Creating a blogroll from your Google Reader subscriptions
Part of being a blogger, I think, is sharing the blog link love with other blogs you like. This is quite often done in the form of a blogroll, or a list of links to blogs that you like. Unfortunately maintaining a blogroll can be fairly labour intensive but as I discovered recently, it doesn’t have to be.
I have created a blogroll from some of my RSS feeds in Google Reader. I believe there are similar methods available for other RSS feed readers too.
In Google Reader, click on the Settings link at the top of the page. I’ve included a screengrab because it took me ages to find the Settings link.
You’ll see a page similar to the one below. I’ve setup my blogroll so that it’s categorised into folders and I want to blogroll the Dailies folder’s feeds so to start the process I need to Share this folder.
Tick the folder that you want to blogroll, in my case ‘Dailies’. You’ll then need to Change Sharing so that it’s public, which is located on the dropdown menu at the top.
Once you’ve done this you’ll have a ‘Add blogroll to your site’ link next to the folder you want to blogroll. Click on this Add blogroll link.
The resulting window will allow you to style your blogroll links and to copy the code to copy to your website.
In my case, because I’ve added the title and the look and feel within my blog, I deleted the title and I chose None for the colour scheme but do what you like in this section to get the look and feel you want.
If you’re with Blogger you can add the code automatically to your blog, but if you have a different system for your blog then you’ll need to copy the Javascript code. This is what I did because I use Wordpress.
In my Wordpress blog I created a new page just called Blogroll, and added the code underneath my heading and small introduction. The final result can be seen here.
Great tip there. Thanks, Jen.
Does this mean when you add feeds to Google the blogroll on your site will automatically update? I exported my feeds from Google to Wordpress which gave the same result, but was more fiddly - your method is much easier.
Learning, learning, always learning it would seem. What a great tool! I didn’t even know it existed..perhaps I need to take more notice of some things? I’m now off to have a play….great post!
Hmmm, might check and see if Bloglines offers something similar.
That would be soooooo much easier!
Thanks for the info Jen, really clearly set out for computer stupids like me
And I’ve put your post into action already.
I hadn’t been tagging my feeds so had to put all my regulars into one folder. If others are in the same boat the quick way to do it is to select all your feeds, then on one of them add to a folder, or vica versa, and then you can add that tag to the rest of your feeds. Do that first before going into settings.
CB
Guera, yes, when you add new feeds to the folder you’re sharing in Google Reader, your blogroll is automatically updated. Very handy that.
Anonymum - glad you learnt something.
Kelley - not sure about Bloglines but if they do perhaps post here in the comments so Bloglines users know of the option.
Cellobella - thanks for the extra info.
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Oh, is this one of the new features, as I’ve looked into doing this before?!
So cool, thanks for pointing it out either way, and for the instructions! Will try tonight!
I will have to try this - I have been meaning to make a blog roll - does it delete ones you unsubscribe from too ?
I had no clue that this even existed. What an amazing little blog you got going!
Trish, yes, however you update your Google Reader folder that you’re sharing, whether it’s deleting or adding new feeds, your blogroll will update. It saves so much double handling. Simone, let us know how you went.
This is what I have so far.. work in progress…
http://www.enjoyperth.net/links-perth-blogs/
Want to add some general links on the page, like to this blog and forum. But can’t be bothered tonight
What I like best is that you can add/delete in reader and your blogroll automatically updates. Neat.
Nice blogroll Simone!
It’s great to see people giving this a go. As I’ve emailed Trish, if anyone has a problem please leave a comment to that effect as other people might have the same problem.
Thanks.
This is such a great time saver.
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Rohit