Is the Bloglovin' App Stealing Your Page Views? And How to Fix That

Most likely... Yes. 

If you promote Bloglovin' as a way for people to follow and read your blog, you may not be getting credit for tons of traffic. Likewise, if you use Bloglovin' to read blogs, you may be missing out on giving credit to your favorite and most read blogs.

If either or both are the case for you, keep reading! In this post, I will show you how you can test if your blog is losing page views with Bloglovin' and how you can go about fixing that.

Now let me start by saying that the purpose of this post is not to bash Bloglovin'. It is what I use everyday to read blogs and I honestly think it's a great tool for managing and reading blogs. 

It allows you to:

1. Keep all of your favorite blogs in one central location. I like the app for reading blogs when I am out and waiting at places like the doctor's office. And for the most part, it is very easy to use.

2. Manage your blogs by placing them into categories. I love this feature because it helps me stay organized and keeps me from getting overwhelmed with content. I read my fellow mommy blogs everyday. I keep those in an 'everyday reads' category. Then I have categories for 'new reads', blogs I just started to follow, and my 'occasional reads', which are mostly store blogs (target deals, etc.) and celebrity blogs.

3. Search for new blogs. I really like that they have this set-up in three ways: search blogs, search posts, or browse categories. What I like about the categories option is that they list  every single blog registered in every category, no matter how big or small. I like browsing for blogs in my category that have around the same amounts of followers or less. I just feel that I can connect with them better than bigger bloggers (I do follow some of them too, though). 

Now to the things I don't like about Bloglovin':

1. Accounts are set-up in different ways: for those that have a profile for only reading blogs and for those that own/write a blog. This can get rather confusing when you follow someone.
You can follow a profile, but you can also follow a blog linked to a profile. On the left, you can see that I have 322 followers on my profile, but on the right you can see that I have 418 followers on my blog. I'm not entirely sure it even makes a difference, but it's confusing nonetheless.  

2. You don't have control over your own feed; mostly meaning you're not able to delete your blog posts on your feed. They can be deleted, but you have to email the company and ask them to remove it for you. If you have ever accidentally published when you meant to save, need to rewrite something, published on the wrong date, etc. you can't just fix that on your own. You have to contact Bloglovin' and it can be a bit of a pain to go through the process.

*Update: You can delete posts on the website now, but still not on the app.*

3. Lastly, and the real point of this post, the Bloglovin' app steals your blog page views. Now let me clarify a bit. If you use the Bloglovin' app and have never changed any settings, your reader view will be in 'standard view'. This is the default setting when you download the app. The problem is, the standard view is a pre-downloaded version of your post and that means when someone reads your post in that 'view' you are not getting credit for that page view. 

Here is how you can test it yourself:
Try to do this at a time when you have the least amount of traffic. Then you will definitely know if it is registering your page views or not. If you never changed your Bloglovin' settings, then go to step 2:

1. Make sure in you Bloglovin' settings you have "open posts in web browser" turned off.

2. Open up the Bloglovin' app and go to your blog. Click on one of your posts so that it is opened.

3. Open you Google analytics page. Click on 'Real Time' on the left side bar. Then click "Overview". If your viewing of your post on the Bloglovin' app is registering as a page view then it would be listed as an 'Active User'. You will see that it is not.

4. Now to test if the 'Active Users' is working. Go back to the Bloglovin' app and and scroll to the bottom of your post. Click on 'View Original Post'.

 This will take you to the web browser view. Once that comes up, check back in your Google analytics page. Now you should see that there is an active user on a mobile site. 
    
 Unfortunately, there is no absolute or easy way to remedy this issue, but I have two things to share that can help.

1. To make sure that other blogs you read get their page views:

Make sure you go back into your Bloglovin' settings and click on yes to 'Open in Web Browser'. That way the blogs you read will all be opened in web browser view and will register page views. 

2. To help you get page views if others are still reading your blog in 'standard view':

This is the tricky part. There is no setting that makes your post open in web browser view on other people's app. The only way I have learned to fix this issue, is to insert a page break in your post. That way if a person is reading your post in 'standard view' they will see this:

Once they click on 'read more' they will be taken to the the web browser view and the page view will be registered.   

To insert a page break on blogger, click on the icon that looks like a ripped piece of paper. The most common place for a page break is after your first picture. 

I know this was a lot of information and I hope it all made sense. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment or email me. I'd be more than happy to help!