What happened to Bloglovin’?
Bloglovin’ rebranded to Activate in 2018, becoming an influencer marketplace. The @bloglovin Twitter account has been wiped and instead directs users to @activatesocial_, which has also been shut down.
Activate was acquired by Impact, a partnership management platform, in August 2020. However, it seems Activate has been abandoned with the last update being in December 2021.
Bloglovin’ was a popular way to follow blogs in the early 2010s. However in 2017, Bloglovin’ came under fire amongst bloggers for stealing traffic and claiming content as their own. As many moved away, others reported an influx of bots on the platform and were disappointed by the companies decision to redirect their focus.
Looking for an alternative to Bloglovin? I’ve been using Feedly to follow blogs since 2017 and I love it.
With Google Reader shutting down on July 1st, we need a new way to follow our favourite blogs. One popular option amongst lifestyle bloggers is Bloglovin’. This post will explain how it works, how to set up an account, how to follow blogs and claim your own site.
What is Bloglovin’
Bloglovin’ is an easy way to follow blogs and get notified when they upload a new post. Bloglovin’ is a reader which updates using RSS Feeds. This means that you can add and follow ANY blog or website even if the owner doesn’t have an Bloglovin account, as long as the site has a valid RSS Feed.
Setting up an account on Bloglovin’
To set up an account on Bloglovin’, all you have to do is enter a couple of details on the signup page or you can sign up by connecting to your Facebook profile.
You will need to log into your email account and verify your email address. It will lead you onto a couple of introduction pages, which you can skip. You will then arrive at your dashboard.
In the top navigation bar, you will see a link to home/dashboard, as well as links to the popular posts and blogs (hovering over these will drop down categories).
You will also see you account image, with many options and settings. Beside this is the search bar where you can search and follow blogs. To add a blog, you can search for a word, a user-name or using the URL.
When you follow a blog, you can add it to a category. This acts like a folder in your sidebar to allow you to categorise/organise the blogs you follow. Under the navigation bar, you will see the blog feed.
This is where all new posts and updates appear. You can also change the viewing settings. To the right of the blog feed, you will see your different categories.
How to claim a blog on Bloglovin’
As I mentioned above, any URL with a valid RSS Feed can be added to Bloglovin’ as it is a reader, the blog owner doesn’t need to have an account for their blog to appear on the site. By claiming your blog, you are proving that the blog is yours. This gives you access to change the information associated with your blog.
To claim your blog go to Account > Claim Blog > and search for yours. Click on your blog title, copy the code and paste it into a new blog post on your blog. This is to prove that you have access to the blog account.
Once you publish it, go back to Bloglovin’ and click Claim Blog. It will search for the code and verify that you own it before adding the blog to your account. Once you’ve claimed your blog, you can go to Account > My Blog and edit your details, such as title, description and category.
How to claim you Profile Page
Set up a profile page here to display some information about you and a list of your blogs. Go to Settings > Profile Info and enter your unique username to be used as your profile page. Example http://www.bloglovin.com/misse
Bloglovin FAQ
How to follow blogs on Bloglovin’
You can search for ANY blog or website (with a valid RSS Feed) and simply click “Follow”. You can then add them to a folder that you have created. I’ve set up numerous folders as categories to organise the blogs I follow.
How to move/merge followers when changing blog url
Write a new post on your old blog stating that you have moved to a new address. Include a link in the post to your new blog. Then contact Bloglovin’ via the support page with the appropriate information and they will move the followers for you.
Does the blog owner or Bloglovin’ benefit from traffic
Bloglovin’ sends the user to your blog address, meaning that you receive the traffic. There are some confusions about the use of the frame, which I briefly dicuss here.
How to turn off / remove frame on Bloglovin
To turn off the frame from appearing when you visit someones blog via Bloglovin, simply hover over your image in the top bar and click Settings. Scroll down to the Other heading and you’ll see the options for The Bloglovin’ frame there.
How to fix : images / posts not appearing – How to check if RSS is valid
The images needs to be .jpeg and must not be too large, otherwise it will not load properly. You must have a valid RSS Feed for Bloglovin’ to be able to gather your posts/images. You can check if your feed is valid here.
Your images need to be included in your RSS Feed to be able to show in Bloglovin’. Check the option for “Full Post” and not “Summary” in your feed settings, this will allow the images to be shown and content to be accessed in order to properly update. On WordPress, this is in Settings > Reading.
On Blogger, go to Settings > Other > Site Feed > Allow Blog Feed > Custom and set each feed to Full. I discuss this more in the post on RSS feeds and missing posts & thumbnails in the Blogger Dashboard.
How to fix : blog showing multiple times in search
If the blog is using more than one feed, it may be added multiple times to Bloglovin’. Simply contact Bloglovin’ via the support page and let them know the issue. They will combine them for you.
How to choose photo for thumbnail
Bloglovin always picks the first image included in your RSS-feed, this might not always be the first image in your blog post, it may be the first image you added to your blog post instead. The image needs to be .jpeg and should not too large or take long to load.
How to remove deleted posts or a deleted blog
Send Bloglovin an email via the support/help page and they’ll remove the post for you from your Bloglovin feed.
How to follow any blog from your browser
As I mentioned earlier, you can add ANY blog or website to Bloglovin without the author needing to have an account. As long as the site has a valid RSS Feed, which most do, you can add it!
The problem is not all websites/blogs have a link to bloglovin available so you have to open a new tab, sign into Bloglovin, search for the blog and then follow or add it.
Not too bad if it’s only a couple but if you’re like me and use bloglovin to keep up to date with a whole range of websites, blogs, forums, etc it can be a hassle.
I recently came across this bookmarklet that you drag into your bookmark bar, then when you are on a site you want to follow, click it and it will open bloglovin in a new tab. Pretty handy!
However, I didn’t like that it opened in a new tab. To open it in the same tab here’s what to do. Add it to your browsers bookmark bar, right click on it, click Edit Address. Change _blank to _self.
Now bloglovin will open in the same tab with that website/blog, so you just have to click follow.
How to export certain subscriptions (blogs/groups) from Bloglovin?
Learn how to export specific blogs and categorised groups from your Bloglovin feed as backup or to import into a different account or feed reader.
How to export subscription data from Google Reader
Click here to download your reader data using Google Takeaway, you can then upload that file to an alternative reader. More information about exporting on Googles support page
How to Import Alternative Reader Feeds (such as Google Reader) to Bloglovin’
First open the import page > click Google Reader > Import from Google Reader > Allow Access or to do it manually, click OPML/XML and upload the exported Google Reader XML file.
To import from another reader, export the subscriptions as an OPML file and upload the file on the import page, choose the OPML/XML option.
66 responses to “Ultimate guide to Bloglovin’ – common issues resolved and what happened to the platform”
Bloglovin are saying my RSS feed is broken but i have no idea what the issue is. I recently changed my URL and updated bloglovin with the new address but my posts are still not showing up…
help?
http://goodgollymisshollybooks.blogspot.com/
If you changed your URL you need to update your RSS Feed too, this tutorial should help – http://xomisse.com/blog/fix-missing-posts-in-blogger-dashboard-reading-list/. Bloglovin use your blogs RSS Feed to grab the blog posts so if it’s not updating, either will Bloglovin.
Hey! I’m following over 100 blogs on bloglovin, is there a way to say which ones I want included in my daily email? I’ve out my faves in a folder but can’t see how to change my settings to mean I only get updates from these few…hope I’m making sense! Xx
Hello, I don’t believe there is a way to only receive updates from certain blogs. Bloglovin’ are always adding new features though so you could always submit your idea here.
Hello again, Ellie.
Hopefully this issue isn’t as complicated as my previous one. 🙂 This time it’s Bloglovin’ that isn’t updating. My Feed is up to date, I just received an email for my latest post, and Feedly is showing my latest too. Should I give Bloglovin’ a few more hours before panicking? (My post went up about 3 hours ago.)
Thanks!
Yes! Bloglovin may have been having a slow day. It’s very normal for it, other readers and your RSS Feed to have a delay 🙂
Hi Ellie! My blog on bloglovin hasn’t been updated in a week ever since I moved from blogger to a squarespace platform. I checked my RSS feed with squarespace and they said it was fine, I checked if the feed was valid and the website said it was. Feedly and other readers have my most recent posts, but bloglovin doesn’t!
http://www.chicblackchick.net/allposts/?format=rss&rss.xml
http://www.chicblackchick.net/allposts/?format=rss my RSS feeds (the squarespace guy gave me two but both are validated
http://www.chicblackchick.net/allposts/ my blog URL. My main site is chicblackchick.net, but I even reclaimed by blog on bloglovin on this new URL and everything and still no luck. Any tips?
Hello Monica, Bloglovin seems to be updating now with your newest posts?
Yup! Thank you bloglovin finally got on my email and fixed it : )
Ah perfect – my suggestion was going to be that maybe they didn’t have the updated url or feed, so glad you got it sorted! 🙂
Hi!
I’m having the same problem at the moment except my rss feed seems to be showing up invalid and bloglovin cant figure it out and have asked me to contact squarespace who isn’t replying. Hope you can help!
Hello Tanisha, your RSS feed seems to be working fine and is valid (see here). Here is your blog on Bloglovin too.
Great article – I just added the +bloglovin to my bookmarks – this will make following other blogs sooo much easier. THANKS!
It’s so handy to have in your bookmarks, I use it all the time 🙂
Is there a way to have bloglovin send you an email when a specific blog is updated? As in the author of that blog does not have an option on their site to subscribe to updates via email.
Hello, I don’t believe theres a way to do it only for a specific blog. You could try http://blogtrottr.com which may be a useful tool for you.
Hello, thank you so much for this post. Do you happen to know much about WordPress and Bloglovin? My blog is http://www.road-to-riches.com and my posts are not updating on Bloglovin. However I have installed a map widget and any new map markers I make on my blog are updating on Bloglovin, but not my posts. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hello Lou, make sure you’re using the correct feed address for Bloglovin. It should be your posts feed.
Hi, I’m following many blogs on WordPress.com is there a way to export them to bloglovin. I’m fed up of their reader.
On the reader dashboard, click edit beside “Blogs I follow” in the sidebar. From here you can export your subscriptions 🙂
My blog posts show on FeedBurner but not on bloglovin :'( I don’t know what is wrong!
http://longdistancecollegelove.blogspot.com/
Hello Selina, they take a little longer to appear on Bloglovin because Bloglovin read the updates from your Feedburner Feed. Both seem to be updating fine right now, did you do something or did it update itself? 🙂
Thank you so much for this! It was really helpful. I have just contacted support to transfer my followers over to my new blog from the old blog site 🙂 Really happy. XO
Oh awesome, hope they sort it for you soon. Saves so much hassle! x
Hi Ellie,
I’ve been browsing the internet for a solution to my blog lovin problem and I’m happy that I’ve finally found a place where someone can help me out. Thank you in advance. I moved from blogger to wordpress last weekend and for some reason the thumbnails are not showing up with my posts in the bloglovin feed anymore as you can see here: http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3709985/fashioncontainer
I’ve changed ‘summary’ to ‘full text’ in reading, but also after that the images don’t show up. Do you have any clue how to solve this? Thank you.
Hello Malena, beautiful blog!! You seem to be having the same issue as I was where sometimes to images appeared on bloglovin and sometimes they didn’t. I’ve looked into file types and image sizes but can’t really come up with a reason for this other than the actual size of the feed. I noticed my problem was happening on “larger” posts. You use a lot of images which slows down the loading speed and increases the size of each post in the feed. This could be what’s preventing Bloglovin from grabbing the image. I have more information about checking your feed here.
Hi Ellie,
I want to thank you for publishing this wonderful guide to Bloglovin. I have been troubleshooting an issue with images appearing in Bloglovin for weeks, and your article provide the final step to solving the problem. I am going to head over to Bloglovin right now to follow you. I look forward to reading more of your great content.
Tonya a/k/a The Shoe Maven
Hi Ellie!
Firstly, I want to thank you for having such a helpful blog and how amazingly organize and well thought out the entire blog is!!
I have a question about Bloglovin’ posting titles (without post) that I never even wrote.. is this a common problem? I just made my blog public recently and now registered with Bloglovin’ but it shows post that dates way back when the blog wasn’t even public. Is there a way to solve this problem? It’s annoying because it shows all these blog titles and once someone clicks on it, there is nothing.
Thank you again for the amazing blog you have! It has helped me solve so many problems – still trying to figure out the sticky navi bar with social media icons.
Jessica x
Hello Jessica. Thank you so much, that’s so kind! It’s probably because those posts were published and are on your RSS Feed. Go to Bloglovin’s help page here, scroll down to the bottom and click contact support. Send them a message with the names of the posts you want deleted and they’ll remove them from your Bloglovin Feed.
Hi Elaine,
I am new to Bloglovin’ and have joined for the purpose of following other blogs. Somehow Bloglovin’ is automatically following blogs/people I haven’t chosen to follow… how do I fix this?
Thank you for your help 🙂
Hello Kristina, I’ve not come across this before. Sounds like a bug so you’d have to contact Bloglovin directly via the help page.
Hi Elaine! Thanks for this great, quality post on how to work with Bloglovin. When I claimed my blog, I did not set the “full post” option in the feed settings, and images were not added to the blog’s posts on Bloglovin. I changed the setting and tried it with another feed service (feedly) and the images all work fine. Is there any way to retroactively get Bloglovin to pull the images from the posts it has already in its system?
My bloglovin feed is here: http://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/madhouse-travel-13915673
Thanks !
Isabella
Hey Isabella, no unfortunately not. Any changes made to the feed will only affect future posts.
Darn, thanks for the reply though! :)x
Hi,
I am new to bloglovin and noticed that duplicates of my posts are showing up on my profile’s feed. How can I delete the extra of each post?
Hey Robin, sounds like on issue on their side. You could contact them via their help page, they should be able to help 🙂
Do you know how long it takes for the contact support to answer your question? Because I need to move my followers as soon as possible, but I still don’t have an answer to the email I’ve sent on saturday.
xxx
Hello Evy. I usually hear back within a few days, not sure if they are available over the weekend so they might just be getting to support messages now 🙂
Well… I still have no answer. I’m freaking out.
Hi Evy, there’s nothing you can really do except wait. Did you include everything they need (new and old address) in the email you sent them?
Yes, I did!
Hi, nice post. Do you know how to get Bloglovin to only pull an excerpt for mobile uses? I’ve notice that on desktop it just jumps to an in-frame page of my site.
But in mobile, some sites have the image and an excerpt with an “Original Post” link — and other sites have the full post in the mobile. I wonder what triggers that excerpt? And the excerpt is different than what is on their website feeds. Almost like a custom RSS excerpt.
Hello. The frame can be switched on / off in your settings if you want it shown or hidden on the blogs you read. I no longer use Bloglovin’ so I can’t be 100% sure but the RSS feed setting is what controls how much is shown and WordPress allow custom excerpts to be written.
Hi, I don’t know if you can help…
I’m having an issue with my Bloglovin’ as the image I set as my thumbnail image for my Squarespace blog posts isn’t the image that shows up when Bloglovin’ takes my post from the RSS feed, it used the first image I upload to the actual post. Is there a way of changing this, as I don’t want to have to post the same image as my thumbnail (which is used as a banner image behind the title) and then repeat it in the post as the first image again!!
Thanks, Rachael x
Hey Rachael, Bloglovin will take the first image displayed in your RSS feed so this is typically the first image added in the post. I’m not sure if there’s a coding way to add the thumbnail to the RSS feed, I know there is for WordPress. I’ll look into it for you and let you know
I came to this post thinking that there was a point that could help me with my problem, but there isn’t so I thought I’d address it here, hoping you might have the answer! You know how normally, if you include your thumbnail photo to be vertical, it will show up vertical on bloglovin. If you include a horizontal photo it will show up in the bloglovin feed to be horizontal. But recently, I included a vertical photo on my blog, but in bloglovin it “cropped” the photo to look small and horizontal, when it actually isn’t? I don’t recall doing anything differently, but I could be wrong. If you know what is going on, I’d love to hear a response. Much love x
Hey Kyia. I’ve seen a few people mention this, seems like it’s something Bloglovin are doing so I don’t know if it’s a temporary bug or if they are changing how images are displayed. I’m afraid I can’t help with this, you would need to talk to them about it. Hope that helps somewhat 🙂
I’ve been searching for an answer to this question with no answers on bloglovin. How is it that some bloggers that I follow have only their blog’s feed showing and not all the other bloggers whose posts they have liked or saved. Their page will specifically say “everything, number of followers, and a ‘more’ “for their page menu. Does this format just happen for those looking at my profile automatically? It seems strange that you can’t “view page as”. I would like to have my public page give the same options to my readers , where it only shows my content and how many followers I have. Any pointers? I’ve checked my settings and there is no option (at least with the mobile version) that will let me change it. Sorry if this is a silly question, I just noticed there seemed to be a couple different formats that appear on bloglovin.
Hi Leah, I’m not sure if I’ve understood correctly but are you talking about the difference between a profile page and a blog page? On Bloglovin, the person’s profile page shows a list of their blogs, their profile followers, followings and their activity. When you click onto their blog it will show you their feed under the everything tab and bloglovin blog followers. They profile page only links to the blog page if they have claimed their blog. Yours is showing those menu items to me 🙂
What you described is exactly what I was wondering about and now it makes complete sense to me. Thanks so much for the reply!
Hi. Sorry if this is a daft question but even after using Bloglovin for a while I still can’t figure out what the square with a number in means? It’s in the corner of the pictures. I thought it was hits but it doesn’t seem to alter.
Help. It’s driving me mad
Hi Alli, I’m afraid that I’m not sure what you’re referencing. I’m not seeing a number in a square on images. Is this in the feed, while reading a post on Bloglovin or? Could you share a screenshot with me?
Hello! Great article! I see that a lot of bloggers have only a small excerpt showing from their post on the bloglovin’ site and it says “Read more”. Mine just shows the entire post. How do I change that?
Hello Eryn, it’s your RSS feed settings. There’s instructions in my latest post, Bloglovin’ Respond to Issue – Stealing your content, page views and SEO?
Hey! I did what you said for a wordpress.org self hosted site – just changing it to summary, but it didn’t work! Any other suggestions?
Hi Eryn, it has worked. You can see that your feed here isn’t showing full posts. As for on Bloglovin, this will only affect new posts as Bloglovin have already read the feed for your previous posts and won’t “re-read” your feed until a new post triggers it to.
This was very interesting and helpful. Can you help me with a remaining issue, please? I recently started using Instagram and have clicked through to a few blog pages. Then I discovered that if I followed the blog, using their bloglovin button, it was linking to a different bloglovin profile rather than my regular one, identified by my email address only. I had followed 30 blogs/people – some before I used Instagram I think. I’ve deleted the blogs. How do I get these bloglovin buttons to link to my proper account, please? I only became aware of this problem yesterday. TIA
Can I change which photo is appearing (aka I don’t want the first one in the post!)
Hi Rachel. It takes the first image in your RSS feed, which is typically the first image you’ve added to the post. There’s no way to change this.
Hi,
I tried to claim my blog but when I click on the title it takes me straight to my blog page. I am unsure as to which code I have to paste as no code is appearing?
Hi Aneeq. If you go to this page and type in your URL and click claim, the code will show up. If it’s not working you may need to contact Bloglovin directly for help.
Thank you. I didn’t realise it did it automatically there was no need to paste a code.
Good Morning. I am having trouble with one of the blogs I read. Living Proof Ministries Blog. Each day my new unread blogs are up on Bloglovin’. Last month when Living Proof Ministries blog popped up and I clicked on it, it would not come up but a BubbleUp page that is black came up. And it has been like that. I have no trouble with any other of the blogs I read only that one. I don’t know what to do. I thought if I deleted that blog from Bloglovin’ and then added it and followed it again that might work but I can’t see how to delete a blog from my Bloglovin’. Can you help me? Do you know what this BubbleUp thing is? Whatever help you can give me will be much appreciated.
I’m a new blogger and just came across this. Thank you so much for the tips. There is sooo much to learn and having it broken down like this is so helpful.
Thank you so much for this resource. I have a query not addressed here that I hop you can help with. I recently changed servers/hosting and primary URL on my blog. (From.uk to .co.uk but both still direct the blog). Ever since, I have received “no new followers” in my weekly bloglivin summary. I have also heard from people that they have tried to follow but can’t. Have you come across this before?
Px
I know this post is old but I thought I would ask and see if I get a response. I blog through Google, Blogger and Bloglovin consistently pull my feed with problems with paragraph spacing missing. I tinkered with everything. I made sure I have the command for spacing on like they suggested. Still some paragraphs are fine others spacing is missing. It only happens with the mobile view in their app. Any suggestions. Here is my blog: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/midwest-family-food-fun-18147907