Monday 18 March 2013

"Claiming Your Blog" - Don't Panic!

Yes, the plug is being pulled on Google Reader in July.   If you happen to use Google Reader to read blogs in one place, you will probably want to find another reader, but there's no hurry.   If you don't use Google Reader, carry on as normal!  Whatever the case may be your own blog is safe, and it's still at the same web address it ever was.

So don't panic when you read references to "claiming" your blog!     Claiming in this context is not staking out a claim, reserving a space, or anything like that.    If you do currently use GR to read your blog subscription list and happen to want to switch to Bloglovin, you may be curious to know who is reading you using Bloglovin.   If you have "claimed" it Bloglovin can send you info about who is subscribing to it, but your blog won't disappear if you don't claim it on Bloglovin and others can still read it on Bloglovin or anywhere else.

When Bloglovin talks about claiming, what they want is to be sure that you are the owner of that blog so they can send you stats on it.  You know if you subscribe to a newsletter by email, you enter your email address, and generally you receive an email in which you have to click a link to verify your email address and activate it - it's kind of like that.

When you follow their procedure for claiming you end up with a link in your post inviting others to follow you on Bloglovin. That doesn't mean that you now exist only on Bloglovin, it's just a clever bit of advertising on their part.  And if you see this link on a post by one of your favourite bloggers, you don't have to click it!  You can still find and read them wherever you like.

So take your time looking at Readers to decide which interface you like best for reading your own list.   That decision is the only action you have to take and you don't even have to do that if you are currently happily reading blogs some other way.   No decision you make affects how anyone else reads your blog.   You don't have to "be" on Feedly, Bloglovin or anywhere else!

9 comments:

  1. Great to read your post Catherine, I posted something very similar myself yesterday, the misinformation out there is astounding! :)

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  2. Great post! I just linked to it from my own blog. Hope that's okay

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  3. Great post Catherine. Very informative. (I have to confess I was one of the ones freaking out). Thank you for sharing all of this info!

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  4. Good point, Catherine. I enjoyed reading the pros and cons linked in your post below. I'm trying bloglovin and I like it as much as google reader but I mostly use my blogroll in my side bar anyway :)

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  5. Thanks Catherine, haven't decided what to do yet but pleased to see I have time to consider the options.

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  6. Thanks for clearing that up...I'd been seeing a lot of "claiming" going on and as I've opted to use Feedly I had no idea what it was about.

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  7. Thanks Catherine, I never got into Reader as I am like Janine and just use my blogroll too.

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  8. very useful and clear - thank you!

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  9. Thanks for explaining it all so well. You've really helped to clear up some info I was reading. I just jump from blog to blog, using whatever looks interesting in blogrolls, so I think I'm good.

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