We spotted a post in one of the blogger Facebook groups we’re part of that was a little concerning for bloggers. The thread discussed whether views through Bloglovin still counted towards your stats if the reader used the Bloglovin frame.
Why would this be concerning for bloggers? Well, because since Google Reader closed (…still not over that), bloggers have been encouraging use of Bloglovin’ because it’s the easiest blog reader to use no matter what platform the blogger is using to publish to their site.
We contacted Bloglovin’ to query this and happily, they have said that views do count!
Bloglovin does generate traffic as we send the reader to the blogs. For blogs with many followers, we’re often a top traffic source
Of course, it is possible with a little bit of code to force your blog to break out of the frames that sites like Bloglovin’ will put on your site, but it’s a little bit rude really when the reader has chosen to subscribe to your site through their chosen reader.
It is possible to use Bloglovin’ without the frame, but this is a setting that you as a user would choose, not something that you can set for everyone viewing your blog. Just head to Settings > Other and where it says “the Bloglovin’ Frame”, change your setting to “I don’t want the frame”
If you are really concerned about your views, then you may want to promote the other ways that people can subscribe to your blog, such as RSS where you can choose to provide a partial RSS feed to encourage people to click over to your site to increase your views. (However, many readers dislike this, and can use sites that will generate a full RSS feed for them!)