The 5 Most Annoying Blog Features

Here’s 5 things which most annoy me when I’m visiting blogs – have I forgotten something? Do you disagree with anything on my list? Please let me know!

1. Auto-play audio or video
   While I listen to a lot of music and watch videos online, I want it to be on my terms, not loudly blaring out when I least expect it. Thankfully Chrome lets me know which tab I have open has audio, making it easier for me to quickly close the tab or, if I’m really keen to read the site, mute my sound. There are still popular blogs I visit regularly that play music. It bothers me every time!
2. Pop-ups
   I know that some bloggers love them, but I’ve never, ever filled in a pop-up subscribe or like or “download this app!” when arriving at a blog. If I’m going there to read some content I’ve been linked to, it’s getting in the way. If it’s my first time there, how will I know whether or not I want to subscribe yet? Some sites bring the pop-up after a certain amount of time on the site, which is also frustrating: especially when you’re right in the middle of reading something and it breaks your train of thought. Some pop-ups are quite difficult to get around too!
3. Slow loading
   When a site takes ages to load, I have to be dedicated to wait around. What’s frustrating is that it’s often due to lots of animated ads.
4. Too many ads
   Bloggers need to make money, and that’s completely fine. There’s a balance to be struck though: too many in-your-face ads that it’s off-putting and frustrating to get to read the content you’re looking for.
5. No dates on blog posts
   Some bloggers like to remove the date from their blog posts and the URLs so that their older articles will still get clicked on in Google. I find this frustrating: it makes it harder to know how dated – and potentially out-dated and incorrect – the content is.