Our recent post, Why Networked Blogs May Not Be A Good Idea, garnered many comments, including from a NetworkedBlogs representative.

In a comment left on the post, Waleed from NetworkedBlogs indicated that it is possible to hide the toolbar.  We took a look, and sure enough, there is a way to disable it.

How to Hide the NetworkedBlogs Toolbar

1. Visit the NetworkedBlogs app page. Click on the Syndication link that’s located above the Follow More Blogs button in the center of the page.

2. From the page that opens, choose your blog.

3. After doing so, you’ll notice a Customize Post link underneath your NetworkedBlogs feed example. Click on it.

4. A hidden section is revealed. Click the check box next to Hide NetworkedBlogs Toolbar.

We tested out this change, and posts syndicated by NetworkedBlogs no longer have the toolbar, the NetworkedBlogs URL nor the NetworkedBlogs Alexa rating.

But is this change enough for you to use NetworkedBlogs again?

Our readers sounded off with some other valid concerns over using NetworkedBlogs.

CraftyMummy said: I read somewhere that if someone is subscribed to multiple blogs that all publish via NB then instead of seeing each new post on their wall feed, they may see only one and the rest are listed in a line something like “click here to see more posts from networked blogs”. That could mean that they weren’t seeing my new post at all.

Sophie S said: I just told myself this week to figure out how to turn NB off because I noticed that my blog posts were not showing up, but always appearing as a link under the post of a more popular blog with NB.

Miel Et Lait said: One thing I don’t like about NB, is that people can also “ignore all by NB” and no one sees the posts.

Denim Debutante said: I do mean this in the kindest way possible… but did it honestly take people this long to figure that out? NB gets to drink up your SEO juice, and all the prospective writer gets is…

Well, I couldn’t figure out what it was.

What She Said said: I’ve long used NB to automatically publish my posts to FB, though lately I find myself deleting the initial syndication post and re-publishing so that I can add my own teaser to it.

Aleks said: I don’t really care for networked blogs. I disabled the automatic posting to my FB wall a few months ago…it is so impersonal.

Devan said: I just recently stopped using the NB for facebook because of the pageview thing, the issue the first commenter added & i am wanting the ability to choose a specific photo for the post & NB is not alway allowing me to do so.

The decision to utilize the syndication settings in NetworkedBlogs is far from an easy one. If convenience is your goal, we suggest hiding the toolbar and enabling syndication. But if you are concerned about the lack of personalization of the auto-publish feature, your post being one of the many posts grouped together by NetworkedBlogs, or Facebook users disallowing all NetworkedBlogs feeds entirely, then manual linking is the way to go.