Why has WP destroyed my hit count with the Topics Reader?
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I’m at wordpress 31/2 years and have never went near the reader, and my hits etc have stayed steady
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A screenshot wouldn’t really help in this mode, because only one blog shows at a time.
I’m using Safari, latest update, brand new MacBook Pro. I was looking at the Travel topic, and this was not the first time I have visited that topic; frequent visitor.
This issue is minimal for me compared to the change to Topics. I’d love to hear if there are any plans to change this back in the near future – What the discussions are. For someone who does not want to promote on their social networks, and simply network with other bloggers, this was a great tool.
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I’d love to hear if there are any plans to change this back in the near future
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@nickmomrik
I rarely use my Reader and this is why. I don’t want to read posts in the Reader. I want to read posts on the blogs they are published on. I don’t want to see any images or videos in the Reader at all. If all the Reader was provided me with was hyperlinked titles to the latest past on blogs I follow then I would use it.On one hand, in the over 6 years I have blogged here, the traffic flow to my blogs from the Global Tags/Topics pages has been negligible. On the other, search engines send a significant flow of traffic to my blogs.
I don’t use the Topics pages at all, except to check to see if my published posts are appearing. I publish log out and check and that’s it. If I’m looking for blogs to read then I use Google search and can locate what I need in a thrice.
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Wow – This is frustrating. I am looking to have a dialogue and feel that the concerns we’re voicing are understood – This is starting to feel like an argument between Users and those who run WordPress. I think it’s important that those of us who *did* use the Topics feature will be able to replace and / or use it again in the future for the purposes of networking with other WordPress bloggers. A user friendly tool for this purpose seems like it would be really important to a community such as this.
Referring me back to a one sentence shut-down of our ideas and concerns really isn’t helpful. I’m trying to be respectful and discuss the importance of this feature, here. This issue is really important to myself and the other bloggers who used this tool.
I, truly, don’t see how I can continue to build my blog from a community of fellow bloggers without this or something like it, and am *completely* open to suggestion. I am looking to be helped, and really don’t want to move my blog.
I wanted to reach other writers, NOT those in my social media account, or random hits on Google. Few people actually stick around and subscribe, for my type of blog, through a topic search on a search engine, as my blog covers many diverse topics. They get what they need and move on.
Also, as a reader, I often just want to see what others are writing about in travel – I don’t know what I’m searching for until I stumble upon it and enjoy it. Some people go about finding their content in a different way – that’s clear, and I completely respect that. But many of us found this feature incredibly useful, and are looking to build our blogs within this community. Any suggestions for how to do that now, as simply as we could with Topics, would be great. I am rather new to this.
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halatoo… If you want to build your blog using tags, I would suggest using a combination of general, specific and unique for each post. For example, the general Travel or Writing or Entertainment to go along with your specific “Celtic Cheetah” and unique “pig bubble bath”.
People searching through the WP Reader-Topics are more likely to find you when searching for “Writing” or “Travel”, while the smaller group of people searching for something specific, like “pig bubble bath”, can find you through Google.
Use one or two general tags on each post, that way people searching those topics often on WP are more likely to find you. Then add six or seven specific or unique tags.
Your blog is still relatively new, when mine was your age I found like-minded bloggers, commented on their blogs, and we grew together. The biggest of which, now, has more than 1,700 Facebook supporters and two million hits. The rest of us are stuck in the 100’s of thousands. But we all went from PR-0 to PR4 and PR5 together.
Find blogs your own size, people who are just starting out will be more likely to reciprocate comments, follows and “Like’s”. But, especially, if you take the time to comment. The “Like” feature is kind of useful, but it’s lazy.
In six — almost seven — years I’ve received thousands and thousands more “hits” thanks to leaving comments on other blogs, or having my blog in someone else’s blogroll than from tags (use the blogroll and RSS widgets, almost no one does anymore, but it can be important in growing your blog).
…as for WP, they have been, if not the most responsive to its users needs, than one of the top blogging platforms in that regard. They might not ‘change things back’ all the time, but they do participate in the Forum, and their Support team is fairly remarkable in helping with individual problems.
I signed up for a Blogger blog seven years ago and I’m still waiting for a response to a Support problem… I also signed up for a LiveJournal blog a few years ago, and I’m still not even sure where their Support system is.
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Thanks, @FeartheSeeds, for taking the time to lay that all out. This is really the most helpful advice I’ve been given, so far – very much appreciated.
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@nickmomrik and @designsimply – I was able to take a video of the issue to try to help. It is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADb3tW7qxBY&feature=youtu.be
@feartheseeds gave an excellent response detailing what I’ve been trying to do to connect with other bloggers. Obviously, the Reader is not meant to work this way, and I imagine it will soon be fixed. But even so, since this video was taken under the “Travel” topic, I’m sure you can see how some of the articles have nothing to do with travel. This has always happened, as people tag their own; however, with the thumbnail / blurb format of the former Topics format, it was much easier to quickly navigate blogs of interest. I saw (was it 15 or more?) in a glance with the old version, whereas now I have to scroll for some time to see that many. People using this tool will be exposed to less entires. Please reconsider keeping only this format.
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I am getting the repeating posts in the reader now too. It only started in the last day or two, but just about any topic has a few blogs whose posts are repeating and taking over the whole topic. It doesn’t always happen, but it is a frequent occurrence.
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@timethief
u are trained in SEO no doubt, so u get a lot of search engine traffic. But we novice users used to depend on the tags page to find new readers. Without it, we have almost nowhere to go. -
Hi,
I recently made a post but it is nowhere to be found in topics under any of the tags/ categories I used. (And yes I used less than 10 tags/categories)
The post (including the title) does contain a few words such as ‘prostitute’ as well as ‘sex’, ‘fantasy’, ‘role play’ etc but it is NOT a pornographic or even ‘mature’ post, just a bit of social commentary and humour. It would not be too risque to be on the front page of Yahoo for instance.
I wondered if it was censored automatically due to any specific words?
Any ideas?
Thanks! :)
Here’s the post:
Man’s Fantasy Evening With Prostitute Turns Into Surreal Nightmare
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@someshmahanty
Anyone can learn basic white hat SEO and get quality traffic from the SERPs (search engine page results) to their blogs. I am self taught and I used free training available online to all bloggers. WordPress.com blogs have excellent SEO. See here:
5 Google Webmasters Video Tutorials
Two SEO Videos for Bloggers
I don’t know what you mean by “nowhere to go”. If you log out you can still use the WordPress.com global tags Topics pages.- For WordPress.com global tag searches to locate blogs with similar content see here > http://en.support.wordpress.com/topics/
- For Google searches use this format and replace “keyword” with whatever word you wish: keyword site:nameofblog.wordpress.com/
- For WordPress.com searches please read > http://en.support.wordpress.com/wordpresscom-search/
Hope this helps you.
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@timethief & @staff
Like many others here, I took up blogging as a hobby.- This wasnt supposed to be a part time job that I would have to learn SEO and all that stuff
. I know a little bit of SEO myself, and I dont do that on my blog coz it destroys the objective.
- Blogging is my passion, and I want to write it the way I feel, not tweak keywords for visibility to search engines
. That is what we do, and we read each others’ uninhibited thoughts, grow as a community. That is the reason, I chose wordpress after being on BLOGSPOT for a few months. WordPress used to be the best, now it is just like any other average blogging platform.
Please bring back the old Tags page. Or I guess I would slow down and ultimately stop blogging.. :-(
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@ staff
Even if u guys dont change it back, could u please tell me a good reason as to why this change took place? please.. gimme something to console myself. This one hurts like breaking up with my girlfriend. -
tell me a good reason as to why this change took place
See what Staff say here please:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/why-has-wp-destroyed-my-hit-count-with-the-topics-reader?replies=144#post-882963
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/why-has-wp-destroyed-my-hit-count-with-the-topics-reader?replies=144#post-882995
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/why-has-wp-destroyed-my-hit-count-with-the-topics-reader/page/2?replies=144#post-884514
(timethief logged in under my other username account) -
@timethief
Yeah, I saw those. They are saying that spammy and porn tags were showing up, which is undesired. But the reality is that just yesterday, I saw 3 consequtive posts in the new readers page having sexually suggestive videos and titles under the personal tag. So this isnt a reason. Atleast I dont believe it is. -
WordPress now feels like the communist china. The rulers (staff) are imposing their will on us, and we aren’t being listened to. Sorry, if this hurts anybody.
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Oh please. WordPress is a company. A private enterprise. You came to them of your own free will and agreed to their TOS, where it states very clearly that changes are to be expected. Get your head on straight.
I’m calling Godwin’s Law on this thread.
“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.”
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It’s cool. I’m just some guy, as in Not Staff, but I think this thread has outlived its usefulness. The cases have been made, the options somewhat debated, the answers given as absolutes. Everything else has been hyperbole and rants. Which are fine, and make for great posts on blogs. But this thread has become an echo chamber. Run it through a free online translation service and this is what you’d get:
10I HATE THE CHANGE.
20We’re not changing back.
30GOTO10If the new service doesn’t work it’ll be changed. If you can’t wait that long, or believe this one feature makes all the cool stuff WP has to offer irrelevant, everyone knows where the exits are located. But, the two things are, you’ll never find a Support staff anywhere else as useful as the one here. And the topics and tags features on *all* the other blogging platforms are f*ing horrible.
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