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Follow Blogs, Without A Followers Gadget

Recently, Blogger cleaned up the Navbar somewhat - and removed the "Follow" link.

This change left some would be blog Followers inconvenienced.
How do I Follow blogs, that don't have a Followers gadget?
There has always been a third way to Follow a blog, provided by Blogger - though not everybody may be aware of it.

Blogger has earlier provided three ways for us to Follow any given blog.
  1. The Followers / Google Friend Connect gadget, in the blog body.
  2. The "Follow" link in the Navbar.
  3. The "Manage" wizard, in the Reading List.

Not every blog, and every Blogger account, provides all 3 options.

Not every option is available on every blog, or to every blog owner / viewer - but given access to a working Blogger account, you can at least give yourself a third option.

If you're looking at a blog that lacks a Followers gadget, and now with no "Follow" navbar link, just login to Blogger and go to your dashboard, and to the Reading List display at the bottom of the Blog List. Find the Gear icon to the far right of "Reading List" (not the one at the very top). Click on the Gear icon, then on "Add", and enter the URL of the blog.

You can only Follow a public blog, since only public blogs have feeds.

When you Add a blog, you'll have two options to Follow - Publicly and Anonymously. In either case, this only works for Public blogs - Private blogs don't publish a feed, and can't be Followed.

If you ever need to discontinue Following / remove the Reading List subscription - and the "gear" / "Manage" wizard is not operational, use Friend Connect: Sites I've joined.

Comments

Ms. A said…
It would be nice to know how to stop following these blogs, too, since the manage button hasn't worked in forever.
Nitecruzr said…
A,

The Manage button works for me - though there are specific cases where it may not work. The Following authentication and profile menu choices are dazzlingly complex - and affect ability to use the "Manage" button and menu, for any given blog.
Ms. A said…
I stay logged in. I follow using the "Add" button. I can stop following by logging in a second time, to the Followers widget and stop following that way. However, blogs without a followers widget are the ones I can't stop following. This wasn't a problem when the "Manage" button worked, but it hasn't worked for me, since some time last year. It didn't work on the new GUI, either. (I submitted a report and got confirmation, but nothing else)

Thanks for acknowledging!
Unknown said…
Just what I was looking for, thanks!
Darnell said…
Chuck, have you noticed that when you click on that little square in the upper left of your followers thumbnails, it no longer opens into a popup box where you can scroll all the way through all your followers? It would even pop open if you just clicked on "more" and now it just expands inside the side bar and, as far as I can figure, you can't click through the thumbnails beyond the first few that are showing. This is really irritating for me as I like to introduce my new followers to my other readers to help them get traffic. By expanding the photo, I was able to find them and their profile, etc. Plus, until recently, I could click all the way to the back end of my followers where the "faceless" followers reside because they newly join. too, and I need to be able to find them when they do.

If you've addressed this elsewhere, please point me to where. I know it's not just happening to me because it happens when I try it on other blogs, such as yours. Thank you, AS ALWAYS! Darnell (www.djkardkreations.com)
Nitecruzr said…
Thanks, Darnell.

That's a nasty change, isn't it? And it affects a bunch of blogs.

I documented and passed it on. And I may make a post.

You might mention this, in the forum, too. Have your friends, whose gadgets got the same treatment, post in the forum.

The more noise\\\\\constructive criticism, the sooner it may get noticed.
Darnell said…
Thank you, Chuck! I'll do that!

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