Followers

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Blog Follower Information

Blog Follower Information



In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs. 
As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other Open Id providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.
We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.
We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.



Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer

~~~

This change was due to take effect on Jan 11, but as I mentioned, I've already noticed 
a drop in follower numbers, as have some of my other blogging friends 
 I apologise if this causes any inconvenience & I hope that you can create a Google account, which will allow you to continue following my blog and others, who use Blogger.  

If you do create a Google account, you will have to "Follow" blogs again, as those who didn't
 have an account will be permanently removed from our lists.  However, if you choose not
 to open a Google account, you can still follow blogs using other means such as Bloglovin', Networked Blogs, by email etc but you'll have to check each blog individually
to see what options are available to you!.

I greatly appreciate everyone who follows my blog & I hope that you'll continue 
to follow by whatever means suits you!

5 comments:

cucki said...

Oh dear I don't understand what's happening ..do I need a gmail account to follow all the blogs ?? And I also noticed on my blog decrease of my followers friends :(
I don't know what's happening :( I am lost ..please tell me what to do. Thank you x

Unknown said...

When I first joined the blogging world I accidentally signed up with Google + and now I am happy for that accident because I didn't know how to change over XD

Cucki, yes I think you have to sign up via Gmail/Google+

Loretta said...

Thanks for posting this. I hadn't seen this before and I was wondering why I lost 8 followers from one day to the next. If had lost 1 or 2 I wouldn't have questioned it but 8 seemed a bit excessive. I didn't think i had done anything offensive. ;)

Karyn said...

So that explains the 50 followers that I lost...rofl, I guess I should read my emails more...
Hugs and thanks :)

blueladie said...

Wow! I didn't know this. I was a little saddened when I noticed a decrease in my followers. :( Thanks for posting this. Cathryn