Wondering if the widget is worth it
I like the idea of the Spotplex "Popular Articles" widget (in the right sidebar). It's a good way to get new readers to look at some articles that aren't on the front page.
I'm not happy with how it's working. I noticed last night that most of the links to the articles are wrong!
For example, if you click on the title "How To Patch The Knees of Jeans," you'll go to the article "The Community Remembers Miss Lorene." To read "How to Patch the Knees of Jeans," you'd have to click on the title, "Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum at Nashville, TN."
I've written to Spotplex support and complained, but I'm not holding my breath on them fixing it. If they do write back, I think they'll just say that Prairie Bluestem's feed is messed up.
[UPDATE: This problem was fixed promptly when someone from Spotplex found this post through its Technorati tag. I'm impressed about that.]
I also don't understand how the list is compiled. It seems to ignore older posts that are requested just as often from search engines. I wonder if it compiles statistics only for posts that are still in the site feed.
[UPDATE: The Spotplex representative explained this in the comments.]
I think the widget has greatly slowed the loading of the page.
I'm thinking about removing it, especially if it doesn't start showing correct links! I'll give it a few more days -- but it's definitely on probation, so it had better shape up and fly right.
[UPDATE: I'm keeping the widget for now while I evaluate whether anyone seem to be clicking the links.]
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3 comments:
Genevieve,
I am very sorry for the problem you are having. There must have been some errors in our system. We'll investigate this problem and let you know once it is fixed.
We only track the articles which have been in your RSS feed since you registered at Spotplex. If an article is too old and pushed out from your feed, there is no way for us to retrieve the article information at this point.
Once again, I am very sorry for the inconvenience we have caused.
Sincerely,
Doyon
Spotplex
PS. We have not received your customer support email yet. Since I don't have your contact info, I will communicate with you through this post.
Doyon, thank you for your help with this. The e-mail I sent was to "support at spotplex.com." I resent it and also sent it to "help at spotplex.com" a few minutes ago. However if it should not arrive, you can leave a note here, or e-mail me at "prairiebluestem at gmail.com".
Genevieve,
The problem is now resolved, and all the links point the correct articles. Thank you very much for your patience.
If you have any question or suggestion, please feel free to contact me at any time.
Sincerely,
Doyon
Spotplex
dkim at spotplex.com
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