May 30, 2013 / Blogging Etiquette

Reblogs: Share the Awesome

My last post was about pingbacks and trackbacks, and some of you had questions about how that relates to reblogs. Both features help you share the work of other bloggers on your own site, but whereas a pingback simply notifies the original blogger that you’ve linked to their site, a reblog captures an excerpt of another blogger’s post and automatically links back to their content. 

Reblogging is a convenient way to share what you’re reading and enjoying with your own followers. If you happen across a post that you like, just look for the “Reblog” button in the toolbar:

Reblog button

When you click that, you’ll see an option to add your thoughts on the post, and a drop-down menu to choose which of your own blogs you want the reblog to appear on. Click “Reblog Post” and that’s it!

On your site, the reblog will appear with the shared post’s original title and a clear attribution:

Reblog title

The reblog contains an excerpt of the post followed by a link to the full version. This rewards the original blogger with the traffic. Your own thoughts, should you add any, also appear below the reblog:

End of a reblog

Reblogging is a polite way to share the work of others, because it whets your readers’ appetites with a taste of the post, but they have to click to the original post to read the whole thing. That way, that blogger gets the views that their work deserves. It’s also more interesting for your readers than a plain old link would be.

Bloggers don’t get an email notification when you reblog them, but they do get a toolbar notification. They’ll also likely see the traffic coming from your site in the referrers section of their site stats, and they’ll visit your site to see what you had to say about their work.

Here are a few things to remember when reblogging:

  • Try to add some original commentary to each reblog you share. If you don’t have a lot of profound things to say, that’s ok, but do include a bit of explanation as to why you are sharing this particular post with your readers. If you simply reblog post after post without adding any thoughts of your own, other bloggers might feel that you’re stealing their hard work without contributing anything of your own.
  • Don’t overuse reblogs. A blog consisting of nothing but reblogged posts looks a lot like spam.
  • Consider whether the blogger you are reblogging would want their work to appear on your blog. If you’re sharing the post of a very G-rated blogger and your blog is a bit spicy, it might be better to simply link. Reblog others as you would want to be reblogged.

On the other hand, remember that whenever you blog, you are publishing your work to the world wide web. Once it appears, anyone can read it, enjoy it, link to it, and share it with others, and you can’t control the audience you attract. If you’re not comfortable with that level of access to your work, consider setting your blog to private so that only your family and friends can read your posts.

Of course, most of us blog to be widely read! Reblogging is one more way to share great writing with your readers and build relationships with bloggers you admire.

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    4. You should. Its the best thing to do. Some people really don’t want to be reblogged, and you should always ask permission before reblogging, its just polite and shows common courtesy rather than doing it without their permission. It just creates a better relationship if you ask first.

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  3. Completely off topic, but I’d like to see you discuss Featured Images in more depth soon. Specifically, if there is a way to default a featured image for all posts, or by category. I know the featured image is used as a thumbnail image on Facebook, so I’d like to know what options I have to control it.

    Thanks!

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  4. I wasn’t even aware of this feature at WordPress.Com. Now to see if it will work for me seeing that my blog is not at the WordPress.Com site, and is, instead at my own domain. It there a plug-in for this for blogs using WordPress software at their own domains?

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  5. As a professional writer/author/content creator and distributor, I’m gratified to see how responsibly you presented the issue of reblogs- it’s a great start. Repackaging content and presenting it as your own is rampant online. And it isn’t just individuals who are guilty of intellectual property poaching; I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among respected blogs and online outlets presenting complete articles with a comment or two and declaring it original content.

    It’s a really slippery slope when it comes to sharing, reblogging or quoting. I think this is an important enough issue to become required reading or a sticky topic when encouraging bloggers to share and share alike.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. I would never reblog without asking permission from the author to use their content-and making it very clear whose content it is. I don’t see it mentioned in the explanation of reblogging to obtain permission, why?

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    1. Reblogging doesn’t post the entire original post – it just shares an excerpt and it automatically links to the original site, so it gives clear attribution. It is always extra polite to ask permission first, however! 🙂

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      1. Unfortunately, the reblogging that I’ve seen publishes the *entire* blog post on the reblogger’s site and I think that’s very wrong. No traffic goes to the original author’s site. Maybe they’re “reblogging” by copying & pasting the entire thing rather than using your Reblog button?

        I have a couple of wordpress.com sites but I’ve yet to see the Reblog button–I’ll have to take a second look. Personally, I wouldn’t use it because if I am referring to someone else’s post, I copy/paste only 1-3 sentences and give proper credit to the original author and a link to the original site, encouraging my readers to go there and finish reading it. And yes, I usually ask permission to do so (via Twitter).

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      2. taking without permission is theft its that simple, I have challenged people before for taking my images and poems and you can approach their host company and not ask but demand that the page with the stolen property on be removed, they must fo it once you have proven ownership. Also if you do not want your items reblogged say so and also get the script that denies right click. Protect your property as you would the cash in your pocket and the items in your home. If you Google for ‘order for take down or take down notice’ you will find a standard letter you can send to the reblogger and then if that fails to their isp. To find the ISP take the web address and Google for ‘whois’ paste the the address and you will get all the details. If the blog is on the WordPress servers contact them.

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      3. I’ve been re-blogged twice. I’ve received a notification asking me to approve it, but when I’ve gone to the other site to see what type of blog it is, my blog is already visible. In both cases, the entire blog was posted. Both blogs were acceptable to me, but it is a bit worrisome that I have no control over whether or not my work is displayed elsewhere. I wasn’t asked permission and in neither case did the re-bloggers even leave a comment letting me know they had re-blogged (although I did receive a Like from one of the authors).

        I’m not sure if I see this as a compliment or not. I know I’ve felt uneasy until I’ve checked out the blog. I don’t want to set my blog to private, but it would be nice if the approval feature worked like it does with pingbacks and comments.

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  8. I saw some comments where people are paranoid about re blogging some one. Re blogging doesn’t mean copying, or stealing some one’s work in anyway. It clearly indicates which blog it came from and who is the original author. To reblog, all you need to do is click that reblog button, next to the like button on the top menu bar, and the post or page that you are currently reading gets reblogged on your site/blog, with the current credentials intact. Also reblogging is a honest guesture of letting a blogger know that you really liked their content.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. I’ve noticed when I make my photo’s “Set Featured Images”, rebloggers can’t capture the picture as well as the story…..the picture doesn’t show up on their blog…..is there a way around that???

    Liked by 1 person

    1. If you want the image to show up in the reblogged post, you can insert it into the body of the post, as well as set it as a featured image. Of course, depending on how your theme uses featured images, that might make the picture show up twice on your site.

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  10. I do a lot of reblogging. I wish the amount of the original blog that gets clipped and put into the reblog were longer. Sometimes, it’s just the title, not even a paragraph or two. It would be more alluring if there was a bit more “stuff” to grab readers’ interest. Just a suggestion.

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    1. It goes out immediately. If you want to schedule one, you’d be better off to draft a standard post and manually quote and link to the content you want to share.

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  14. I think the re-blog is a huge compliment, right? I don’t see how it differs from “sharing” via Twitter or Facebook. Gaining permission in this light, although adorable, hardly seems necessary. Thanks for explaining!

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  15. I’ll share the best tip I’ve had so far, to use scoopit dot com and if I want to reblog a post off someones site I scoop it and it does exactly what you describe for me, a small excerpt and correct links and full credit given, it also has the option for sharing on other social media. One of the easiest tools I use and you get do follow links from scoopit for your blog and the scooped blog also gets do follow links, so complete win win for all.
    As usual a great post, thx, I’ll scoopit for my newbies help topic board on scoopit :))

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  16. This might be good to use when one is reblogging a post they wrote on a different site as a guest writer to their own blog.
    Personally, I do manual reblogs for my guest posts because I have more control over the outcome.

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  18. It clearly states on my site not to re-blog, but people don’t read. They see something they like in the Reader and say, “Ooh, let me post that!”

    Personally, I am not in favor of it and am not going to switch my settings for a few annoying people out there.

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  19. I don’t mind people re-blogging my Daily Posts, but i do have concerns when it’s a more personal post.

    A couple of months ago i wrote a very personal post on turning 40, and thanking people in my family. This post was reblogged. When i asked the person (Who’s blog is completely of reblogged content) to remove it they refused. It took several weeks and numerous request for them and they still didn’t remove it, so i had to delete the post and put it somewhere else on my blog.

    I do think that permission should be asked to reblog someone else’s work.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. You should have reported their blog for spam and for abuse. They are clearly a splogger if their blog consists of nothing but reblogs of legitimate bloggers. You can still report them for spam and abuse if they’re still at it at the same address as before. This is an obvious splogger and this sort of behavior should not be tolerated under any circumstances. I’ve seen far too many blogs that are just parasitic reblog sploggers whose blogs consist of nothing but reblogs. They’re taking advantage of legitimate bloggers’ content, who’ve worked hard on their content. This is spam activity.

      Just go back to their blog and in the black admin bar at the top, hover over their blog title and then in the dropdown click where it says “Report this content”.

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    2. I don’t get the point of having a page full of re-blogged contents. The only post that I re-blogged was actually my own from my other inactive blog. Even weirder if people re-blogged your personal post.

      Liked by 1 person

  20. I’m sorry, but with my blog I see reblogging and an insult, unless there’s a good reason behind it, and unless you ask permission first, theft. I’ve been reblogged a couple times without permission, (I didn’t even know what it was before) and when I went on the blog it was all reblogs, no personal entries at all, and I didn’t see how those reblogs from mine related to their blog at all except vaguely with the subject matter. If you’re going to reblog at least say something about it, don’t just steal someone else’s work!

    Liked by 1 person

  21. When I’ve been reblogged, it’s usually users from other continents who do nothing but reblog. They’re just parasites sucking content from multiple users at once. I’d take offense if I thought the results drew more traffic for them than for me, but I’m pretty sure that’s never the case, and I seriously doubt they’re drawing traffic away from me, so to me it’s not a battle worth fighting. At best, they’re gnats.

    I do appreciate the forthrightness of this piece, especially the parts about (a) adding a few words of your own when you do it, and (b) not overusing the reblog option. If you’re reblogging more than you’re actually blogging, then you’re doing it wrong. The ‘Net can always use a few more talented content providers, but we’re full up on content aggregators.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. There seems to be some confusion about this – reblogging is not the same thing as copying and pasting another blogger’s entire post into your site. The reblog feature on WordPress.com is simply a tool for excerpting and linking to other content. While it’s definitely not cool to post another blogger’s work in its entirety (without permission, and especially without attribution), excerpting and linking to other people’s content is fine to do. In fact, it’s what the blogosphere is all about! 🙂

    While there’s nothing wrong with getting permission before using the reblog feature, I personally don’t think it’s necessary – most people with public blogs are delighted to be linked to. But certainly if someone complains to you about your having reblogged one of their posts, it’s polite to remove it at their request.

    As we can all see from this comment thread, people feel very strongly about where their work is shared, so we should all be considerate of that.

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  26. I wish permission was needed – as like Randall above I’ve mostly been re-blogged by overseas aggregators

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Agree. Permission should be a requirement for re-blogging. Are people that lazy? Uninspired? Otherwise, it waters it down and makes it a flip, sleazy, candy-coated crap blog situation similar to Tumblr. My opinion, you don’t have to agree with it.

      This is NOT what the blogosphere is all about…as someone said earlier. Re-blogging is not where it’s at or what it’s about. This is WP, not Pinterest or Tumblr.

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  27. I’m not a fan of reblogging. Even though a reblog only uses a truncated version of a post, if that post is short, say a poem, or a photo, the entire post is published. I’ve been reblogged and without the courtesy of being asked or an additional comment left. The first time it happened I was shocked and offended. The argument that the practice drives traffic to the original site, I think, is also misleading. I have had zero referrals from a reblog.

    I too would prefer that the practice be stopped or at a minimum require expressed permission before a reblog is posted on another site. If I find that a site that has reblogged a post of mine, is all reblogs or the majority of the content is reblogs, I tag it as spam.

    Liked by 1 person