Blogroll: please explain its benefits

I mean do I show their links and they show mine?

That’s kind of the idea. In the old days, two bloggers would contact via email and agree to share their links. But, these days, “Blogroll” is simply another way of saying, “These are the blogs which I read on a daily basis.” (no link exchange required)

You can add links to your Blogroll menu by logging in and going to Links/Add Link. Any link exchanging has to be done through email.

[quote]”These are the blogs which I read on a daily basis.”[/quote]
But they are not! They come pre-imposed on us in the installation file. This is not nice, forcing specific links on each and every new installation. I know I can delete all of them, but it takes newbies sometime to figure out how to delete them. Its not nice to bet on that!

I thought it would be much better had it been a link exchange thing built-in with the installation process.

Are there plugins which do that? I mean replace the default and intruding blogroll with a real blogroll that does link exchange for participants?

Wow. Take a break and cool off. The links are provided by default as a way of saying, “Look, you can do this.” They are not provided as some sort of veiled threat to “force specific links on each and every new installation”. If you want your Blogroll to communicate something to the extent of “These are the blogs which I read on a daily basis,” then you need to remove the links to the blogs which you don’t read on a daily basis and add links to blogs which you do read on a daily basis.

I thought it would be much better had it been a link exchange thing built-in with the installation process.

WordPres is open source. When you have developed a workable solution, please submit it.

Are there plugins which do that? I mean replace the default and intruding blogroll with a real blogroll that does link exchange for participants?

No, but you can do it yourself by going to Links/Manage Links.

I have to add agreement to MacManx’s great explanation, and also let you know that while WordPress comes basically ready out of the box, and certainly not imposing anything on anyone, it must come with the features it uses “shown off” to help people know that this is possible, as well as provide incentive to learn how to make changes.

If everyone just went with WordPress right out of the box – BORING. Part of the fun of the newest version of WordPress is the ability to change the presentation look (Themes) with a couple clicks, making your site look different almost instantly. Part of the fun is also learning how to make this your own unique site, adding or subtracting from the theme you choose.

There is a lot of information about how to do all these things, as technical facts and educational material, in the WordPress Codex, the documentation site for WordPress. I recommend you browse through as you work with WordPress and see what you learn to do.