Blogroll

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A blogroll is a collection of links to other weblogs. When present, blogrolls are often found on the front page sidebar of most weblogs.

Various weblog authors have different criteria for including other weblogs on their blogrolls. These range from matters of common interest to frequency of updates and posts to country/geographical/communal relations to link exchange policies. Some blogrolls also simply consist of the list of weblogs an author reads him or herself, and some news aggregators allow their users to export that list directly to a weblog.

With the advent of syndicated newsfeeds, even blogrolls can be, and are being, syndicated. OPML is one of the popular ways to syndicate a blogroll in case a weblog author wants others to be able to access the weblogs in his/her blogroll.

There are two suggested derivations for the term. The term is likely derived from logrolling, wherein members of a community liberally "cross-quote" each other's works. To Britons, 'blogroll' sounds like 'bog roll' — slang for a roll of toilet paper — leading to speculation that the name derived from the long, list-like nature (and dubious quality) of some inter-blog link lists.

More prosaically, roll is to be construed as meaning "list" as in "roll of honour" or "roll call", being derived from the French word rôle as in rôle d'équipage (muster roll) or rôle d'imposition (tax roll).