Common Blog Widgets I can't stand

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Sometimes it feels like a memo goes out once a week to all bloggers that says, "any sidebar space not filled with a widget will be confiscated". I say this because so many bloggers fill up their website with some of the silliest widgets and functions. That alone wouldn't annoy me. The problem is that so many of them they choose to fill their sites with are either annoying, distracting, useless, or all of the above. Here is a list of some of the most egregious offenders.

*disclaimer* The opinions below are that of DustinM alone. They are his personal opinion reached by years of reading blogs, and not the result of any type of market research or polling. So don't go pulling any of these widgets off your website just because of what's said here. Pull them because they deserve to be strapped onto a rocket and aimed directly at the sun.

Showing location of the site's readers
So let me get this straight. Of all the things you think your reader should know, you thing they need to know where each other are from? Sometimes not even all of them, just the most recent visitors. Great! I think it's awesome that people from Mongolia and Peru read your website, but I really don't care. I just want to read your article about the "10 best firefox add-ons".

Pictures of readers
Here's a weird stalker-ish inducing widget. I don't know what the logic here is. Apparently, not only do I get to know where everyone is from, but now I get a picture of what they look like. Personally, I think these last 2 widgets were the invention of the mafia trying to find guys in the witness protection program:
"Hey Vinnie, ain't dat da guy dat sold out Uncle Tony to the feds"?
"Yeah, yeah that's the scumbag. How'd ya find 'em?"
"Well, I needed to change the brakes on my '08 Taurus and found this blog about how to do dat. Apparently, our guy needed to do the same ting... 'bout 5 hours ago."
"Does the site have one of those annoying widgets that tell you where everyone's from?"
"uh... yeah, says right here. Mount Claire, California"
"Excuse me while I go make a phone call".

8,000 directory backlinks
Yeah, blog directories are great for creating incoming links. Unfortunately, some insist on a backlink to the directory. That's fine, but why would you put that in your sidebar? Nobody is going to want to see those. Put them in your footer where they belong so they can be promptly ignored by your readers.

PageRank Bragging
I am so thrilled that google thinks your website is a '4'. For the .05% of your visitors that give a rats ass what your pagerank is, now know what it is. Not because you display it like a badge of honor, but because the .05% of the people that care about it already have the google toolbar that tells them the exact same thing. And the toolbar told them much quicker because they didn't have to sift through 2 or 3 screens of directory backlink images.

Anything that flashes so fast and bright it causes epileptic seizures.
I don't care if it's a banner, widget, Advertisement, or the freakin' pope. If the damn thing makes my screen look like a vegas slot machine I'm going to click off your page faster than you can say "boss over shoulder".

Annoying popup ads on keywords
If anything destroys the internet. It's not going to be a lack of net neutrality or email spammers that do kill it. It is the unholy troll that thought to combine annoying "pop under" ads with "preview pics". If you don't know, a "pop under" ad is where the ad software goes through a site and underlines certain keywords with a dotted line. If a reader clicks that word they will be taken to the paid sponsor's site. That alone is not too annoying. However, some genius decided the dotted line wasn't enough. Now anytime I move my mouse over a link some flashy picture pops up OVER the text I'm trying to read. It turns my casual reading into a boxing match:
"shit, I can't read that text now. There's no close button. Oh I'll just move over this ad. Ah... now I can read it... Time to scroll down the page. Why can't I scroll? Oh my mouse is over the picture. I'll just move it and... crap now it's over another ad... Finally, I finished scrolling. Hey, check out that link, I think I'll just... fuck! it's covered up now!"

Latest comments box takes up an entire side
Look, you can have a widget that displays your latest comments. I think that's cool. But keep in mind that it's not something worth taking up an entire page worth of a sidebar. 90% of all blog comments are along the lines of one of the folling:

  • Dude, that is so true.
  • You don't know what the hell you're talking about.
  • Luv your site. U should check out mine at http ://www . my-super-dupersexy-girl-friends-acting-naughty . com
Also, if you're a female blogger, you'll have this added gem.
  • We should so hook up!
You really don't want those things clogging up more than a tiny space in your sidebar, do you?

Blogroll to unrelated topics
Links are great. Your site can't possibly contain everything a reader needs to know about a topic. That's what wikipedia is for. So, you offer links to similar websites. Or, at least, they SHOULD be similar. If your site is about home gardening, why the hell do you have links to sites about buying real estate? Just because some yahoo offers to exchange links with you doesn't mean you have to do it. Exchange links with relevant sites or at least maintain 2 different blogrolls. One labeled, "Useful links" the other labeled, "Stupid links".

Hit Counter
It is TWO-Freaking-thousand-and-EIGHT people! Come. on! 1995 called, they want their widget back! Nothing says "I can fake being popular" like a hit counter. This widget was useless even when it was new. Sure, this site has 2600 hits, but is that since last week or last year? Or is the site brand new as of yesterday, but some little shit hit refresh on his browser 2500 times. Thanks to a lack of timeframe and easy manipulation this widget tells your readers nothing about your site. Please! let this widget go to heaven where he can reunite with his grandma and grandpa, websites with frames and java applets.

By the way, sorry about all the swearing. I normally try to keep things PG, but these annoying widgets really get to me. What about you? What blogging widgets make you swear?

16 comments:

Blog of Innocence said...

very funny Dustin, with lots of wisdom mixed in

Wasn't it Thoreau who said:

"simplify, simplify, simplify"?

PaxMorporkia said...

Well, at least people have mostly grown out of the uncontrollable background music of the 90's.

Then again, I think I've seen a couple blogs with that...

Dustin said...

oohhh... Music. That's another thing I can't stand. It's the worse if it's uncontrollable, but I would add to that music that plays automatically. Gr... I am of the internet age. I like to multitask. I'm already listening to music or podcast and some website ruins it by playing some shitty .midi instrumental of a popular song. Oh man, that really grinds my gears.

Anonymous said...

Did you forget tag clouds? Tag clouds suck.

The worst sites are the ones that have ads over the whole damn page though ...with a "Skip this ad" button at the top right?

Skip this ad my butt...skip this blog! It really irks me if I forget and accidently end up at one...I hate giving them any stats at all.

Dustin said...

I never stopped to think about how useless tag clouds are. Sure they have that "wow" factor visually. But if your really want to know what a blog is about, have a tag list with the number of posts with that tag would be a lot easier to read.

Those page covering ads are something else I forgot about. How fracking annoying are those? Excuse me while I spend 5 minutes loading a flash video before I show you something usefull. Would you like to skip it? It's kind of like asking, "Cake or Death"? Who the hell isn't choosing cake? Probably the same people who wouldn't choose to skip those stupid page covering ads.

Daniel said...

"http ://www . my-super-dupersexy-girl-friends-acting-naughty . com"

Dude, that is so true.

Dustin said...

Daniel, "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Unknown said...

I disagree about tag clouds -- at least for the purpose of online serials.

On at least a couple serials, mine included, character appearances are tagged. Thus, if you can't quite remember relevant details about the character, you can click on the tag and see all the points the character appeared.

With a serial (unlike a novel), it might have been weeks since you last read the name, making something like that useful.

Rene Perez said...

I admit to having a counter! LOL I do have it set to unique visits only...and not to count my visits. It's my buddy. I'm keeping it. Can't help it.. I just can't. But I agree on the other things. Especially the pop up ads over keywords. I hate those. Oh..I also have the stalker widget.."such and such is following me.." All of the other bloggers have it! I probably have other crap too..but..I still loved your post! LOL

Katy Lindamood said...

You make some good points. Thanks for reminding me I need to cut the excess crap from my page

S. A. Hart said...

Good points. Besides the automatic music, it's blogs that deliver additional pages of ads onto my computer screen that I find irritating.

Anonymous said...

I rarely use them myself as it distracts from the site and even slows it down.

I'm glad you're still staying strong. I've opened and closed so many versions of my fiction blog in the last two years since the initial launch because of mixed ambtions and fear. Now I'm going back to basics and keeping it running for good. Besides, it's all fun for me now. Like my own private island no one knows about. Kick-ass.

Anonymous said...

ROTFL.

Surprisingly (to me), I agree with everything you wrote. Except that I don't get 'we should so hook up!' comments. Dammit. What's wrong with me? Apart from being old, married with two kids and having purple hair, that is?

Dustin said...

Nomesque, we should so hook up sometime.

There, now we can agree on everything! :)

Anonymous said...

lol..very nice..its true too. You have deff enlightened my day for sure :)

-Kraken..http://thekrazykraken.blogspot.com/

RA O'Daniels said...

I feel kind of dumb now. I'm pulling all of them off my website now. The single picture of that guy who visited my site three weeks ago was kinda weird.

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