If there’s one main thing that the Blogoshpere revolves around, what would it be?

Back links! That’s what.

Anybody who has ever commented on a blog and happens to also have their own blog as well, knows exactly what this is. Name, Email Address, Website–we all know this so well we don’t even think about it anymore…until now that is. Can anyone say Blogger or perhaps Google?

Well they goofed. They goofed by no longer allowing any blogger other than those with "Blogger" accounts to leave their website address unless it’s within the comment itself. No more selecting "Other" and having that two line form pop up where you can put your name and website address. And considering how well the "DoFollow" movement has caught on since it’s inception and what it means to effectively isolate the rest of the Blogosphere from Blogger type blog owners, this must have been a decision made while under the influence. For example:

"I got a great idea dude, check this out! Let’s…like…tell the whole Blogosphere that ain’t us to bugger off, okay?"

I’m not going to go into all the details here since a couple of blogging type folks have already written good, concise articles on this rather idiotic decision on Google/Blogger’s part so I’ll post the links here and let you folks read all about it.

Google Lets Down The Bloggers (Matts Nutts)

Blogger.com No Longer Allows Links to Non-Blogger Sites in Comments (Suburban Oblivion)

Now I have quite a few fellow blogger’s that have their sites hosted on Blogger and I’m not going to stop commenting on their blogs because of this but I, like others, find this new state of affairs rather disgusting. I would have hoped Google was better than this but apparently not. Do they actually believe this is going to help? More like biting the hand that feeds them. Biting it off that is.

And thanks Elaine, for bringing me up to date about this.

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