Tag: Recommended Blogs

An image of the letter W in lots of blue badges.

This New WordPress Feature Helps Promote The Blogs You Love

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts59 Comments

I recently began receiving emails from WordPress informing me that another blogger has recommended my blog.

Of course, there’s an easy way to recommend another blog simply by writing and publishing a post and linking to that blog, but this new way of recommending another blog was something I thought was much better.

After all, once you read a post recommending a blog, it isn’t long before that post gets pushed down your reader list, until it’s probably forgotten about. So, if you haven’t read the post or maybe thought you’d come back to it later, you probably won’t.

However, this new method of recommending a blog is better because the blogs you recommend appear on your Gravatar profile when using the WordPress Reader, which means that anyone checking your Gravatar will see a list of the blogs you recommend.

It’s easy to add the blogs you want to recommend. I’m using an Apple iMac desktop computer to demonstrate this. Here’s how to do it.

  • On the dashboard of your blog, click the ‘Reader‘ icon (represented by a pair of spectacles).
An image showing the 'Reader' icon on a WordPress blog.
Click the ‘Reader’ icon.
  • On the Reader menu, open ‘Lists‘ and click on ‘Recommended Blogs.’
An image showcasing 'Recommended Blogs' on the 'Reader' list of a WordPress blog.
Click the Recommended Blogs link.
  • Click the ‘Edit‘ button and open the ‘Sites‘ tab. As you will see from the image below, I’ve already recommended some blogs.
An image displaying the Sites tab on the Recommended Blogs page of the WordPress Reader.
Click the ‘Sites’ tab.
  • To remove a recommended blog, click on the ‘Remove‘ button.
  • To add a blog, start typing the name of the blog in the ‘Search or enter URL to follow‘ box, and a list of suggestions will appear.
An image displaying a list of blogs that appear as you type in the search box.
Start typing to display a list of blogs.
  • Click the ‘Recommend‘ button to add a blog to your Recommended Blogs list. Note that if you are already following a blog, you’ll see ‘Subscribed‘ next to it.
  • The blog you recommended is now added to your Recommended Blogs list and will appear whenever anyone hovers their mouse over your Gravatar profile in the WordPress Reader. Click the ‘View All‘ link to see a list of all the blogs they recommend.
An image of a list of recommended blogs when hovering over a Gravatar profile.
As you recommend blogs, they will appear on your Gravatar profile.

Whenever another blogger recommends your blog, you should receive a notification email from WordPress with the details of who has recommended your blog, provided you have not switched off notifications. However, I’ve not yet seen these notifications appear under the notification bell icon.

Based on my observations, after clicking on the Gravatars of many bloggers, few have recommended any blogs so far. Additionally, some bloggers haven’t included their blog details on their Gravatar, making it harder for others to find their blog. And remember that if you leave comments on other blogs, your Gravatar will appear next to your comment.

Have you seen this new feature on WordPress? Has anyone recommended your blog in this way? Will you start using the ‘Recommend Blog’ feature? Have you added your blog details to your Gravatar?

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The featured image in this blog post is taken from Pixabay. AI checked spelling and grammar mistakes.

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