Blog Pet Peeves
Or why so many blogs piss me off and how you can fix that
Your sidebar is too long.
I’m reading your blog because I want to read what you post. I am not reading your blog because I like to have seizures induced by the 3,000 dancing, flashing, multi-colored widgets you have collected. You might think it’s cool that every person who ever visited your blog is listed by every service that ever managed to track users, but the world of bandwidth and javascript load times thinks you are trying to destroy everything that is good and sacred.
I tend to like sidebars that are no longer than a medium sized post on the blog. This gives plenty of room for gadgets and advertisements that the average visitor might care about. I have reduced my own down to the size of a short post by using two columns. If you want to read my sidebar, you can do it with very little scrolling. If you came for content, you will be blissfully undisturbed for the majority of your scroll to the bottom.
The only exception to this rule is if the sidebar widgets add to what your blog offers. If you are a news site that has (text) links and summaries from other networks, have a large list of links of blogs you have reviewed, or things of this nature you get some slack.
If it flashes or breaks the does not fit with the general layout of your blog, dump it, all it does is make “attention whore” begin blinking in my mind.
I Hate Your Taste In Music
If I come to your site and it begins playing music without it being my choice, I will introduce you to the ban hammer. Remember, you mostly view your own site from the serene silence of the admin panel, I do not get that option, but I will happily never visit your site again in order to avoid the disruption.
Any time I get to click to play music or video, I am very happy. The only exception to this rule is if a clip or sample in one of these players decides to start up on it’s own accidentally (I have had two videos that simply refused to recognize what autoplay/start == False meant).
If you have audio ads on your site I will hate you even more than background music. At least background music only shows bad taste. Forcing me to listen to an ad will not only get me to blacklist you, but also tell my friends to do the same (yes all two of them).
Your Blog is Only a Billboard
Let me reiterate… I come to your site to read what you write. If after Adblock+ is done with your site the amount text is equal to that of a roadside billboard, you’re doing it wrong. If you have no more to offer the world than a pathetic attempt to make money online by gathering affiliates then you are actually offering nothing.
Let me compare it to birth control for an overly graphic demonstration of the point. Advertising is like a condom wrapper. It’s pretty, and it is great for marketing. Content is the actual condom. Content is there to catch my interest. If you’ve decided to use only the wrapper, I will be very disappointed, and you will be quite preggers.
I will also probably show up a couple weeks later with a wire coat hanger and the firm desire to abort your mistake by any means necessary.
But enough of that.
What are some of your pet peeves about blogs that you see?
I’m a big fan of just reading the RSS feeds because of this… cuts out all the junk and leaves only the interesting part.
That being said, fixed-width blogs are the worst. I’ll be browsing with a window that has either so many horizontal pixels that there are huge worthless bars on the side, or so few horizontal pixels that I have to scroll sideways.
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I’m a fan of RSS for the same reason you are. However, I’m trying to do that “be involved in the blogosphere” thing, and it takes me away from the friendly side of RSS.
I’m also not a fan of fixed width, even though my blog is obviously just that. It’s probably also why it features an enormous subscribe to RSS button. That and having it adjust would royal upset the header how it coded.
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YES - an amazing written oracle to stop the long and lenghty side bars!
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@ Jailbird - I’m just going to assume some sarcasm since your own sidebar is fairly long. However, yours is almost entirely text based, so it takes no time at all to load.
Kudos to that, even though long it should be used as a positive example. And actually the header takes up quite a bit of space so the sidebar is probably a bit shorter than I perceive it to be.
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I think you’ve hit almost all of my pet peeves. One more that bothers the hell out of me, however, are those inline text ad things. An underlined bit of text used to take you to somewhere good, but those double-underlines generally pull up a snotty little ad that has nothing to do with the word highlighted. Argh.
I’m also not a fan of the truncated posts — the “click to see the rest of this article” stuff. I actually like being able to read through several articles without leaving the front page of a blog. “Click to expand” and “click to expand” gets annoying in a hurry.
I’m glad you mentioned something about music. I’ve played with the idea of throwing something loud and obnoxious on my blog for a day or two to prove a point. That would probably do more harm than good, however.
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@ The Hawg - I forgot about truncated posts! I think they are acceptable (or even preferable) when a post would otherwise be extremely long, but otherwise it really is annoying.
And yeah… inline text ads are one of the most awful things ever.
Read, scroll a bit, shift the mouse - ENORMOUS AD POP UP - try to figure out if it will go away on it’s own, look for an X to close it, wave mouse ineffectually, forget reason for visiting site, add site to blacklist.
If you had a post describing why you’re putting a song up I think it might be effective.
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Proofread, proofread, proofread!
“If you came for content, you will be blissfully [undistributed] for the majority of your scroll to the bottom.”
The only exception to this rule [if] if the sidebar widgets add to what your blog
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@ Editur - Thanks for those catches. It’s also a good gripe to have. I often balk at the lack of attention most people give to their posts while being guilty of exactly the same.
Maybe this will remind me to double check thing before I hit the post button.
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You’re welcome, Chris. It happens to all of us.
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[...] Darkside Dreamland …Why so many blogs piss me off… [...]
Good comments all. I’ve got two pet peeves about blogs. I’m generally up on a blog because I want information specific to the expertise of the blogger. I don’t want to know what the blogger had for dinner, where he or she went on vacation, or the funny incident that occurred when the blogger went to the grocery store. This kind of stuff erodes credibility, IMHO. I’m not a big fan of pictures in blogs either, unless they’re of use in understanding the blog post (no vacation shots, please).
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Chris Schaffer Reply:
September 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I’m definitely guilty of your pet peeve, but to a much lesser degree than some others. I also agree with your point.
I tend to meander through different thoughts, topics, and just a bit of personal news. Luckily though this domain claims no expertise to anything except myself. I try to impart whatever knowledge I have, but I also sometimes think I should focus a bit better… Although I am starting to do that a bit better lately.
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