Welcome to the Foodie Blogroll FAQ
Why Should I join The Foodie Blogroll? What's in it for me?
What is The Foodie Blogroll Widget?
Who manages The Foodie Blogroll and the Foodie Blogroll Forum?
What are the requirements for joining?
I have a Blogger/ Blogspot blog, how do I implement the code?
I have iWeb. How can I install the widget?
I don't like the way the widget looks on my blog from a design standpoint. Can I change the look?
Why can't I just display The Foodie Blogroll icon on my blog?
My question is not here. Where do I get an aswer?
Why Should I join The Foodie Blogroll? What's in it for me?
The Foodie Blogroll is the first of its kind and is one of the fastest growing online communities for foodbloggers. With over 1500 members spanning the globe in less than a year, there is a reason for its popularity. It is the first blogroll created just for foodies like you by a foodie like you. When I started my food blog, I went looking for a blogroll for food and cooking related websites and there were none to be found. So I decided to create my own! This is all about building the best community online for foodbloggers! Imagine what being exposed on over 1500 blogs about food would do for your traffic.
Benefits:
- Forum: A great benefit for joining is a forum for members (and other foodies alike) to hang out with each other and get to know each other and talk about our favorite subject – FOOD, here a the Leftover Queen/Foodie Blogroll Forum.
- Contests : The Royal Foodie Joust (and more to come)
- Finest Foodies Friday :
Every Friday I feature the best blogs from the Foodie Blogroll! If you are not a member, you can't be featured.
- Exposure: Being exposed on over 1500 blogs about food.
- Contests and Giveaways! (coming soon)
What is The Foodie Blogroll Widget?
The Foodie Blogroll Widget is a small badge with several features that help your site be exposed and receive more traffic, including: links to the "10 Most Recent" blogs added to the directory, the randomly generated "10 Random Blogs of the Day" and coming soon the "Random Blog of the Day" and the "Random Blog of the Month".
Who manages The Foodie Blogroll and the Foodie Blogroll Forum?
I, Jenn, The Leftover Queen am humbly at your service for this one! This is truly a labor of love. Roberto, my husband and I are working together and have found ways to make this process easier as the blogroll has grown, but it is still a cottage industry and much of the process is done manually, for now. We are working on many ways to automate a lot of it, but it takes time to build a software from nothing. So please be patient with us. I usually spend several hours a day managing this great foodie community! But if I am not at my computer, everything is on hold until I can get back to it.
What are the requirements for joining?
- Display the Foodie Blogroll widget on your blog's sidebar - The widget must be located on your blog where I can and easily find it. Once a month I will try to go through parts of the blogroll and delete the blogs from the blogroll that aren’t displaying it. We are also developing a software that will scan the blogs, and if you are not displaying the code, you will automatically be deleted from the blogroll with no notice. It is up to you to be sure that you are displaying the code correctly and to check back here for any changes or updates to the requirements.
- Your site must be a blog - this means that it must be in blog format, meaning that there are posts that follow a chronological order by date. It cannot be a static HTML website. If your site is of a purely commercial nature (like you are selling food related products or publications), but you still want to be a part of the blogroll, you check out our advertisers information page.
- Your blog must have at least 5 entries - and these entries must be specifically food related - recipes, reviews, how-to s, food related product reviews and the like.
- Your blog must be at least one month old. If your blog is older than one month, then it must have been regularly updated in the past month.
- Your overall blog content must be 80% food related.
My request to join The Foodie Blogroll was rejected – however, my blog fits all the requirements. Why didn't you send me the code?
Most Foodie Blogroll Request Rejections happen because information you typed into the registration form was incorrect. Most often URLS are misspelled and therefore cannot be verified as a food blog. If you feel you fit all the requirements to join and you received this rejection in error, please go back to the registration form and fill out another request.
Other times requests are rejected because you have less than 5 posts (that are food related) or less than 80% of your blog is food related. If this is the problem, feel free to re-register once you have fulfilled these requirements.
I have a Wordpress.com / Vox blog and I cannot see the list of blogs when I implement the code. What is wrong?
Wordpress.com (not wordpress platforms) and vox blog templates do not allow the entire code to appear. All you will see if you have a Wordpress.com or Vox Blog is the Foodie Blogroll Icon and the “click here to join” link. This is fine. However, you still need to add the entire code as it is to the sidebar template for this to work.
I have a Blogger/ Blogspot blog, how do I implement the code?
If you have a Blogger/Blogspot Blog and do not know how to enter the code – go to your dashboard. Choose the "add a page element" option – (do not use the "add a widget option"), click the "HTML/Javascript" option and then copy and paste the entire code into the template.
I have iWeb. How can I install the widget?
If you have iWeb, please click this link to find out how to install the code.
I don't like the way the widget looks on my blog from a design standpoint. Can I change the look?
You can change the look of the widget using CSS Style Sheet and HTML if you do not know how to do this, you can research it on Google by searching for "CSS tutorials", etc. If you still aren't sure, we advise that you leave it alone. Please do not ask us about web design and customization of the widget. This is up to you and you do it at your own risk.
Why can't I just display The Foodie Blogroll icon on my blog?
This is the question I get the most often. When we have the new site up and running, there is going to be a program that scans every blog for the code we gave you. Each code is individual and unique - this is so that you can use the stats features and be entered automatically into the contests and giveaways and be part of the pool for the Random Blog of the Day and Random Blog of the Week. If you are not displaying it on sidebar, where it can be easily found, you will not be eligible to participate in these features and your blog will be automatically removed from the directory by our new automated software program. That would not be good. We have had to start automating some things to keep The Foodie Blogroll running smoothly - and this is one of the things that will be automated shortly.
When I add the Foodie Blogroll to my blog, the loading time on my page slows down. Why? What can I do about it?
These days bloggers have a lot of widgets, badges and codes on their blogs – this slows everything down if your computer does not have a lot of memory. If you have less than 2 gigabytes of memory on your computer, this is likely the problem. You can check out www.crucial.com and they can help you figure out what type of memory your computer takes.
I put the code up on my blog weeks ago and you still have not added me to the Blogroll. What's the deal?
Did you remember to email me to tell me that? Unless, I receive an email from you letting me know you put the code up, I won't know to add you to the blogroll. There are over 200 blogs pending acceptance (meaning I have sent them the code) at any given time and I am not able to go through them all to see who has the code up and who doesn't. Also when emailing me any correspondence regarding The Foodie Blogroll, please be sure to include your name, your blog title and your blog's URL. If I don't know who you are it is hard for me to add you to the blogroll.
If it is not either of these things, than you are one of the rare people who have fallen in the cracks. For that I apologize in advance! Please send me your info in an email and let me know, nicely, that you have fallen through.
I have changed domain names, URL address or blog title (or any other changes), how can I get that changed on the blogroll?
We have been working on the new Foodie Blogroll home page where we will have a lot of new great features soon, including, the ability for you to log in and change your information.
Since the new Foodie Blogroll is set up in a different way since you joined, it is not easy for me to go in and change your info at this juncture. However, all blogs that were members of the blogroll prior to March will soon be getting new codes for their blogs anyway. The reason is, these new codes will ID your blog so that you can keep track of your stats, and allow you to use all the new interactive features we are setting up.
So, a way to solve both of these issues immediately, is for you to
re-register you blog with all the new information using the submit your blog form.
I will then approve it - which will get the right address and info to
display on the new Foodie Blogroll page and you will get the new code sent
to you. Otherwise you can wait another month or so, until we are through
updating the new Foodie Blogroll page, and we send out a mass email to
everyone, at which point you will be able to log in and change your
information.
I have seen different Foodie Blogroll Codes around the Blogosphere. Do I have the correct code? How do I get the newest version?
There are 2 versions of the code out there. For those of you who have joined The Foodie Blogroll before March 2008, you have an older version. That was our quick fix back in early April. This is fine for the moment. Everyone will be getting the new code eventually. Once the new site is up and running with all the new features, you will be getting an email from us. This will explain how you can log in to your new account on FoodieBlogroll.com and retrieve the new code to implement on your site. It will also allow you to change account information and your stats. If you want the code right away, please see the above question. But I ask that you send me an email first, letting me know you are going to request a new code, so that I can be on the lookout for you.
queen[at]leftoverqueen[dot]com
It sounds like you have been working on the new Foodie Blogroll website for a long time. Why is it taking so long? When will it be completed?
Right now the website foodieblogroll.com is a skeleton version. We have been working really hard on getting it up and running and looking great. But progress is slow. So yes, right now it doesn't look the best that it can and it is not the most user friendly. But we needed a quick solution to the old problem of the blogroll slowing people's pages down. So we purchased a new domain name and created this new home on Foodieblogroll.com instead of continuing to host it on blogrolling.com which was slowing down the works.
This all happened at the beginning of April and a few weeks later, I took a hiatus to get married and go on my honeymoon in the middle of all of this, but we have been working on the new site daily since we have been back. It is going to take time, since my husband and I are doing this from scratch, all by ourselves in our free time, usually at night, after working, so we have asked people to be patient with us. This is not a fast process. But in the mean time while we are working out all of the kinks, you can still enjoy browsing the other blogs, as well as having a chance at being featured in the Finest Foodies Friday as well as the 10 Random Blogs of the Day. If you have not yet joined us, you may also be mentioned on the 10 Most Recent Blogs when you sign up and are approved. So there is still a lot to benefit from as you are waiting for the new features to emerge and come to life.
We put a lot of efforts in building a free service and community for food bloggers, the evolution of The Foodie Blogroll has been very organic and the changes have always come from the suggestions of the members of the community. The blogroll gets a great amount of traffic. Foodieblogroll.com gets over 1.5 million displays a month of the foodie blog roll badge all over the blog-o-sphere. Creating a software from scratch like this takes a long time, especially when spare time is scarce
So in essence the Foodie Blogroll is changing from being just a blogroll, to a community of food bloggers, run by a foodblogger. It is going to get really big and I think you will find more advantages than disadvantages by participating. But of course the choice is up to you. I get about 15-20 new requests a day. So I would say the majority feel this way too!
I have not seen my blog featured in the 10 Most Recent blogs section of the blog roll widget. When can I expect to see it there?
Your blog will be featured in the 10 Newest Blogs section in the blogroll widget on the day you receive your approval email saying that you have been added to the blogroll. I generally get many more than 10 requests to fulfill per day - for approvals. I try to make sure that all the new blogs have at least a half a day or so in the 10 newest blogs section. ..but that is the best I can do without getting backed up on approvals. So new blogs are always featured there the day you get the email from me that your blog has been approved, but I cannot guarantee how long your blog will be featured in that section, as it is imperative that I keep approvals going at a moderate rate so that new members do not have to wait for weeks to get approved once they have put the code up.
My question is not here. Where do I get an aswer?
WE DO HAVE A FOODIE BLOGROLL FORUM -
If you have a question that this FAQ is not answering, it is likely that one of the kind members of the foodie blog roll community has had similar issues and posted about it on the forum. Please post your question on this section of the forum and I am confident you will get help from a fellow member. Foodies are some of the nicest people ever!
Happy Blogging Everyone!