Unique Blogging Community Building vs. Link Exchange
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I know some great bloggers. Some of them you will find in my blogroll. All of them at one time or another have been on my Google Reader account. If you haven’t tried out Google Reader to read “feeds” you are missing out on a unique aspect of blogging. It allows you to “follow” certain blogs you are interested in without clicking all over to get back to their page. The RSS feed from each site comes up on one page on your Google Reader. I’ve gotten to know the voice and style of many blogs that way and when I have found they “click” with the nature of my blog, I’ve put them on my blogroll.
I’m posting this stuff in response to several bloggers of late who have asked me to “exchange links.” I know this is part of the blog culture and I understand its nature. Still, I have redundantly added and removed literally dozens of sites from my blogroll through the 9 months I’ve been doing this and to be frank, it has left me feeling quite fickle and non-authoritative. I want my blogroll to represent blogs of genuine value to me. I want bloghoppers who like my style of writing and blogging to feel eager to peruse my blogroll because it is not just “exchanged linkage” but tried and true quality stuff that I want to represent. Google Reader helps me do that by giving me a “hidden” blogroll where I check sites out and see what they are all about. After all, I’ve known blogs to change abruptly within one or two posts. Without naming names, I will say I added one back in March as I recall because he wrote a really cool article on backpacking for the average guy. The next one I read he was telling people to (and I quote) “eat poo poo” and do other quite tacky things I would never say on my blog. I guess you can’t judge a blog by its cover because its cover changes with each post!
You can judge a blog over time which is what I try to do. So, in conclusion: if you are not on my blogroll and you visit here, please let me know. I will check out your blog over time. If it fits into what Riley Central is about (in my bent and eclectic worldview that even I can’t define) then you’ll see it up there soon. Please don’t be offended if you aren’t on my blogroll, it may just mean I haven’t gotten to you yet!
As a universal truth for bloggers: The best way to build a unique blogging community (which every blog ideally tries to do) is over time through comments and relationship. Emailing requests to exchange links just doesn’t do it for me . . . mostly because I have learned from experience that it just doesn’t work well at unique community building.
I'm Damien Riley, author and teacher. Here you'll find "think outside the box" posts on psychology and inspiration. 
Thank you Damien for your Unique Blogging… entry.
When I read your post I thought “yes, of course” which is usually the best kind: one in which the reader 100% agrees, and yet the ideas have only been floating free form in our minds, if at all, and certainly not yet articulated.
My best,
Whitney
That’s a really nice compliment. Thank you very much.
I agree with you completely. I’ll admit, when first estabilishing a blog, I tend to want to add lots of stuff to the blogroll link and, of course would like to be added to other peoples’ links. But the fact it, that was because my new blog didn’t deserve to be on blogrolls!
Once a blog is established, I tend to want to only add links I visit. (At which point, I feel bad dumping people who gave me links when I was new. It’s a dilemma!)
Still, eventually — meaning by the time my blog is 6 months old, the blogroll will be pretty much blogs in my niche I’ve started visiting now that my blog “voice” and “niche” are solidified.
Hmmm … seems to me this is the second time I’ve been prompted into thoughtful comments here. So, I should add “nice blog”. :)
i agree with the tenets you established in this post… i am a blog collector.. i add them to my reader,, and if ,,, over time they continue to intrigue me,, i keep them,, if not,, i delete… i am alot pickier about my blog rolll… i don’t add anyone i don’t feel is over the top,, or i am not personally acquainted with thru the blogsphere…
i saw your discussion on BC and that is how i got here… i will add you to my feed and see where you are going… thanks for the new read….
Wow. Same.
Yes. Content is king. So glad I know that, it seems many out there don’t! Now the trick is writing good content!