?Random Raiders!

This has been a long time coming.

Ever since I started blogging in 2017 (WHAAAT?!), I have been wondering how best to promote old content. When I discover a new blog, I used to go through some of their old posts to get the idea of what their posts were about. There were only so many times I could click the “Older Posts” button at the bottom of their page or so long that I could scroll through their endless entries.

Back then, it made me sad that some of my first posts might never be seen by more than a couple of people who joined my community right as I started my WordPress journey. Now, I wonder if maybe that is better since those posts were not as polished as I would like. (But then I ask myself if any of them are…)

If you connect with a blogger who has hundreds of posts under their belt, chances are you will not read every single article they have ever posted. Think of all the lessons, laughs, and advice you missed…

Categories and tags are great tools to aid visitors to your blog in finding content that is relevant to them. However, I am also aware of another way to browse older content without having to endlessly scroll through the feed or push the “Next” button. It is a feature I have been using for a while now with varied intensity throughout the years (?).

Lately, I have not been present in the blogosphere as much as I would like, which means I probably missed quite a few of your posts. Whenever I get the time, I try to “catch up.” It is a lot easier to track what I have missed if you comment on my *cough* rare *cough* posts and then I click over to your blog. Unfortunately, I was unable to read all of your recent stuff. This made me think about ?Random Raiders!

When peNdantry introduced me to this feature, he presented it as a collaborative, maintenance tool.

Have you ever gone back to read your post from a year ago and noticed that the links you included in the article are no longer working?

Have you ever visited someone’s page only to see that the video they shared had been taken down?

If so, ?Random Raiders! might be for you.

All you have to do is to type ‘?random’ after the blog’s address. For example; https://dailyflabbergast.wordpress.com/?random and it will take you to a randomly selected post on that blog. PeNdantry and I have been ?Random Raiding! each other’s blogs for a while now, discovering various broken links that we then either replace or remove.

Why would you want to do that? Well, first of all, your blog simply makes a better impression if it has all of the post components working as desired. Secondly, and possibly, more importantly, it helps with your SEO. Google does not like pages with broken links and it will push your site farther down the list, which will lead to fewer people seeing your stuff.

Whether you would like to join our club to help find broken links, or simply to discover old content, ?Random Raiding! is the way to go.

PeNdantry even implemented that feature into his menu, which allows visitors to his blog to explore a variety of posts with no more than a click of a button. I hope to add that to my blog one day, too.

As always – let me know what you think.

  • Will you participate?
  • What do you think of that feature?
  • What do you think you could use it for?
  • Do you click on links within a post?

If you leave a comment, I will be sure to ?Random Raid! YOUR blog. Feel free to return the favor, if you wish! There is so much to explore!

P.S. I went ahead and added a link ‘Test Your Luck’ (I might change the name in the future if I think of a better one) to the top navigation bar on my page. Once you click on that part of the menu, you will be taken to a randomly picked post of mine. Happy raiding! [added November 22nd, 2022]

Stay golden,

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76 thoughts on “?Random Raiders!”

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  4. Hmm…I have a different approach. Since my blog has gone through so many phases, I organize it into pages. That way, if someone wants to do a deep dive into the writing process, they pull up writing tips and it’s all there, organized by category. Since a lot of evergreen traffic to my blog is generated from this area, I want to make more info easy to find.

    Or if you’re mostly interested in sane prepping, I have a section for that. If you just want to read finished stories, I have a section for that, too.

    I mention this because it might be worth having a page and tab for finished serials on your blog. You put a lot of work into your multipart stories. It would be nice to see them get more readers because you’ve made it more organized and easier to access.

    Or not. I also feel strongly about this being your space, and you can handle it any damn way you please. Use my suggestions only if they resonate.

    And now I’m off to go check out an earlier post on your blog. If you want to reciprocate, please look for an older story of mine (under the short stories tab) that you haven’t read yet. : )

    Liked by 3 people

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    2. I think you may have missed the point of ?Random Raiders!. It’s not just about easy access to older content; it’s more about helping each other. That being said…

      […] it might be worth having a page and tab for finished serials on your blog […]

      Cathleen’s not wrong there, Goldie. I have to admit that I’m not a great fan of reading works in progress (what if you win the lottery and quit blogging as a result?) – I prefer to sit and read stories from beginning to end, knowing that there is an end. Adding in a ‘Completed Tales’ menu option on your site might be worth considering.

      Liked by 2 people

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  5. Awesome to see you blogging about PeNdantry’s random raid generator. It is a wonderful thing, which I also want to promote through a post in the near future. Colin has found quite a few broken links on my posts that I was unaware of. Some posts are interesting to read ten years down the blogging track, just to see how my writing has changed.
    Setting up pages for older posts is a good idea and something I have only done half heartedly. You have inspired me to change that next year. Thanks, Amanda

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. It is such an awesome thing indeed, helpful on a variety of levels and to both – authors of blogs and visitors.

      Isn’t it?! We don’t always see the changes in us because they happen gradually, but then we read something we wrote years ago and then see the differences. They don’t have to be huge personality changes, but also some small opinion changes, or writing abilities.

      Stay golden!

      Liked by 2 people

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          2. Ahh, well then you’ve been more productive than I. Keep working at those threads and you may find that they are not tangled, but woven, and with enough of them in the mix you may be able to glimpse the image they’re meant to show. Whereas what I’ve done is be someone else for awhile — and living someone else’s life is always much easier than figuring out your own.

            Liked by 1 person

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    1. That’s neat. I do a collection of posts from the year on December 31st but I’m not sure if it’s ever made anyone really dive into it. Maybe it’s because there have usually been too many posts. Much fewer this time around.

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      1. I have to admit that I’ve never been enticed by your ‘Older Posts’ menu option, Goldie. The collection of a group of post by their creation year bears little interest for little me. You could achieve a similar result, automagically, using an ‘Archives’ widget (though, admittedly, that would not be quite as prominent, as it would not be in your menu). But, diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks 🙂

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    2. Interesting. Do you have a custom script working in the background on your site, or do you need to edit that page to insert each and every post in alphabetical order each time you post a new one? (If the latter, I’d be tempted to set up an ‘Alphabetical’ category, with sub-categories A through Z, which could accomplish much the same thing, but automagically).

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. I’m trying to remember how I set it up years ago. I think I might have exported the list on the edit posts page to excel, sorted alphabetically, then brought the links back to the index page. Now, I just add each post by copying the code for the post above, repasting, and editing the code for the new post metadata. Takes about 2 minutes. I have no doubt there are better ways to do it, but I’m willing to spend an extra 2 minutes on every post.

        Liked by 2 people

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  10. I’ve also always wondered what I could do to bring back some posts from the dead but couldn’t get myself to republish them or update old ones because of how time-consuming it might get when I could just focus on releasing new content. I do like that ?random feature to discover a blogger’s random post though. Thanks for sharing it with us!

    Liked by 1 person

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  11. Will you participate?
    Probably not—sounds a bit like Tumblr, which I could never get into.

    What do you think of that feature?
    The concept of it is cool!

    What do you think you could use it for?
    I do like the idea of finding long-lost gems that my blog pals have posted!

    Do you click on links within a post?
    Sometimes. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  14. Pingback: Of Reading A ?Random Post – Becoming The Muse

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What Draws Attention

A Place to Spiritually Ponder Who We Are Called To Be.

Writing Is Testifying

The story of one is the story of everyone

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