Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger just wrote on the benefits of highlighting popular posts on one’s blog (after he noted a similar post by Stephan Spencer using ProBlogger’s top menus as an example). Just like how previous writings on this subject have tended to be, it’s an all benefits-type of post, which should normally be more than okay.

But I’m a little cranky today, so here’s a rant on the possible Bad Things you might encounter when trying to highlight popular posts.

1. Design Issues
   Many modern blog designs aim for simplicity and thus incorporate only the most critical of “objects”. In general, this includes the content area, category list, date archives, link lists, and of course, advertising. A Popular Posts object could very well make a tight design far more cluttered than it should be (especially for two-column designs). In the case of ProBlogger, the Popular Posts boxes actually push the actual content half-way down the screen.
2. Performance and Server Issues
   In many cases, a Popular Posts section would be implemented through a plug-in (ProBlogger uses pure static links, so this point doesn’t apply). This results in greater server load per page view as your server will have to process your Popular Posts section every time a visitor loads one of your pages. This may be insignificant for those using more dedicated hosting solutions, but for shared hosting bloggers with rather high traffic, just one additional plug-in could cause substantial problems.
3. Too “Pushy”
   A Popular Posts section (especially a highly distinctive one like at ProBlogger) could end-up attracting more interest in your so-called “popular posts” than in the rest of your content, just because you marked it as Popular. And if some of your readers happen to not like your popular posts, given their limited attention span, you could have turned them off. This is pretty much the same as viewers tuning in to the most highly rated movies before checking out anything else, even though they might actually find the less “popular” stuff more interesting. But since you can only watch so many movies… (admittedly, this holds for your normal content as well, so it might not have anything to do with a Popular Posts section at all)
4. Past Not Necessarily Indicator of Future
   Popular posts are posts that have done well in the past. Given the organic nature of many blogs, especially those with broader themes, you could very well end-up attracting (e.g. through search engines) one set of visitors one month, and another set the next month. Your new visitors might not be here for your previously popular stuff. Of course, popular posts are generally compiled over a long period – long enough to solidify your theme and get a very comprehensive look at your potential visitors. Moreover, as long as you are using an organic approach towards determining popular posts (e.g. plugin based on page views and comments within a specific time period), your set of popular posts should adjust to accomodate your newer visitors.

Quite a number of the points I’ve raised are admittedly trivial, but I think there are one or two that should have hit the mark. In any case, my use of ProBlogger as an example is only for standardization purposes (with the previous two articles on the issue), and is not at all an attempt to criticize ProBlogger’s implementation of a popular posts section.

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