Why No Blogroll?

I’m not sure how long ago this began, but I’ve come to realize that many a blogger on 20SB (roughly half by a glimpse of the “What Was Your Last Post About” thread) doesn’t have a blogroll / must read / link list / favs list / fill in the blank list of their favorite blogs linked up on the sidebar (or anywhere else) on their blogs. 

I’m certainly not saying that everyone needs to, or should follow a model on what goes into the nuts and bolts of a blog set up or sidebar, but I can’t help but wonder why people don’t have blogrolls on their sidebar, bottom, or as a page set up solely for said purpose of linking to enjoyable blogs.

I certainly found many a great blog to read by way of clicking the links on people’s blogrolls, and I have certainly had many a visitor find me via a blogroll.  I’ve even had much larger and more trafficked blogs, newspapers, and television networks find and link to me thanks to a blogroll.  So I know and have seen the great and wonderful things that a blogroll can do for a blog. 

Essentially, IMHO, blogrolls are great for everyone since they are free advertising for blogs that one enjoys – and people tend to link back when linked to, yes, it’s a two way street.  Plus, not everyone writes a blog, and nobody knows what you follow via RSS, so blogrolls are great ways for those who are merely readers to find more good blogs to read.

While some people don’t have blogrolls, they do have links set up to show off how many followers, tags, categories, pages, blog comments, twitter responses, twitter comments and popular posts.  All of these things are good (but they can be cluttering), and can help drive traffic to other portions of a blog once a person magically finds said blog, but none of them help drive traffic to a blog. 

I believe that it’s safe to assume that people want their blogs to be read by as many people as possible, right? 

So, why don’t you have a blogroll?