Why didn’t someone tell me I was a “No-Reply”!?!?

Recently, I signed up to be a part of a Newbie Blogger Blog Hop. The first couple of weeks, all the participants were reviewing and critiquing each others’ blogs and pointing out things that might need fixing. There were TWO things that were “broken” with my blog and I wanted to make sure to fix them. 

FIRST was the dreaded “no-reply blogger” post. I had been commenting away on many blogs for a couple of months, but I had NO IDEA that my comments came over to the blogger as “no-reply”. What!? People warn you about ignoring no-reply bloggers, etc, in their giveaways and everything. But how am I supposed to know if I am a “no-reply” blogger!? No one ever told me that I was before! 

Here’s a hint: If you have been posting on many blogs and you NEVER get a single reply to your post – 95% chance is because YOU are a “no-reply” blogger!

No one had ever mentioned this to me! Ever! I didn’t even know I need to be aware of it! MOST good bloggers WANT to build a relationship with their readers – so if you DO NOT get a reply for ANY blog you have ever commented on, chances are they couldn’t reply – it’s not that they didn’t want to reply!
There are several great blogs out there already on how to 1-make sure you are not a no-reply and 2-fix it if you are a no-reply… Here are some of the ones I found especially helpful:

• From My Carolina Home
• Piecemeal Quilts
• SewsNBows

SECOND was hearing that some people who don’t have a Google account can not even comment on my blog! Why would Google even make it so people can’t comment on my blog? The whole point of the blog is to interact with my readers, regardless of whether they use Google or not. We don’t live in a Communist State nor should any email provider have a Monopoly over nor dictate who I can correspond with!

Piecemeal Quilts mentions some of the issues in their blog, and how to fix it. I also did a search and found another one which mentions how to edit some HTML code… Chances are that if you are using Blogger to host your blog, it is b/c you like how easy it is to use without having to know any code at all! So I am guessing, you’d rather not get into the nitty gritty of editing HTML code… But most of these fixes they share do not fix PREVIOUS blog posts to allow your reader to comment. Unless of course, you manually go back and edit the code for EACH post. That can be time consuming!
At this point, my debate becomes, should I just move my blog!? And, hey, maybe I will end up doing that! But for now – I decided there is a better way to fix the issue – which also fixes all the previous posts I have made.



For now, I do not have an unmanageable number of people commenting on my blog. I decided to change my settings to allow “Anyone” to comment. This does of course mean that you can get some spammers… So to police the spamming issue, I set my comment moderation to “Always”. If I ever decide to host a giveaway, I will change it for those types of posts – but honestly, if I plan on replying to all your comments anyway, then moderating my comments shouldn’t be too much work…

I am certainly no guru when it comes to the ways of the blogging world! But I was shocked to find out that I had BOTH of these issues happening to me… So I felt compelled to write about it and warn others out there. It IS worth looking into and fixing! Especially since the fixes are quick and easy!

Until next time my quilty friends ~ PIECE!

Marcia }|{