Saturday, April 27, 2019

Blogging Platforms and Discovery





I love Google as much as...well, everybody. I use Google practically every day for something. And I'm quite sure that Google knows me very well, but it's a trade-off...information at my fingertips or protect my privacy? Frankly, I need Google. After all, Ask Jeeves has retired.




Everyone swears by WordPress for blogging, but I've used Blogger since 2007 and I like it ~ it's made to order for a writer; no confusing elements to configure; no resultant hissy fits. I actually have a blog on WordPress, but I'd never be able to find it...now.

The one advantage to WordPress, though, is that it's easy as pie to find blogs to browse. You just click "next blog" and voilĂ . Finding blogs on Blogger, however...good luck! The Google people are so smart, I just don't get it. Maybe blogs aren't actually a "thing" anymore, so Google figures, why bother?

I used to follow certain blogs, but then Google locked me out of my account and hard as I tried, I could never recover my settings. The email threads were (almost) funny...nobody at headquarters could grasp what I was asking, and each "representative" sent me to links that redirected me to other links that redirected me back to the original links. After months of frustration, I simply gave up and created a new blog. But I, of course, lost my favorite blogs and lost all my followers. I'm (kind of) over it now.

But now I can't find blogs to follow. I tried...well, Googling..."Blogger blogs" in my preferred category, but that was essentially useless. I feel adrift. I would love to find like-minded writers, to feel like I'm part of a community. I also would love to get my followers back ~ they at least left comments ~ but they lost me and won't ever find me again.

So, if anyone is actually reading this and either has a blog or knows how to search for them, please let me know. 

Meanwhile, I'll keep on keeping on. I'll keep writing. That's what I do, after all.

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UPDATE:  

I did find a Blogger search engine, Bloggernity, in which one can search by category. Sadly, most of the blogs I found have not been updated in ages. Maybe Google is right and blogging isn't a "thing".





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