Why is my Google Reader "Next" button acting erratic?

June 23, 2010 6:50 AM

Why would my Google Reader "Next" button (the one you can drag right onto your bookmarks toolbar) just take me to random sites every time I click it? I'm logged into my account and everything. Doesn't look like any previous questions posted here address this particular problem.
posted by jeroum to Technology (9 answers total)

That's it's intended functionality.

It doesn't surf through the reader website itself.. but through the different articles on your reader by going directly to the site of the article.

It's random because it's going through your new items. I'm assuming it's not sending you to websites you never been to before, but websites you have linked to your reader.

To surf through just your reader interface in a one-step opperation, try Google Reader's build in keyboard shortcuts.
posted by royalsong at 8:14 AM on June 23, 2010

My best guess is that it is sending you to contacts' shared items as well as your own feeds.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:37 AM on June 23, 2010

Response by poster: I am being sent to entirely random news sites and blogs that I've never visited before!

I don't have any contacts on Google Reader either...
posted by jeroum at 8:49 AM on June 23, 2010

Did you try re-adding it? Maybe the unique number in the bookmarklet got screwed up somehow.
posted by smackfu at 9:32 AM on June 23, 2010

Response by poster: I tried re-adding it, and also adding a different one for a specific RSS folder, and I am still being taken on a random internet tour.
posted by jeroum at 10:58 AM on June 23, 2010

What's indicating that it's a random internet tour? Do the sites you're being taken to really not match the "All Items" view in Reader?
posted by chazlarson at 11:55 AM on June 23, 2010

It is anything to do with Play?
posted by Night_owl at 4:43 PM on June 23, 2010

The only other thing I can think of is that one of your feeds is placing the URL of the linked-to site in the posts in their feed instead of the URL of the post. This could be hard to detect in the Google Reader interface.

For instance, I have a feed in Google Reader that is a del.icio.us bookmarks page. In Google Reader, it looks like any other blog. But when I click the Next bookmark and it's one of those pages, I get taken to some random site because each post doesn't have a separate page so del.icio.us just links to the target.
posted by smackfu at 6:25 PM on June 23, 2010

Response by poster: Aha! Smackfu, thank you... it's the delicious feed!

I appreciate your help.
posted by jeroum at 2:11 PM on June 24, 2010