Blog Follower Information

Good evening my crafty friends.

Since the beginning of the year, I've seen a few posts around blogland where bloggers have noticed a drop in their follower numbers. I know we all like to see a large number of followers when we log onto our Blogger Dashboard so it's annoying when these numbers fall, especially if you've built up your followers over a number of years. Then I saw a post earlier this week on my friend Dawn's blog, which explains the situation perfectly! I'll hand over to her (via the gift of copy and paste!):

Hi everyone, have you noticed a drop in your blog followers? 

Or are you missing posts on blogs you followed?

I have & I was visiting my friend Linda's blog, when I came across a post with 

the following information, which I wanted to share with you!

This explains a lot!

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!

Now although I haven't yet noticed a drop in my followers, I would hate to lose any of you ... especially as I'm planning a little something to celebrate my fifth Blogaversary in June!!!!!! So if you want to continue following my blog and currently don't have a Google Account Profile then you might want to consider having one. Alternatively, you can follow me by e-mail - there's a sign up box on my left hand side bar.

Thank you to each and every one of you who follow my crafty ramblings and comment on my creations, either regularly or on a sporadic basis - I truly appreciate each and every one of you!

Have a super evening!

Hugs, Helen x