Blogger’s Voice: Should You Use Recent Visitors Widget?

Last 2 weeks were quite bad for me. I promised a post about 'Recent Visitors' widget, its pros and cons etc. but my ISP didn't cooperate! So, I will complete it now.

Since we need more than 2 or 3 people to tell what they think about this widget, I decided to have a poll and a Blog Catalog Discussion.

Poll Results: 50% of BWS readers responding use the Widget and 50% do not. Comments from the poll included:

Timethief: "I do have a BC recent visitors widget on my blog & I do use it to see who has visited my blog. I frequently use it to get to the visitor's blog as well. I also get traffic from BC where we register free of charge & use all features free of charge so I'm pleased to have the BC recent visitors widget in my sidebar."

The Fitness Diva: "I always like to glance over at the sidebar and see who has been passing through. I don't think I'd like being without it! "

Discussion Results
Here are some interesting answers from the Blog Catalog discussion :

Xight: "I use the BC Widget for my blog. Its located down at the bottom in my footer to avoid clutter.The reason for people to have those recent visitor widgets is that it acts as a kind of reinforcement on how popular or how much authority a site has. Kind of like the same idea as showing off your feed subscriber count. People are more likely to subscribe to your feed if you have a large subscriber count, as compared to if you only have say 10 or so showing. The same with the BC Widget, if people from BC stop through your site frequently, people will see the times being fairly short (ie last visited 20 minutes ago). If that's the case then the time stamps are good. If you're blog isn't visited by BC members often, then you should change it to the image only one without the time stamps. That way it shows you have visitors, but doesn't say how long it was since the last visit." --Really Interesting Answer.

Sebastyne: "Quite honestly I don't know what the point of it is. Most visitors that come through are mainly passing by, so promoting them is not really that important. I rarely click to see who they are, so that's not the reason. I guess I just keep it up there as it is kind of "an industry standard"." -- I agree with Sebastyne. That's the reason I don't use it myself.

Arcticulates: "I have a BC visitor widget on every page of my blog. I like the visitor widget, because it reminds me to visit other blogs, plus I think they look really nice. With a glance, I see return visitors/commentors and new visitors. All I have to do is click on their avatar, and it takes me right to the profile here on BC, and I can click on their blog address to go and read and leave a comment if I have something to say. I find it really handy to also thank someone quickly for a comment too!"

Timethief: "I like using the BC Recent Visitors widget and the My Neighbors too. It shows me who is visiting, and when I have the time, it prompts me to click the BC avatars and return the visits. Clicking the BC avatar brings me to their BC profile page and I click again to get to their blog. The result is that they get stats that count towards their BC page rank, as well as, my hit on their blog. I'm currently doing some work on my site but after it's complete I may also use the BC Search widget."

Should you use it?
So, after all, it comes down on your choice. If you want to use, use it. If you do not want, leave it. Do not ask my personal preference, I do not recommend it. (Oops... I just told my preference!)

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snapshot by SBA