Contrary to popular belief, blogrolls are not good. It might seem like a nice gesture to give props to your blog-buddies on your site, but you’re only hurting yourself where it really counts. Yes, building relationships is important to maintaining an image for yourself, but you really need to make your mark on the search engines.  And the search engines don’t like your blogroll.

First, let me explain what a blogroll is for those of you who don’t know. A blogroll is a list of other blogs and websites that you like and want to recommend to your readers. You list their sites as individual links that your readers can click on. It’s a sweet gesture, but not at the expense of getting your blog banned by Google.

I’m going to break this down for you in English, because I know all that tech-y geek talk can be confusing sometimes. We’ll use Google as the example, because they’re the biggest search engine anyway. Google doesn’t like excess links on your Home page. Your other pages don’t matter for this purpose. Just focus on the Home page. Check out your Home page now, and see how many links you think there are. If you’ve got nothing better to do, maybe you want to count them? I wouldn’t, but, “to each his own”, right?

Okay, now that we’ve looked at all the links on the Home page, I can explain what’s wrong with blogrolls. A blogroll is a list of links. Links are good, if you have less than 120 of them on your Home page. I actually recommend trying for around 100 links, just to be safe. Once you go above 120 links, Google essentially considers you spam. You don’t want to be spam, do you? I didn’t think so.  Aside from removing your blogroll, here are some other ways to reduce the amount of links on your Home page:

      – Use page breaks on each post, and limit the amount of links you use in the section that precedes the page break.

      – Don’t use links in your titles. I cannot believe how many people actually do this!

      – Minimize the links in your sidebars. You obviously need to have something in your sidebars, so put an Archives menu, a Popular Posts menu, and a list of Recent Posts. That should be sufficient to get your other posts noticed and keep you on Google’s good side.

Read Also: Does Your Blogroll Suck? 

Still feel like you need the blogroll? Well, how about this as an alternative: create a Links page on your blog. You can store the links to all your favorite sites there, and Google won’t penalize you for it. You could put 9 million links on that page if you want! I wouldn’t recommend it, though, because nobody is going to be THAT interested in checking out all the sites you recommend. RSS Pieces has a blogroll of sorts, under our Portfolio page. Luckily for us, all of our favorite sites are sites that we built!

Everyone (yes, even you!) has a “writing style” which automatically assigns you to a specific personality type (or character, if you will). I’m going to outline these characters for you, so you can see what type of blogger you are. This can actually help you realize who you’re targeting, and if you might need to adjust your blog-itude. Plus, its fun to read, and serves as a good distraction from your “real” work. 

The Informer – This blogger has something to tell you, and you are going to learn from it whether you want to or not. Her blogs are usually more informative (like tutorials), and you leave the page smarter than when you came (hooray!). Please note: informative does not have to mean boring! These are the blogs you really want to read. It won’t hurt you to learn a little something once in awhile.

The Narcissist – Here’s a person who really loves themselves, and they think you should, too. This particular blogger is going to yap on and on about themselves until they’re blue in the face. I know it takes all of your willpower to NOT leave a nasty comment, but you really can navigate away without being a jerk. That is, unless you’re a bit of a Narcissist yourself.

The Troublemaker – This particular character is flexible. A blogger can be any of the other types and also be The Troublemaker sometimes. The Troublemaker is that guy who writes all the rants about Redfin (or something equally controversial, depending on the day) just to get under people’s skin.   He actually has an intelligent approach (whether he knows it or not), because by getting his readers upset he is actually prompting them to leave comments, and then come back to see if anyone replied to aforementioned comments. This sparks a debate of sorts, and at the end of the day this guy’s got eighty million hits, or something equally annoying to those of you who are lucky to get 3 comments on a single post. Try this approach once in awhile and stir the pot (but only if you can take the heat).

The Minx – You know that cute, bubbly girl that appears to always be flirting with everyone? Well, she may not be as flaky as she seems. This girl knows she’s cute and flirty, and she pulls it off well enough to keep you coming back for more. And you know what? You like her so much that you don’t even mind. You just can’t get enough of that bubbling personality!

The Anti-Blogger – Sometimes we see a blogger that has no idea what a blog actually is, and so they fill their archives up with news articles they pull from the internet. These blogs usually fail, unless they’re run by the local newspaper (in which case, they’re obviously NOT real estate related!). I mean, really, why would you visit a blog to get the news when you can just visit CNN?

The Critic – This blogger is more cynical, and usually has something sarcastic to say. She likes to pick on her readers a little, because they don’t seem to mind the abuse. She has a tendency to be saucy and witty, and is always willing to prove a point. The Critic loves to tell you why you’re wrong, and what the correct way should be (because The Critic is always right). 

The Smarty-Pants – Here’s a rather obnoxious player in the blogging world. This is the guy who has to be correct no matter what, and insists he has all the answers. This holds true even after you’ve made valid points to the contrary. Annoying, right? Stay away from this guy! He will argue with anyone through his comments, and usually ends up posting blogs specifically to call readers out on arguing with him.

There you have it, my current list of blogger-characters. I may have to add on later, as I come across more types. So tell me, do you know which one you are?