You are here: Home / Tutorials / Blogging / How Plugins Make Bloggers Stupid

How Plugins Make Bloggers Stupid

Article by

Full time blogger and internet marketing expert, Brandon Connell teaches you how to make money blogging. Brandon has been in the search engine optimization business since the age of 13. He learned the industry through trial and error, while attempting to rank his own personal websites. During the process, he learned web design and coding as well. Brandon is now 30, and resides in Illinois where he was raised, with his wife and 2 young boys. He works from home providing web design, and internet marketing on top of the income he earns from his blog.

Brandon has written 1 article for ComLuv.com
I normally write at http://www.brandonconnell.com

Twitter: @Brandon_Connell | Facebook
Become a guest blogger on ComLuv just like Brandon
July 15, 2011 By 41 Comments
Link
Robot Automation

Robot from http://www.sxc.hu/profile/julosstock

It’s kind of funny that I had the idea to write this article, because I just came across a recent guest post here on ComLuv about autoblogging. One of the various plugins that make bloggers stupid is one that automates the process of importing other blog content.

Such a plugin is not meant for a traditional blogger however. The main goal for such a plugin is to allow money-hungry people to utilize other people’s content to make them some quick cash. Usually, these types of plugins not only import content, but spin it as well. This tricks the search engines to make them believe the content is unique to the autoblog.

On a positive note, auto-blogging plugins leave links in-tact. This means that the original author gets some sort of credit or benefit. It doesn’t however, reach the top of my list for plugins that make bloggers stupid. Auto-blogging plugins are not meant for real bloggers after-all.

Worst Plugins & “Easy Functionality”

While some plugins or other functionality makes blogging and marketing “easy”, some just go beyond that point to make them lazy. Some such functionality include:

Auto-pinging - This actually fits in with auto-blogging, but I have seen it used on actual “real” bloggers sites. It takes “related posts” from around the net, and pings the blog that they link to. The problem is, such plugins are never accurate. I have seen pings come in from blogs totally unrelated from my niche.

I have never approved a ping from such a blog, and never will. I am sure the plugin developer was well intentioned, but they simply missed the mark. Real bloggers watch pings closely, and the link-building method of the plugin will never benefit the user.

Auto-SEO - There are lots of plugins out there to automate the seo process. I actually use the All-In-One-SEO-Pack, but I don’t just set it and forget it. I will admit that I sometimees forget to insert my own meta tag content, but that is rare these days.

The plug intends to insert information from your post, category, and tag content into the different meta tags automatically. Unfortunately, it is not always accurate.

If you leave your search engine optimization up to an algorithm, expect to pay for it in the long-run.

Video Overload - I have been blogging for a long time now, and one thing that I hate with a passion, is when I come across a blog made up of nothing but videos.

When I go to a blog, I intend to read what an author has to say. I don’t want to watch and listen to it. Neither does a search engine.

While it is smart to have audio and video content, it should not be used for more than supplemental content. Many bloggers like myself, are readers too. And some of us like to listen to music while we go blog-hopping. If we are listening to music at that time, then your blog will be skipped over without hesitation. Chances are, it will be skipped regardless of whether or not our ears are available.

If you want to live the movie-star life, then start a channel on YouTube and leave your videos there. Write about them on your blog.

Misuse of Pop-Ups - There is nothing worse than a blog that uses pop-ups in a bad way. I actually use a pop-up, but I have limitations with it. For instance, it only appears once every so often, and not every day like some bloggers.

While a pop-up appearing every day sounds bad, some bloggers go beyond that point and have it appear when every single page loads. Do you know how distracting and annoying that can be for a reader? What about the readers that have already subscribed and don’t want to see your subscription message constantly?

Misusing a pop-up plugin can and will turn away readers. There are so many blogs I simply don’t visit anymore because of how they use them. Are you one of them?

General Issues With Plugins

While plugins can be great for adding functionality, nothing is worse than a buggy plugin paired with a non-technical blogger. Plugins are expected to work as designed, but that isn’t always how it plays out. Some plugins simply error in some way. Some actually error because they are incompatible with the blog theme.

If the blogger is unable to fix the problem, then the error stands out like a sore thumb. It’s ugly, and it distracts from your content. If you really need that functionality, then pay to have someone fix it for you. Otherwise, you are better off without it.

Are You an Automation Offender?

  • If you have caught yourself doing some things that are questionable, are you prepared to change?
  • What will you do if you find another blogger that is offending?
  • What other features and functionality do you think falls into the “blogging for stupid” category?

Share your knowledge below, and tell me your experiences in blogging.

Filed Under: Blogging, Guest Bloggers, mistakes Tagged With: ,
Link

Comments

  1. Steve
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 15, 2011 at 9:27 pm

    I agree that the trackback scam was terrible. The post with 30 links to “related articles” that is only there to try to get trackbacks to the post. Poor guys that used this plugin got a bunch of nofollow links and marked as spam by Akismet the first day.
    Steve recently posted..What Is An Advance Cash Settlement And When Is It UsedMy Profile

    Reply
  2. Marc
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 16, 2011 at 2:39 am

    Well, I do use my blog to promote affiliate stuff (i’m using a stupid widget which proposes clickbank stuff, I will probably turn it off). For the moment i’m not using a popup as my blog is new but I intend to put one that scrolls to the bottom of the blog and only shows once per visitor. I’m using the Thesis theme which has hand seo module incorporated and not automatic.
    Marc recently posted..Social Marketing – How to drive targeted traffic.My Profile

    Reply
  3. subzero525 says:
    July 16, 2011 at 4:12 am

    well i agree with you that auto-blog plugins will cause you disaster unless you played it with the right way. for awhile i used WP-robot and i was configuring the campaign module the right way and it giving me satisfying results and to be sure i also was using WP-nofollow plugin to prevent Google to follow any link in my post.
    subzero525 recently posted..تحميل هوت سبوت شيلد 2011 احدث اصدار hotspotshield 2011 downloadMy Profile

    Reply
  4. excitedbylife says:
    July 16, 2011 at 5:02 am

    Another problem with a lot of these automated SEO plugins is that they will use up the CPU on your host and slow your blog down. They kind of defeat the purpose of SEO as google considers your websites response times.
    The second issue is do you really trust the writers of these black hat plugins? There are numerous free plugins that do lots of bad things to your blog – like randomly insert links to bad sites in your blog roll or within your site.
    excitedbylife recently posted..Plugins To Get More Blog CommentsMy Profile

    Reply
  5. Ana
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 16, 2011 at 1:26 pm

    I agree that using inefficient plugins can really affect the user-experience of your blog. I keep plugins to a minimum and I learn those that I do use, inside out to get the best from them.
    Ana recently posted..Friday Tips for Keeps: How Do You Know if You Are Linking to Bad Neighborhoods?My Profile

    Reply
  6. Jane says:
    July 16, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    Brandon,

    I completely agree with your point about video craziness. I don’t know why it is picking up lot of momentum recently. Videos are great but they have to be used sparingly. Just as you say, I do listen to music while hopping and it is annoying for me to mute it and listen to the vid every time. And vids make a blog to load slowly; that’s far too annoying.

    Jane.
    Jane recently posted..Google+ Hails Android: Have You Got One?My Profile

    Reply
  7. ashish
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 16, 2011 at 10:15 pm

    Plugins and auto enabled editors have forced us to commit more mistakes because of being over dependant on them.
    ashish recently posted..Protect your Adsense Account and Make More Money with itMy Profile

    Reply
  8. Mitz Pantic
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 18, 2011 at 5:35 am

    I hate it when I try out a buggy plugin! That’s why I hate my set list of plugins that I stick to…

    I could actually add the code in myself and do away with some plugins but I am lazy that way..
    Mitz Pantic recently posted..10 Critical SEO Mistakes to Avoid when Building WordPress WebsitesMy Profile

    Reply
  9. Rose says:
    July 18, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    Another issue with using too many plugins is that they slow your site down badly. Sometimes to the point where people give up and bacckspace – especially if they have a slow internet connection. I personally think the simpler a website the better.
    Rose recently posted..How to Rank In BingMy Profile

    Reply
    • Brandon Connell
      Twitter:
      says:
      July 20, 2011 at 5:19 pm

      I actually use a good number of plugins, but it doesn’t slow things down that much for me. It can turn into a buggy issue though if you are not careful as plugins sometimes conflict with each other. You just have to keep an eye on things when you install one.
      Brandon Connell recently posted..Create Your Legacy by Going BIGMy Profile

      Reply
      • damonday
        Twitter:
        says:
        July 23, 2011 at 9:07 pm

        Hey Brandon,

        I use quite a bit of plugins myself and I actually had to remove a few and do some tweaking to keep my blog from getting too slow. One of the worst offenders is the social sharing buttons, especially facebook. It was slowing my blog down so bad, I actually just had to remove it and took a snapshot of it and put the image on their for people to click and like the page. This way it wasn’t constantly trying to call information from facebook and taking forever to load.
        damonday recently posted..Should I Borrow from 401K to Pay Credit Cards?My Profile

        Reply
  10. Martin says:
    July 18, 2011 at 11:43 pm

    All these auto-things do is lower the value of whatever you’re selling. Sure, some things can be automated and it would be pointless to make them by hand, but other tasks, like SEO, need fine tuning according to your personal needs, something that an auto-plugin will never be able to do.
    Martin recently posted..How to Become a CDL InstructorMy Profile

    Reply
  11. Jasmine says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:18 am

    I agree with you on the auto-pinging plugin. This plugin may sound great but sometimes it just pings completely unrelated sites which may annoy the site owners! Well, I guess it is still wiser to just ping manually. :)
    Jasmine recently posted..FatCow – Huge Discount 55% OffMy Profile

    Reply
  12. Ricardus
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 19, 2011 at 9:42 pm

    I’ve been using SEO Ultimate for my WordPress. Is there any drawbacks in this plugins? As I am quite new to WordPress and I need honest advices from all of you.. Thanks..

    Reply
  13. selfishyayun
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:52 am

    This is my experience, I let da trackback pingback on my article, but then the link that comes shipped like a spam attack. In seharisaya ernah got 390 trackbacks and of course after I close the permit and now my blog is safe.
    selfishyayun recently posted..Discover The Right Way To Write Your Landing PageMy Profile

    Reply
  14. selfishyayun
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:57 am

    facilitate the guest blogging I got a new material, but I still have to perform a check on the internet because it was too banayk article was taken from the coffee paste and it is not my desire. I myself have now shut down the guest blogging my blog for that reason.
    selfishyayun recently posted..Pengunjung Blog Meningkat, Efek Pagerank?My Profile

    Reply
  15. Minix says:
    July 20, 2011 at 9:26 am

    Well these are nice tips not only for newbies but also for experienced internet marketers. From above plugins that you mentioned i hate pop ups its really irritating when you are trying to read something and pop up starts blinking. Brandon i think all those auto bloggers should read your post frequently. :)
    Minix recently posted..Indian Style of losing weight fastMy Profile

    Reply
  16. Chris says:
    July 21, 2011 at 9:32 pm

    Hi Brandon,

    I definitely agree with the majority of what you said, and would like to echo the point that just because there are tons of plugins to automate processes, it doesn’t mean they have to be used. A lot of bloggers out there put tons of time and hard work into making their blog a great destination for a certain subject. My hat is off to these dedicated bloggers!
    Chris recently posted..How to Choose the Best Website DesignerMy Profile

    Reply
  17. susiep says:
    July 23, 2011 at 7:20 am

    Hey Brandon,

    I really dislike pop ups. The only tasteful way to do it that I actually accept is to have it popping up every few days. I agree with you that doing it too often annoys me more.
    susiep recently posted..No Posts Were Found!My Profile

    Reply
  18. ashwin
    Twitter:
    says:
    July 23, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    Even if we are using plugins,we should know how to live without it.
    Also if we don’t use is wiser it will eat up your disk space and bandwidth and it will make ages to load.In the case of popups it is the worst thing that can be happened in your browsing experience.Use it only if you are a pornographer!.
    ashwin recently posted..How to get back to your old facebook chat interface [scripts]?My Profile

    Reply
  19. Felicia Nicks says:
    July 26, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    That is today’s society… everyone is looking for an easy button. Thanks for your post!

    Reply
  20. Bill (LoneWolf) Nickerson
    Twitter:
    says:
    August 1, 2011 at 12:40 am

    While I agree with most of the points on your list, I’d have to disagree partially with the SEO plugins. They do so much more than just stuff keywords into your meta tags (in fact many of them don’t bother any more have decided that the keyword meta tag is useless from an SEO point of view).

    They will rearrange things in the title tag to move your title (which should contain your target keyword) forward. Many will set the cannonical url for your site, posts and pages. You can also have them generate sitemaps, ping appropriately, etc.

    I’ve used All-In-One-SEO for a long time but I’m using Yoast’s WordPress SEO which gives you feedback and advice on how your post is set up from an SEO point of view.

    As for video sites, well, some sites are just video sites. Just stuffing it into your YouTube channel doesn’t allow you the flexibility that making your own vblog does. I personally don’t like videos that much for most content, but it seems to resonate well with the general public.
    Bill (LoneWolf) Nickerson recently posted..How to Outsource Any Project in 4 Easy StepsMy Profile

    Reply
    • Brandon
      Twitter:
      says:
      November 28, 2011 at 1:34 am

      It’s a myth that meta tags don’t matter, and an old argument. As a matter of fact, the seo pros at WebProWorld finally caught on to what I was preaching, and admitted that meta tags do in fact matter. You can get along without them, but a website that uses them AND matches the actual page content has a better ranking than one not using tags at all. In addition, the only way to really blow it with meta tags is to use them and NOT match the page content properly. So in that case, it would be wise not to use tags if you are unable to optimize them.

      What I said about utilizing the plugin properly is a fact though, so it’s indisputable.

      Video sites are video sites, but blogs that claim to be blogs and don’t post any text content is just bad for business.
      Brandon recently posted..How to Make Money From Home FAST!My Profile

      Reply
      • Bill Nickerson
        Twitter:
        says:
        November 28, 2011 at 8:45 pm

        You’re right about having to use the plugin correctly in order for it to have the proper effect. That means using it for every page and post. And the keywords and description do need to match your article.

        The thing I like most about WordPress SEO is that it shows me how the description will look in a search result and gives feedback about the article. Of course, it’s possible that the feedback is wrong so I need to take it with a grain of salt, but at least it is pointing me in the right direction.
        Bill Nickerson recently posted..Integrity Marketing – Backlinks and Coloured HatsMy Profile

        Reply

Speak Your Mind

*

CommentLuv badge