"I recently received a great question about blog rolls. The question was whether or not you should contact the people you put on your blog roll to let them know that you're linking to them. Then I started thinking about all the issues related to blog rolls, the etiquette behind them, the usefulness of them, and whether they're worth the trouble. I'm going to explain the basics of blog rolls, then I'm going to tell you my opinion of them (and you might be surprised)."