Hmm just checked and you’re right, you can’t include a link to your website anymore. Not like I post comments just for the link, but still if I do post I’d at least like people to know who posted it. I don’t even have a link to my blog in my blogger profile, nor will I ever have.
It’s a weird move by blogger – leaving links in comments won’t alter anyone’s search engine rankings since they are nofollow by default – and a few visitors you can get with that link won’t help much.

I noticed that! The only thing I could do was start an account under that name and link my wp blog in my profile. Not fair I say!

I migrated from Blogger to wordpress.com a few weeks back, after some excellent advice from fellow bloggers. I love it, and will stick with it – however I’m struggling to work out how to include the Wowhead tooltips on mouseover. Any ideas how I could do so?

LOL @ Ratty

@ ChainTrap
Check out this page: Powered by WoWHead.

@ Mana Batt
Can you run Blogger outside Blogspot?

@ Horns
Ahh…that’s right. I remember now, when I first moved to Wordpress, I was considering that option with Blogger, but I liked the greater flexibility WP gave me.

(I should make it clear, I’m not anti-Blogspot: Some of my favorite bloggers use it! *grin* I just prefer WP.)

I noticed this as well, and it’s kind of infuriating. I’m not too concerned about it as far as following my link – if someone really feels like seeing my page after a comment I left, I assume they’ll find a way. I’m just mad because it seems to me that the whole nature of blogging is kind of about free-flowing information and communication, and a roadblock has been thrown up in the way of the ease of that. If I have to register to comment on a site, chances are I’m not going to do it. Lorelle, who writes a blog about WordPress and blogging in general, has often written articles about encouraging comments, and one of the main things she says is that you should not be putting barriers in the way of your commenters. If you look at your webstats, and compare that to the number of comments you get, you can already see that it’s a relatively small minority that comment at all, and I think not only does this inconveniece those of us who are not using Blogger on BlogSpot, but also is going to cause those who ARE writing on that domain to suffer, as far as gaining responses to what they write. It’s a disservice both to readers and writers, and I honestly can’t say I see the point to it, other than another small step towards world domination by Google, especially since most people are using nofollow, as it’s now the default, and Google is punching you in the pagerank if you don’t. If I have to register to make a quick comment, well, 9 times out of 10 I’m going to decide that what I wanted to say didn’t matter that much anyway.

As far as other options – hosting your own domain is pretty inexpensive these days, and on your own domain, you have many options as to what kind of content management system you’d like to use, including Blogger, WordPress, and others. It’s not as intimidating as some may think it is. On top of that, Wordpress.com makes it very easy to use a hosted blog, much like BlogSpot, and it’s basically one button press to import all your Blogger entries and comments to your new location.

Anyone who would like to move, as Kestrel said, can talk to me as well and I can help you figure out the details, and on top of that, if you’re worried about losing traffic with a move, I’ll start a whole new sidebar on my site and obnoxiously direct attention to it. Though my traffic is not massive, I can at least help you get a rolling start at your new place.

In summation – I will do anything to get people to move off of Blogger, it’s the principle of the thing.

Wow…what an eloquent commentary, TJ — thank you!

I really had no idea my semi-tongue-in-cheek “rant” would generate such a response, but as I read TJ’s comments, it dawned on me that we should rail against barriers to the open flow of ideas and commentary.

I have no pretensions that my blog is anything special to anyone but me, and the few of you who read it regularly or semi-regularly. But there are blogs out there–even WoW-centered blogs–that are a lot more important, and help people analyze issues large and small, as well as formulate opinions and positions on those issues.

One step at a time, those of us who use the internet interactively–in other words, to truly interact with others, as you and I do with each other here and on myriad other blogs–are truly forging a world community. We are breaking down centuries of ethnocentrism, misplaced nationalism, and other barriers to free and open intercourse–social, verbal, commercial–that are impeding the progress of our race.

I don’t expect huge gains in (what remains of) my lifetime, but I’ve already seen more progress in the last 30 years than took place in the preceding 300, or 3000.

Even the smallest obstacle to our continued progress is too large.

Grats on the move, Ess, and the new site looks great!

Guys and gals: cut those devs some slack! They’re probably suffering from some VISTAitis… Remember Vista? The new OS from MSFT that was to “protect” you from bad sites and programs? And then they implement that sh*t so badly that 50% of the users just click OK without even reading what it says and the other 50% have found out how to promptly disable UAC?

I’m pretty sure this move from Blogger started as some way to “protect” bloggers from all those (semi-)automated spamming systems that would use that ability to link to their gold/porn/whatever selling sites even if the link they added in the comment itself was “fixed”. It’s just a case of a bad solution for a somewhat minor problem, that’s all.

Now, how many of those commenting here have taken it to Blogger support? They won’t be coming here to read the comments: if you don’t like it, make a stand and mail those devs! Personally, I don’t like WP because of that “you have to pay for more” philosophy. It doesn’t matter if it’s not much, but not even being able to edit one’s HTML template on the free service? C’mon!

So, now I’ll go see how to contact Blogger and tell them I don’t like that move. I’d advise all those around with blogger based blogs to do the same. Then we’ll see if they react or not…

You know, Someone, a lot of times you’re a little passive agressive for me.

You’ve missed the point, or, at least, my point. Blogger has -taken away- the ability for someone just stopping by to drop off a comment, or someone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t WANT an OpenID. This, for me at least, has nothing to do with being able to link to my site, and everything to do with not having to jump through hoops to leave a comment. You can say “Oh it’s just a LITTLE hoop” or “If you did some research you’d see you ONLY have to do THIS…” — Doesn’t matter. Point is, I can’t just drop my nickname and a comment anymore. I either must be known as ‘anonymous,’ which you know carries no weight on the internet, or register for a service I have no desire to be a member of. And it’s now -required- to comment, unless, as I said, you want to be anonymous. THAT is the problem. You, as a blogger, have options, sure – none of which are attractive.

@ Someone
It appears Blogspot has done a piss-poor job of making that info available to its bloggers: I am a registered Blogspot blogger, and I had to find out through you. For example, there’s nothing on the Blogspot Dashboard to tell me commenting on my Blogspot blog is fubar.

A disadvantage to OpenID (which concept I heartily endorse, btw) is that for many services, if you already have an ID established with that service, you CAN NOT use the same user name or e-mail address to register for the same service with OpenID (unless that’s been fixed in the last 72 hours).

Also: I don’t want to be “kestrelsaerie.vox.com” or “kestrelsaerie.wordpress.com” when I comment on Blogger: I want to be Kestrel, whose blog is at http://kestrelsaerie.us

As the others have offered, I have just switched and the whole procedure is fresh in my mind so in case you need any help, just ask