Aug | 04 | 2007

Don’t be a Tagboard Whore

Posted by Phillip as Blog Tutorial, Blogging Tools, Linking, Promotion, Tips

Tagboards are very useful for a beginning blogger for two chief reasons:

They provide the blogger’s readers a hassle-free venue to give feedback or compliments; and
They allow the blogger to easily build relationships (e.g. link exchange) with other bloggers by commenting on their tagboards.

While there is nothing wrong with the latter – going around the tagboards of people and saying hello – this tactic is often abused (consciously or unconsciously) by many bloggers.

There are bloggers whose obvious purpose is just to advertise their own sites, leaving messages such as “Dropped by”, “Visit my blog”, or worse, just smilies. For regular visitors who are already known to the blogmaster, these are all right. But when total strangers leave these messages, they become irritating. Irritating, because:

They don’t provide anything meaningful to the tagboard’s owner, and the messages’ worth is one-sided: they’re just there to get the blogger a backlink and some visits; and
They simply pollute the tagboard.

A year ago, I had the unpleasant experience of encountering one such beginning blogger. He was a serial tagboard spammer – after victimizing my tagboard, in a day’s time he had gone through my entire blogroll and left the exact senseless message in each of my friends’ boards.

That fellow went on to have a fairly successful blog in my nation’s local blogosphere, but what he didn’t (and still doesn’t) know to this day is that quite a number of bloggers regard him lowly. (For the record, he also went on to launch a couple of spammy, made-for-ads blogs!)

The behavior above can be forgiven if the blogger is a high-schooler, but for adults, it shows bad ‘blog-etiquette’. If you’re out to gain some backlinks and return visits when you post on a tagboard, be fair and give something back to the board’s owner. Here are a couple of ways to achieve that:

Compliment. Every blog has a good side to it. Whether it’s the quality of the writing or the color combination of the design, praise it. It shouldn’t take too much time or words on your part, so don’t settle for “Nice blog”.
State your business. If you’re out for link exchange, then don’t get shy about it. Link exchanges benefit both bloggers, after all. It would be great if you can combine this with #1.
Comment on the blog posts themselves. Do you know what a blogger appreciates better than tagboard commentors? Visitors who take the time to share their thoughts on the blog posts. The blogger will remember you better, too.

8 Responses

J.T Dabbagian
05|Aug|2007

Tagboards? Damn, man. That’s so 1999. Why not just get Twitter and be done with it.
Phillip
06|Aug|2007

true. unfortunately, a lot of bloggers, esp. personal bloggers, still go the tagboard way. i stopped using it two years ago.
Ia Lucero
06|Aug|2007

JT, it depends on who you’re talking to. Since this blog is for beginners, one would assume its readers are “into that sort of thing”, that is, tagboards. I really wouldn’t put Twitter in the same light as tagboards. More like MyBlogLog/BlogCatalog/Bumpzee/SpicyPage.
Verb
22|Aug|2007

Thank you for posting what many beginners see and wonder about. Uh, in plain english and not techie speach.

Sorry to say that two of the above comments are uncalled for.

Geeze-a-loo (Frank quote)
BATMAN! (Robin quote)

People can be so RUDE! (original Verb quote)

I think the tutorials are great and however far back they may stem from - many new users need this info.

So there. (another original Verb quote).
Emma
11|Sep|2007

Heya i think its cool your doing chatboxes here lol And i agree bloggers should stop spamming
love Emma at http://www.kiss-hilary.co.nr
XOXO
Britney
23|Dec|2007

wow nice!/
neilmisiohild
08|Jan|2008

Hi this is a very informative site!
Top earring links!
Floroskop
17|Mar|2008

Hello!
I think this try.

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