As a blogger, I want to get my blog out to the world. So I joined many social network sites like MyBlogLog.com, BlogCatalog.com and BumpZee.com, which provide a blog widget for blogger to plug-in to their site. It’s interesting to see who was also on my site. I think the original purpose is for the blogger owner and the viewers to see who else are viewing the page and potentially checking out those viewers as well. At least, that is what I do.
However, things are getting ugly ….
For the past few months, I was using it and happy with it. I sometimes see the same face on all three widgets, so I checked them out. I also see some face showing up everyday, whom I believe are my royal readers. I appreciate their visit. Two weeks ago, I start a new discussion on BlogCatalog.com. I will visit your site, if I see your face on my site. It was quite success. I got pretty good traffic and I stumbled, bookmarked, dugg and tab browsing them for days.
I am happy what the results turn out. I meet a lot of friends and got a lot of traffic from them. That is good. Just for the past few days, I find my face appear on some of the sites that I was not suppose to be on. I stumble through pages and left in just a second. After that I find some new faces on my site. I went to check them out and find those as some spam sites or so-called “Doorway” sites, which have whole bunch spayware cookies installed. I don’t want my face on those sites.
So what are the problems with these widget?
- Sometime, it is so slow to load the widget. It takes a lot of longer to load the page, which is annoying to my readers. They walk away.
- Some people don’t like to be seen on the other sites.
- Some people is spying on who you are, where you are from and so on.
- I just want to know who were on my site. I don’t want my viewer to see who else were on my sites. I find a lot of SEO sites, they don’t installed the widget. Is that for competition reasons? I don’t know.
So. Should I stop using those nice widgets? Definitely Not. So can I hide it? Yes.
Basically, I create a new HTML page that contains only those widgets available to myself. So no one else sees it. The above picture shows three widgets in one page. So I am the only know where the page is.
You might be asking question. “How do the widget knows who is on your site, if you hide it?”
First of all, the HTML page has to be on the same site as your blog. In other words, under the same domain. Well. If you are using Blogger.com, try put the widget somewhere on a site that you can access. There is an ID associated with your blog, so you should still be able to see the widget even they are on different sites. I have not test it.
For MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog, you will have to install a Javascript to track who is on your site. The widget itself doesn’t really do so.
For MyBlogLog, you will need to get the Track script under your blog profile page below your Widget script.
For BlogCatalog, you will need to installed the “Blog Catalog Button” under your profile.
For BumpZee, you will need to tweak your widget. BumpZee’s widget is different than the above two. It shows how many viewer online, the faces, the popular post and the state for the blog owner. So we have to hide it.
This is how-to.
Go to “Got Widgets” section and “Create a Javascript Widget”.
Customize everything to match your blog’s background color. In my case, I change the every color to white (FFFFFF).
- Leave Header Text alone
- Change widget width to 1. You can’t set it to 0.
- Check No on “Show # viewers online now”
- Set Max number of visitors to 1. You can’t set it to 0.
- Set number of visitor columns to 2, You can’t set it to 0.
- Set number of top blog post to “Don’t show” or to 5. This is where you as owner will see the most popular posts.
- Set number of top BumpZee entries to “Don’t Show”
- Preview and generate the code
- Copy the code to your blog sidebar
It looks like this.
Now we need to tweak the script, because it will still show 2 faces with white background. We need to get rid of the faces. In other words, we need to reset #2, #4 and #5
Paste your script and look for the following query string parameter in your script and change to the following value accordingly.
- entries=0
- width=1
- visitors=0
- headtxt=
- cols=0
- oln=0
- pop=0
Save it. Now you have a clean page without the widget. You will only see the state, because your are the blog owner.
Now, I am the only one know where the HTML file is located. So I can just open the file in my browser and view who were on my site.
If you ever link the HTML page from your blog, you need to do the following to avoid search engine crawler to find it. You simply add the following meta tag into your HTML file.
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow, noarchive” />
<meta name=”googlebot” content=”noindex, nofollow, noarchive” />
If you think the post helps you, please digg, stumble, trackback, pingback. Thanks!
I never heard of “doorway” sites. Yuck. I don’t like the idea of my face involuntarily showing up on spam sites.
Adria:
You can search google webmaster guide line about doorway sites.
Thank you for visiting. I can still see people who visit my sites, but not annoying my viewer or expose them to some big brother.
Well, i see that you are making a point about competitors. Because they are readers who came in again and again and people will tend to check them out too. So, they go away from your site. I think i’m experiencing that.
Three are also other thing make your visitor goes away. I hope I have more to discuss that later.
Thank you for visiting.
These sites really work very well for finding new bloggers and finding new places to comment. All great services.
listikal:
Don’t forget that without StumbleUpOn, those site won’t do much good to all of us….
Terence, thanks for the heads up—I’ll come back later and figure out how to fix this. Maybe. I’m not as skilled as you at this, but….for now I have a Friday deadline and should get back at it. Informative post.
Staceyyyyy:
You are welcome … Take your time. Love to see your new post .. If you have question just let me know.
Terence – First of all, thanks for the heads up. I’m not all that concerned – As I see it, if my face shows up somewhere, so what. I’m not taking a laissez-faire attitude, it’s just that I don’t want to take the time to chase everything down. Am I being too lax about this?
MorganLighter:
Thank you for visiting. Your comments was block as spam. So here you go. I need to clean up my template. Too much crap …
1. well, it doesn’t on me
but, i don’t know.
2. they can remove their avatar right? just simply click on their own avatar.
3. i don’t know what you mean?
4. well.. that’s a little show off actually, that we have a reader
does your trick working is just Hide it, or make those images not loaded?
if this just hide it, then reason #1 can be removed i think.
but, i don’t want to talk about the trick, i think your idea is great. i agree that some people may dislike their face (icon or avatar or whatever) shown up on others site. and they may don’t always have time or remember to removed their avatar from the widget.
nice post Terence.
PS: (Please feel free to remove this ps if you like)
Oh By the way, I convert WordPress Dashboard Theme to be available to use as Blogger Template here. if i may ask, how do you think about it? would you take a look and give me some critics or suggestion?
thank you
I love these blog widgets. It allows me to blog hopping and socialize with fellow bloggers
Oh yes, I have the same mug shot on those three.
Jack Book:
I hide those widgets, so my viewer don’t even have chance to hide their avatar. I really want to see who is on my site. If I see the same face on all three widgets and everyday, I know they are my royal reader. I will try to find out what made them come back. I will analyze and come up the best content to my viewers. So who spy on who? On my site. I am the one spy on my reader?
I have recently adjust the way I am blogging. It turns out that my viewer stay on my site longer and read my post. I think traffic is important. IF no one read it, it’s useless.
Thank you for visiting. I will check out your site and make my comments. Thanks!
Aldian:
I love those widgets. I got some really negative responses from some readers on BlogCatalog saying they don’t like to be seen on other sites. So they will not come back if those site has widget installed.
So I have to find a way to hide it. It also increase my page load time. It works for me and without annoying some of my readers.
Thank you for coming again!
I see Terence. If you don’t like to be seen, can you just close your avatar?
I think you can only do that on MyBlogLog. BlogCatalog and Bumpzee don’t have that feature as far as I know.
O I see. That’s why
I’m not sure I understand your position that some people won’t want their face to appear on some sites. If they were worried about that I would presume they would not have uploaded an avatar that has that as it’s primary purpose.
Secondly I woudl submit that yo are missing one of the most important factors in displaying these widgets. You are taking the load time anyways, but because you have hidden the widgets, you have hidden a great asset to your blog.
When people see those widgets that is instant social proof of your blog’s readership. There are certain people who I know are interested in reading the same things I’m interested in reading. If I see three or four of their faces on your widget, you can bet I’m going to pay some more attention to what you write.
@Blog Strokes:
Thank you for stopping by. People join social network for fun and for sharing thoughts, but not everyone are willing to share their faces on other site. The social network allows you to disable/hide faces on certain sites, but still showing on other sites. It’s up to the viewer to hide their faces.
You’ve just made an interesting point. Yes. I sometimes see familiar faces on other blogs, which I am also interested in. However, it is not always the case, because of same interest. You see many familiar face on a blog because they were sent to the page from the discussion board. It happens all the time from BlogCatalog.
Well. personally, I don’t feel more interested in a blog which shows me 210 faces, even I know all those faces. I would just think that the site is more popular.