Of all the things that can happen in life, Google Friend Connect disappearing is not the worst. Trust me. Google recently announced they were axing GFC for non-Blogger blogs (redundant much?!) by March 2012. No word on Blogger hosted blogs, but anyone who has 2 brain cells to rub together can probably infer that at some point they will get rid of it for Blogger hosted blogs too.
Instead of tweeting about how the sky is falling and such, why not be prepared in case it does happen? I can tell you from experience that when I deleted the friend connect application from my blog I did not lose any traffic, or subscribers. However, I also got to the point where I shifted my focus from followers to unique visitors and subscribers. I also currently DO NOT follow any blogs via google friend conenct, at least not where they appear in my google reader. Every blog I read, I read via RSS.
What can you do to be prepared?
Link to your RSS feed on your front page and encourage people to subscribe to it. If you have Feedburner, people can choose to subscribe via google aka it will automatically show up in their google reader!
Connect your site to twitter! Seriously, if your links automatically post on twitter that will help your traffic.
Have a subscribe by email widget. If you know people who are not technologically adept, subscribing via email is probably the easiest option, as all you do is input your email address and hit subscribe and posts magically appear in your inbox.
Subscribe to your friends’ blogs via RSS, so you don’t lose them when the change happens. I mean, if they are your true friends, you probably have them in your twitter feed and on your facebook and your favorites, like I do. But even so, best to be prepared.
I promise you, life will go on and you can still be successful without Friend Connect!
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I love that you mention linking twitter to blogs. My blog traffic has really increased since I figured that little nugget of wisdom out:)
I wonder why they’re getting rid of it? Maybe they have a new thing they’re going to release next year to replace it, or something.
What I really like about GFC is how I’m able to see the actual people that’re following me. With feed subscribers you’ve got numbers but no profiles/pictures/etc. and it kind of feels like a nameless horde is following you around the internet. 😛 I LIKE that horde, but I like being able to put faces to them better. But oh well– I haven’t had GFC all that long so getting rid of it in a few months won’t kill me.
Thanks for these tips April. Most I already had implemented (I’m smart), but I think this post will hopefully help everyone losing their marbles over this whole GFC dramafest. I think it’s a little (more than a little) blown out of proportion, and I hope your post calms some of these people down.
I don’t understand the freak out. I actually follow you via RSS and it show up in Google Reader. So, it’s all good.
This is the most frustrating news I have heard in a while!! ARGH!
Thanks for the great tips. Once I got to thinking about it and I too figure in time it will be eliminated for blogger as well so it made me pretty much decide seriously you need to switch to wordpress already. Shall make that happen before the end of the year. Now I’m off to google how to get my posts to auto post on twitter.
Holy moo cow! Getting rid of google friend connect? That’s madness. I follow a lot of blogs through it but also exported it all to google reader so should still be OK. Still. I think this is going to hit people when it happens because so much “follower count” is through GFC for Blogger blogs.