3 Widgets You Should Never, Ever Keep on Your Blog
There are some widgets that bloggers like to place on their blog, whether they don’t know how to remove them, or simply want them there, that should be removed. When you look at the overall focus of your blog, the three widgets that come included by default with most blog systems should be removed as soon as possible.
These plugins/widgets don’t do anything for you or your readers. Why should you keep them on your blog if they just hinder your ability to showcase your content effectively?
Akismet Stats Widget
There really is no need to place the stats widget within your sidebar. Your readers don’t care how many spam comments a plugin has prevented. The plugin is effective, but the widget really isn’t. You’re simply providing a link back to the Akismet website, which is already included for anyone who installs WordPress.
Calendar/Archive Widgets
Archive widgets can be good, but only if you are using a select number of months or in a drop-down menu. Otherwise, they simply clutter up your sidebars with more links that your visitors can’t use unless they are trying to find a certain post, and they know the exact date it was published. That’s the reason you have a search box included prominently on your site!
Meta Information
The first time you use a particular blog platform, you might want to know the login link to get into your site, but after this, you become accustomed to seeing the URL in the address bar. Why do you need to provide a link for your visitors to sign in if you don’t want to give them access to this area in the first place? Additionally, it’ll probably take you more time to scroll down on your site to find the support link for your particular blog system than it takes to type in their website and find it there.
Conclusion
How do you feel about users keeping these widgets on their blog? Are they useful or do they simply prevent the readers of a blog from discovering the content hidden under the mess?
I am reading a lot of posts about “10 best widgets” and it’s a very nice idea to write a post about useless widgets. There are a lot of useless widgets such as traffic and user stats.
I am not so sure about the archive widget. I tell you why I think it is important.
For blogger it is the only form to build SEO links, because your other options for (“deep”) links are to put links 1. manually (lot of work), 2. by javascript (which doesn’t count for SEO), 3. to categories (which is no-follow by robots.txt).
It is important to provide navigational features. Standard navigation widgets are recent articles and popular articles. I have both of them. But what if people want to explore even more? They may want to do so by categories and I know some visitors do, however if they want to explore by time, let them!
Often the standard (i.e. non-custom) blog search and web search don’t show your articles so the article archive is the only way for people to find an article they know exists.
Benjamin´s last blog ..How Plant Science Can Help to Fight World Hunger
The reason the archives widget is so useless (other than the drop-down format) may be due to the fact that only a small portion of users will ever click on it. It also takes up a lot of space. Let’s say your blog goes back five years. That’s sixty links within your sidebar, which could be contained within a single, organized page. An archives page allows these users to browse by tags, date, and categories if they like.
I don’t have a sign in thing, hate them and refuse to join a site in order to communicate, so pass those by quickly.
The spam comment widget is just stupid, don’t have it and don’t want it. I’m not impressed when I see it on others blogs.
Archives, I’m not sure about. I often leave comments on older blog posts and do actually look at the archive titles; hate it when comments are closed. What’s the point in doing that? If you posted something stupid that you don’t want more comments on …just delete the post. I often see it with people who’ve been called on making the wrong assumptions or saying something untrue politically. If you put it out there, be big enough to allow rebuttal and conversation or don’t blog. However, archives are less needed now with similar posts widgets, my last x number of posts and so forth. Haven’t decided whether or not to remove mine.
Sandy
sandy´s last blog ..Let it Snow, then pack your bags and Go to Argentina
I’m a bigger advocate of a single “archives” page that gives your readers a look back at your posts and all your categories. It cleans up your sidebar, and there’s a clear link to this post in your header.
I think the main reason bloggers close comments is because as a post gets older, spam increases dramatically, and many spam detection plugins can’t detect it all.
Agreed. I don’t put these 3 widgets in my blog but still put some unnecessary widgets lol
Archive widget, if it’s the long list of months it’s quite useless.
I prefer to all old posts in one(or more) page instead of the sidebar on every page to clutter the design.
That’s the main point of the archives widget – most people will only go back a month or two, and there are only a few that will want to see the first few posts to determine how old your blog is.
I am not using any of these for my blog. But sometimes I am tempted to add the archive section
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Simple and I think you are a mind reader
Yes, sometime I feel there a widget that I should remove form my blog but I don’t know the reason.
Thanks for the article and if you have time please check my article here, Its about benefits for commenting activities.
http://www.famousbloggers.net/comments-benefits.html
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