Why I Am Frustrated With Bloglovin

Why I Am Frustrated With Bloglovin

Bloglovin and I have a sketchy relationship. Overall, I feel like the site hates me.

My blog is broken on Bloglovin

It started over a month ago. When the mass exodus from Google Reader began, I got settled in with Feedly (which I’m loving), but since a few people are over at Bloglovin, I knew I should make an appearance there too. But soon I realized that my blog was “stuck”. My blog entry on Bloglovin wasn’t updating with new posts! That means, I was actually losing followers. Everyone who followed me on Google Reader and migrated over to Bloglovin was no longer getting new post updates from my blog. FREAK OUT!

I went through their “Help” section to try to troubleshoot. I ruled out everything on my end. My RSS feed was working just fine. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s a valid RSS feed, all the new posts are in the feed, and it works fine on Feedly, etc. So, I did what they told me to do and contacted customer support.

Two weeks later: no answer.

So, I filled it out again.

No answer.

So, I contacted them on Twitter and Facebook. A few days went by and I saw them tweet and tweet and tweet—seemingly at everyone but me. So instead of re-typing my friendly “Can you hep fix my blog {url}” message, I did what you’re supposed to do when no one listens: I ranted a little. I said something like “I’m frustrated that @bloglovin won’t fix my blog #ignored”. Yeah, not the nicest thing ever, but come on, I was pissed. My blog was broken on their site, my followers were losing out, and I felt ignored!

Finally, a nice guy replied to me and after a bit of a back and forth, he got my blog working again.

But, about two weeks later, it broke again. I had just contacted Bloglovin about merging my two blog entries after changing my blog name, and they had responded super quickly, so I contacted them again at that same e-mail to ask them to fix my blog. Suddenly, no reply.

I tweet like there’s no tomorrow… no reply.

My blog is still broken (it shows the last post at April 13th..) and I have not heard back from Bloglovin again.

I’m not trying to tell you to stay away from them…

…honestly, I’m just venting more than anything. I’m frustrated and upset that people who follow me aren’t actually following me because they can’t see my new posts. If you like Bloglovin, that’s great! I’m happy for you and I’m not trying to talk you out of leaving. I guess I just wanted to get this off my chest, and explain to some of my followers why they might not be seeing new posts… *cries*

Do you use an RSS reader? If so, which one?

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86 comments

  1. I feel your pain. I’m not a fan of bloglovin. Luckily, I still have the google reader app on my cellphone and have been reading all the posts through there. It seems the feeds still come through, even though they took google reader down.

    I was wondering why they took greader down, until I got an email about the google + comment merge with blogger. I bet they want google + to take off since it hasn’t turned out to be that big as they hoped.

    I miss my reader. Thank God for cellphone apps!

    1. Well Google Reader won’t be shut down until like July 1st, so your app will still work until then. But after that point, the app will probably be gone or won’t work anymore. πŸ™

  2. That sux, Ashley! I hope they will get it all sorted out for you! I actually love Bloglovin’ (I have no idea if it shows my own most recent posts) because it’s so easy to read through all the blogs I follow.

    What I don’t like so much with feedly is that it’s impossible to know how many people follow me – with Bloglovin’ I do know that. Or is there another way to know that via my RSS feed?

    Good luck, anyway.

    1. This is silly, but I think the only way you can see your number of subscribers on Feedly is to search for your blog. On the top left there’s a magnifying glass icon. If you click that and put in your feed URL, your blog should come up and it should say the number of subscribers.

      I’m glad you’re enjoying Bloglovin! πŸ™‚

        1. Yay! I’m honestly prepared for it to break again though in a week or two… that’s what happened last time. πŸ™

          1. I seem to have the same kind of problem with feedly that you’ve been having with Bloglovin’. When I did a search for my feed, it pulled my very old blogger feed – which has over 200 followers, with no new posts since September 2012 πŸ™

            I know my feed from blogger is the same I use for my WP blog, so I have no idea how feedly picked up the wrong feed. If you have any ideas at all as to how I can fix this, I’d really appreciate it!

            I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend, Ashley.

                1. Hmm I’m not sure how to fix that :/ At least if they put in the full URL they can get to your blog. Also I think most people who use Feedly subscribe directly from the blog page. Like, when you get Feedly it adds a little icon to your browser and when you’re on someone’s blog you just click that icon to immediately follow that blog.

  3. Wow, that sucks! πŸ™
    I have Bloglovin’ but I literally just started using it like 3 days ago. I don’t even really care about it to tell you the truth (because I personally don’t use it), but it’s another way for people to follow me. If it actually works, that is.
    I’m still using Feedburner…probably not a good thing but I’m too lazy to switch, baha.

    Jessi @ Auntie Spinelli Reads recently posted: Undersea Spotlight: Lisseth at Read-A-HolicZ
    1. Yeah I was never intending to really use Bloglovin, I just wanted to check it out because I want people to be able to follow me there. But it turns out they can’t.. πŸ™ argh!

  4. So, I saw this post go live this morning and, just out of curiosity, went to check my own feed through Bloglovin’. Color me surprised to find that mine stopped updating, too! I’m so bloody confused – why in the H-E-double hockey sticks would it just stop working? I wish all of these readers would somehow go away and we would have just one, fully functional, without hiccups way of following and keeping up with blogs. I’m living in a dreamworld, apparently…

    Jessie Marie @ The Daily Bookmark recently posted: Waiting on WWW Wednesday | 24 April 2013
    1. Aww Jessie Marie! πŸ™ I’m so sorry that yours stopped updating too! *hugs* It seriously sucks though and I don’t get why it randomly decides to stop working.. It’s so frustrating!!

  5. You’re not the only one whose blog is getting broken on bloglovin, either! A friend of mine told me she wasn’t getting updates for my blog on bloglovin anymore, as well as several other blogs she follows! Then, they were magically fixed again. It seems like bloglovin has some trouble keeping up with blog feeds or something. I’m glad I switched over to Feedly as my main reader (I still maintain a bloglovin presence, but I don’t depend on it for updates).

    Kelley (Another Novel Read) recently posted: Waiting on Wednesday – Dissonance by Erica O’Rourke
    1. Wow! It’s crazy to suddenly be hearing that I’m not the only one! I totally thought I was! They really need to get their act together…

      It honestly really bugs me to see them Tweeting at people to “try blogloving!” They should be working on keeping their current customers instead of farming for new ones..

    1. I know, right?? It seriously pains me every time I get an e-mail saying I have a new Bloglovin follower.. it makes me want to scream and curse because I hate that someone has gone out of their way to follow me, but they’re not actually getting new posts… πŸ™

        1. Maybe they saw my post and kickstarted it LOL.

          But honestly, I’m prepared for it to die again in a week or two… *sigh*

          1. Ugh. Sorry you are having trouble… I only got a presence there because other bloggers were. I am on feedly, but don’t like it fully because there isn’t a way to search my feeds, and more specifically, my lists of trusted followers, and there is nothing besides reader out there that I have found that can do that. Sigh.

  6. Laaame. Honestly. I put the blog on Blogluvin just cuz everyone else was. I really am lame about feeds and things like this. Seriously. I never check Blogluvin and I’ve never really cared to try anything else like Feedly…O.O But this is kinda annoying. Now I feel the need to go check my blog on Blogluvin.

    Darn all these breaking programs. *sobs*

    Inky recently posted: Review: Echo [+Giveaway]
    1. Yeah I don’to use RSS readers that often either. I usually e-mail subscribe to my favourite blogs. I do pop in on Feedly occasionally though. But this seriously sucks!!

  7. I had a similar problem some time ago and also couldn’t figure out what the problem was.. Frustrating!!! I’m so sorry it happened to you;((

    Even though I’d love to use Feedly because I love the dashboard I’m not using it right now because all the blogger blogs I subscribed via GFC are not showing..

    all normal Feed Subscriptions are fine. but I’m missing out on a lot of blogs. No idea what the problem is and I hope they fix it!

    1. This is just a wild guess, but it could be because GFC subscriptions aren’t “real” RSS subscriptions. Google Reader added a separate section for GFC blogs. Obviously I’m not totally sure how it works in the back end, but there is probably some kind of coding distinction between the two, which is preventing Feedly from picking up on them?

      Hopefully it gets sorted before Google Reader goes kaboom. πŸ™

      1. Yep this sounds about right. Still, I think I follow around 350 Blogs like this, so it would be horribel to loose them like this.

        Also, I just checked on BlogLoving and my Blog hasn’t ben updated today even though it’s 12 hrs ago I posted two posts today.. of course I’m losing Pageviews like this.

        I’m not checking more carefully what is happening there with my blog too1

        DannyBookworm recently posted: Blood Makes Noise by Gregory Widen
  8. Ugh, that is seriously uncool. I don’t know if I read it here, but I did hear about someone else having trouble and BlogLovin’ not getting back to them.

    I have started to put some blogs I follow in it, but I won’t switch from Google Reader until it’s pried from my hands.

    Argh. I hate that there isn’t one nice and easy way to track followers. Of course, I wish I didn’t have to worry about that at all, but then again, I do like knowing that someone is reading my blog.

    Leeanna @ Leeanna.me recently posted: Inside the Nest #5: On Writing
    1. I totally agree.. tracking followers is so confusing. Even page views aren’t a good indicator because e-mail subscriptions and RSS readers don’t give them!

  9. I can’t believe you’re still dealing with this πŸ™ I’ve only got my blog claimed on BlogLovin’ so I can add that as a follow option, since so many people are using it as their RSS reader. Maybe we need to start a BlogLovin’ boycott until they fix this for you!

    Kelly recently posted: WoW: Tandem
    1. Haha totally! Apparently it’s happening to other people too… BOOK BLOGGERS UNITE!

  10. I had to contact Bloglovin because I recently made the switch from Blogger to WordPress and changed my blog name. I wanted to combine all my followers and since the Bloglovin FAQ said I could, I contacted them. It took them an entire week to respond, I thought they were ignoring me.

    Kelly L. recently posted: Waiting On Wednesday [27]
  11. I actually use BlogLovin’ because I just don’t like Feedly but I have noticed the same problem. I’ll be following a blog through BlogLovin’ and then I’ll end up at their site for some reason and notice all these new posts, but when I check on BlogLovin’ they’re not there. It’s really frustrating! And I feel like the second I say something to someone on their blog, it magically fixes. I don’t know if they have some kind of system where they only wait until someone officially complains out in public that they fix this stuff, but it’s extremely frustrating. I plan on checking out Feedly again to see how that goes because really, what’s the point of a reader if it doesn’t let you read news posts by the blogs you’re following?! (Sorry for my own user rant ><)

    Asti (A Bookish Heart) recently posted: Bookish Thoughts: Weird Character Names
    1. OMG I agree 100%! If their blog entries don’t update then that completely defeats the purpose of their site.. And yet I see them out marketing and encouraging people to use Bloglovin and it seems like they’re not even fixing this problem! They should put more effort into fixing their problems and retaining their current users, rather than looking for more! *humph*

  12. Interesting.. I haven’t been seeing any issues while using Bloglovin’ but then again, I’m only just realizing that I only have a slight handful of subscribers which is more exciting than anything else. I seem to be getting your updates on Bloglovin’ so I don’t what’s going on πŸ™

    Krys recently posted: TOTD: Wisdom
    1. Well just today my blog was “jump started” and all my posts from the last, like, 2 weeks came through. But it got “fixed” once before so I am expecting it to break again eventually. πŸ™

  13. My last post is not appearing on Bloglovin either, despite being published hours ago. Plus, my thumbnail, when it does appear, looks really odd… But I’m just too lazy to complain. I’m still using Google reader and after that if things doesn’t improve I’ll just use feedly. Things might get better though, as it looks like they’re beta testing the “new” bloglovin now. We shall see πŸ™‚

    Cayce recently posted: 10 Signs of a True Book Addict
    1. I think you have to update your thumbnail manually, which you can do by editing your blog’s info and checking “Update thumbnail”.

      But the entries not updating REALLY sucks! πŸ™

  14. I’m sorry Bloglovin’ wasn’t working for you, I don’t think I’ve experienced any problems with it. Though I haven’t really figured out Feedly, so I ask people to follow me through Bloglovin’ and I follow others through it (but it does seem to be mostly for numbers). I also follow people through email, so that’s what I really check.

    Jessie @ Jessie's Book Place recently posted: Showers of Books Giveaway Hop
  15. Thank you SOOO much for this post Ashley. I would have never have thought to check my feed otherwise and sure enough mine isn’t working either! I send a request through the website for help, 3 days ago and no surprise I haven’t had a response. I just tweeted them and we will see if I get a response! This really aggravates me!! I have had loads of posts since April 10th and not a single one has shown up. I’m glad I follow everything through Feedly because imagine all the amazing posts I would miss πŸ™ I’m upset with Bloglovin’ …

    Lauren @ Lose Time Reading recently posted: Stacking the Shelves (43)
    1. Lauren I’m so sorry that it’s happening to you too! πŸ™ I hope they respond to you! *fingers crossed*

  16. Pingback: Smash Attack Reads
  17. I’m having this same problem. My blog “broke” last week. I emailed BL and still haven’t heard from them, guess I should expect to hear from them in a month? This is like trying to contact Facebook. utterly pointless. I’m really upset that Reeder is going away. I like it’s format, and it’s never F$#*%d up on me before.

    Kelly recently posted: Monday's Suck
    1. Kelly I’m so sorry that this is happening to you too! πŸ™ Try Tweeting at them. In the two times that I have contacted them about this they have NEVER replied to my e-mails. The one time they replied was through Twitter, so give that a try! You might have to Tweet at them like 8 times though….

      *hugs*

  18. I’m considering staging a virtual protest with other bloggers. Obviously we aren’t the only ones experiencing theses issues. We shouldn’t have to hound their twitter account to get a response.

    Kelly recently posted: Monday's Suck
  19. So glad I found your post! Has anyone had this issue: all of our comments are now showing up as a blog post? One of our followers went to our site and left a comment. We wouldn’t have found out otherwise. I emailed Bloglovin, thanks to your post I’ll start to Twitter them. We have already lost a follower πŸ™ Sure hope Bloglovin gets this fixed for all of us SOON!

    1. I’m so sorry that’s happening to you Tracy! πŸ™ It’s like they’re picking up your comment RSS feed instead of just your blog post one! They need to get their stuff together..

  20. Gah, I really need to get a move on and make the switch away from Google reader. I’ve pretty much decided to go with feedly, so I’m glad to see that you’re liking it. But was also planning to sign up to bloglovin’ just cos others are using it, but not to actually use it as my own main reader. Not looking forward to having to deal with it if it messes up with my blog. Have heard others say that it’s not very good too (sigh). Really hope you get the issue sorted soon! πŸ™‚

    Vicky Hooper recently posted: Showcase Sunday #17
  21. I’ve been experiencing the same problem with bloglovin’ as well and it’s so frustrating! I switched from google reader to bloglovin’ because it seems like everyone was migrating there… It sucks to know that my posts aren’t showing up and that I might be losing readers because of it. And the fact that the staff of bloglovin’ seem to suck at costumer service annoys me even more. I sent them an e-mail about my issue today and I wonder if I’ll hear from them eventually…

    1. I’m sorry this has happened to you too Lena! πŸ™ It’s SO frustrating!!! I hope they reply to you.

  22. I am relatively new blogger, and did not know about all the other feeders. It has been a steep learning curve for me, I bought a domain name and changed my blog address, now I find that that bloglovin cannot retrieve my posts. I put a support post in last night. After reading all these comments I’m thinking I won’t hold my breath for a reply. I might just check out other feeds like Feedly and see if it is less frustrating.

    1. The best you can do is tweet at them and complain. But even then, they don’t always reply. πŸ™

  23. Omg! I have been dealing with this problem since Monday; have tried so many different things but nothing is working. Then I googled “problems with bloglovin” and voila! Someone else knows my pain (unfortunately for you but a relief for me that I’m not being singled out!)

    In addition, commentluv is not working either. Aargh!!!! Any suggestions?!?

    1. Yes it’s really frustrating. πŸ™ And Bloglovin doesn’t seem to be much help about it at all. It’s clearly their problem since it only happens to them and no other RSS reader sites (like Feedly).

      What’s the problem with CommentLuv exactly?

      1. The commentluv leaves me with this message: “A feed could not be found at http://thenovellife.com/. A feed with an invalid mime type may fall victim to this error, or SimplePie was unable to auto-discover it.. Use force_feed() if you are certain this URL is a real feed.” and in the box below that it says “raw file cannot be found” BUT when I unclicked the commentluv box and then re-clicked it my feeds showed up!

        Oh and I did get an email back from bloglovin’ today first saying my feed was broken and then saying it’s not and they’ll get back to me. Confusing but goodness I hope they can get it working – I’m clueless about feeds and code

        Stacy (The Novel Life) recently posted: Book Review: The Drowning House
        1. It might be that CommentLuv can’t find it because your feed is actually redirecting to FeedBlitz. Maybe CommentLuv doesn’t handle the redirects very well.

  24. I can commiserate! My Bloglovin feed only showing my featured images when it feels like it, and doesn’t update edits I make to posts. So annoying. I wonder why this feed reader is so popular? Must be the feminine branding :-/

  25. I have been in contact with bloglovin as my feed isn’t working either πŸ™ it is so frustrating that I have people following me who aren’t receiving my latest posts! And they said there aren’t any problems with the feed! So why is it not picking up my latest posts πŸ™

  26. Ugh Bloglovin; I have been trying to log in for months; I select forget password; bloglovin sends me a link which doesn’t work; I get an error message “This code is not valid. Please make sure you copy the whole link from the email.:

    OMG I’m so tired of this.

  27. I only joined blog lovin because I thought it would help but unfortunately it couldn’t help me find my blog out of all it filtered…it couldn’t find any of my blog so its a useless account.

  28. Did this end up getting resolved and how?

    I just went to from blogger to a self-hosted wordpress blog. Bloglovin created two accounts for my blogs….staygoldautumn.com . One updates with my new feed and one doesn’t, but has all of my followers. I am not allowed to claim the new one because it just redirects to my old account with the same staygoldautumn.com URL. So weird!!

    Autumn recently posted: changes
  29. Bloglovin feels like a necessary evil. I emailed them five times asking why my blog couldnt be found (or claimed) on their site – no reply. I tried adding it to the review queue – no response. No response to my tweets either. I finally found out they think my blog has adult content which is definitely does not!! So they refuse to allow it on their site but wont reply to any of my emails asking what i can do to change it. It’s simply ridiculous.

  30. I agree. Not a fan of Bloglovin, I moved from Blogger to WordPress earlier this year & my feed hasn’t updated since, nor can it find my new blog despite everything they said to do. Not user friendly at all.

  31. Hey!
    You posted this post years ago but…
    This same thing has now happened to me! I changed my Blogger URL. So my bloglovin account was still ‘clamied’ to my old URL. I’ve added my new blog URL (Well at least I’ve tried too!) to bloglovin, and tried to ‘search’ for it to claim it. But every time I search it comes up with my old URL and doesn’t show any new posts since I changed the URL.
    It’s so frustrating because bloglovin is a great way for people to see blogs and catch up with them. So I get no gain from it!
    SO ANNOYING!

  32. Hey! πŸ™‚ I have literally just come across your post in trying to figure out why (seemingly forever) Bloglovin’ just doesn’t appear to be working for me at all. I cannot even publish a new post having (ages ago) signed up for an account, claimed my blog and completed all of the associated bits and bobs requested. I’m close to deleting my account. I do not feel that Bloglovin’ is of any benefit to me / my site at all. Thanks so much for sharing your experience, much appreciated.

    1. You’ll need to get in touch with the folks at Bloglovin if you’re having issues with your feed. πŸ™‚

      1. Hi, thanks so much for your reply, I have! No joy hence the google search which brought me to your post ? It’s been ongoing for well over a year. I’m a little over it. My blog has done and continues to do well so, albeit frustrating, for me personally leaving Bloglovin’ is not likely to have much of an impact on my readership.

  33. Feels like a boycot to me Ashley!

    I’m in dilemma myself. I would like to block them out completely, but there are so many who follow me with their platform!
    Argh! This must be frustrating indeed!

  34. Hi Ashley – I’m suddenly having the same problem as you (my readers have not been notified of new posts for over 6 weeks). Did you ever get your Bloglovin’ feed sorted out? Can you recall the advice they gave you to sort it out? I’m just wondering if there’s anything I can do on my end while I’m waiting to hear back from them.

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