Blogroll Renovations

Welcome to my 400^th blog post! 

I have an extensive blogroll at DivGro. Maintaining the blogroll is a challenge, as blogs come and go. I rely on new bloggers to tell me about their new blog. Rarely, though, does a blogger plan to stop blogging. It just kind-of happens. And because it just happens, there's no way for me to know when it happens...

It is quite eerie to read the final post on abandoned blogs. Did the blogger have even a little sense that the post would be their last? As I get older, I think back about the last time I did various things, like seeing school friends or even distant family. At the time, I had no inkling that that would be the last time I would see them!

Anyway, enough about nostalgia. The fact of the matter is that I have to revisit my blogroll frequently to fix things, otherwise the page would become less useful fast!

When I spend the few hours over a couple of days to do some blogroll maintenance, I usually do some renovations too.

I've updated the Honor Roll Blogs, my favorite dividend growth investing (DGI) blogs. These are high quality and inspirational blogs; and, in my view, worthy of following! With this update, I've ranked the honor roll blogs from most favorite (#1) to tenth favorite (#10). Check out my blogroll to see if you agree with my rankings (or if your blog made the list!).

The second major renovation is that I've raised the standard of what I consider to be a public portfolio. As regular readers would know, I highly value blogs that have a public portfolio. With public I mean there is a page dedicated to the portfolio, showing (at least) a list of tickers, the number of shares per ticker, the value of each position, and the total portfolio value. Blogs with public portfolios are prominently displayed and are marked (and linked to) with this symbol: ¶

Why the higher standard? Well, the idea was proposed by Mike A, a follower and regular commenter. He argues that showing details (including the total portfolio value) is much more useful that showing just a list of tickers and positions as percentages. It allows readers to compare their portfolios to similarly valued portfolios, considering things like diversification and relative position values. I happen to agree with Mike on this one, so I implemented the change.

Here is what the more prominent display of blogs with public portfolios looks like:

The last change is a small one. I now consider blogs in which the last post is more than 3 months old, to be Dormant Blogs. If the owner of a dormant blog resumes blogging and I'm made aware of it, I'll reinstate the blog in the appropriate section, either in Active Blogs or in Steady Blogs. Note that blogs less than one year old do not qualify to become dormant — I just delete them.

Here are some stats of my blogroll:

• Honor Roll Blogs: 10 (6 with public portfolios)
• Active Blogs: 34 (14 with public portfolios)
• Steady Blogs: 54 (25 with public portfolios)
• New Blogs: 9 (6 with public portfolios)

In total, I have 107 blogs of which 51 have public portfolios. There are 25 dormant blogs. 

Please note that I don't actively look for new blogs to include on my blogroll page. I'm asking readers to nominate blogs, either their own or someone else's, for inclusion. You can do this by providing information (such as a link to your blog) in a comment below this post or on my blogroll page.

And, while I don't require that you add DivGro to your blogroll, I sure would appreciate the favor!

Thanks for reading and take care everybody!