visited daily to stay current on the latest news and techniques.
But I replaced my blogroll over 10 years ago with a categories list highlighting my accessibility, web design/development, and WordPress posts.
Over the past few years, many people started blogging for the first time. Other people who blogged years ago restarted their personal blogs.
Folks started looking for and reconnecting to other bloggers with blogrolls and web rings.
After discovering new blogs from other people’s blogrolls, I decided it was time to resurrect my own blogroll.
And help my readers discover new blogs to add to their reading list or RSS feeder.
What You’ll Find in My Blogroll
At this time, the blogroll is less than 10 sites highlighting some of my interests:
- Birding
- Science
- Nature
- Daily podcasts
- Detroit-area stories
as well as links to friends’ sites I’ve followed for years: Chris Wiegman (who writes about personal life and technology) and Virginia DeBolt (who writes about movies and TV focused on women).
Wrapping Up
A standard blogging feature for years, I’m personally glad to see the return of blogrolls.
If you have a personal blog and don’t already have a blogroll, I encourage you to add it on your site. And if you already have a blogroll on your site, share it in the comments.
Thanks for including me! It’s interesting that you decided to do this now. A couple of weeks ago I took part in a blogathon, another relic of the past that I used to enjoy. Everything old is new again!
You’re welcome, Virginia. How was the blogathon? And I think you’re right about everything old is new again. RSS and blogrolls are making a comeback (though I never stopped using RSS).
I wonder what’s next?
The blogathon was a hoot! It was horror movies from the 1970s which is SO not my topic. I found out there are folks out there who are serious fans of this genre and can write very detailed posts about their favorite horror films.