So Adam over at win-warhammer-40k has stated that he is going to try to bring back a master blog roll for the 40K blogs. This is a good idea as I know that since dropping of the FTW and BOLS rolls my traffic has not be as good. Now I am wondering from his description if he is trying to go farther than just a blog roll. He needs to be careful as what he is describing to me sounds to much like reposting RSS feeds which I find quite distasteful. I personally cut down my feed length when I found a site essentially reposting my entire posts pics and all on their pages. I know we all play fast and loose with copyright around these parts especially when it is photos of those breaking new items which you will not get sued since generally the photo is of something that has its own copyright so the posted does not have the right to sue you. It also seems like the bigger they are the more they take off of warseer and other blogs.
The new blog roll got me thinking about the 40k blogosphere ingeneral though. While we are all constantly pumping out new and interesting things (everybody more so than me), there are probably about 1 million blog posts out their now in the 40K blogosphere. Now many of these are out of date, or not really great items in the first place (like 99.9% of my posts) but even if only a few percent are good that is still thousands of great projects and information hidden in all the archives. Even when you see a new blog how often do you dig in their archives. I have my popular post list on the side but that often gets dominated by Lego stuff since the interest base is much larger (seriously I have lego posts with 10 times the traffic of my best 40K stuff).
Now google is somewhat helpful in finding stuff but we all often get fun with our post titles which my wife tells me the exactly wrong thing to do if you want people to find your posts. I think one of my best posts in on my Scout Sergeant with Powerfist and Shotgun. Nothing super fancy just some kitbashing. If you search for this on google images it is the first one you find but in just normal google it is down the list. Now a blog roll member search function might be a really cool thing or a better index of good posts. I have a couple of other models that turned of really well like my Belial and Deathwing Apothecary which are on the popular post list.
I don't even know if I count as a 40K blog anymore, heh. A good point about popular posts, of which mine are about real life zombie ammo and canning jalapeños. Not exactly tabletop fare.
ReplyDeleteI'll be keeping an eye on Adam's ambitious project.
I got about 7K views on the Lego Mon Calamari set, 5K on Ravenloft review, then a couple in the 2K for Blood Bowl Pitchs, Epic Package Contents, New 40K Mission, Belial, and Apothecary.
ReplyDeleteActually what would be really cool is a blog roll system that auto indexed the posts based on the keywords or labels. Maybe you have 1000 blogs in the rolls but they are constantly hopping which roll based on what the post is. Last 10 Space Marin Post, Last 10 modelings, tactics, Blood Bowl, Epic, etc.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends upon what someone thinks is good content. Some try little, some try too hard as well. Having an all 40K blog is tough and redundant to me so even I mix it up. I mix in Battletech and get some hits off that so I can see your points about LEGOs. Actually everyone should love LEGOs.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I started the blogging more for myself than any actual audience. Even the step-by-step posts. I have a terrible memory and thought it would be an easy way to allow myself to look up which colors I did use for x project, etc. It ended up being more popular than any of the other things on my blog.
ReplyDeleteShame to hear about the FTW and BOLS blogrolls dropping, I'm no longer on either as well (that's what I get for letting real life butt in to my hobby for 6 months, LOL).