Summary

The author expresses dissatisfaction with recent changes to their Medium profile, citing lost features and negative impacts on engagement and visibility.

Abstract

The author, a seasoned professional in leadership and technology, discusses the recent updates to Medium profiles, emphasizing the negative consequences experienced. Despite appreciating some aesthetic improvements, such as the new layout and fonts, the author points out significant drawbacks, including the loss of top writer status, broken backlinks resulting in 404 errors, the disappearance of past engagement activities like comments, the removal of MPP (Medium Partner Program) status indication, and the loss of editorial roles for publications. The author also laments the reduction in connectivity options, now limited to Twitter, and the impact of these changes on readership and credibility. The article serves not as a complaint but as a call to address these issues and restore the valuable features that contributed to the author's and other writers' success on the platform.

Opinions

The author acknowledges the visual enhancements of the profile but believes the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.
There is a strong concern about the loss of top writer status and the inability of readers to identify the author's areas of expertise.
The author is particularly troubled by the broken backlinks, which not only affect the author's visibility but also undermine the efforts to bring traffic to Medium.
The removal of previous engagement activities, such as comments, is seen as a detriment to the author's interaction with the community.
The absence of MPP status indication is viewed as a step back in transparency for readers who prefer content from members.
The loss of editorial roles' visibility is considered a missed opportunity for promoting the author's publications.
The author is dissatisfied with the limited social media connectivity, preferring LinkedIn over Twitter for professional networking.
The author questions the rationale behind the changes, suggesting that they seem to be made for change's sake rather than for improvement.
The author calls for the restoration of the profile's great features, emphasizing the need for meaningful and positive change.

Impact of Change

I Don’t Like My New Profile; Do You?

My Medium profile changes reflect serious issues, impact and implications.

Change and transformation are my key focus areas from leadership and technology experience. Shouldn’t we change for improvement?

The purpose of the change is to improve iteratively and get better results.

This post is not a criticism or rant for change, but to point out concerns, implications, and impact of the recent changes on profiles. As you may have read, I have shown my appreciation for Medium related to some significant improvements. However, I don’t have the same appreciation for changes in my profile. I have serious concerns.

The recent profile changes caused several issues that I want to point out in this post. In this story, I use my Medium profile as an example of reflecting the pros and cons of changes. I understand and respect if you find the profile changes good for you.

Several changes were made to writer profiles on Medium as pointed out in a post by Agnes Laurens.

The changes are received well by some writers but not by many others.

Let me share my perspective by looking at the pros and cons.

The following screen capture shows how my new profile looks. I point out the changes in the pros and cons section. I provide the impact and implication at the end of the post.

Pros of Changes

1 — Better look

I agree that the profile looks appealing to the eye with nice fonts and layout.

2 — New domain name

It is useful to have a blogger name and can be helpful for our media posts.

That’s it. I was only able to find two benefits.

Let me introduce the cons that I experienced.

Cons of Changes

1 — Lost top writer status

When Medium transferred my profile to the new format, I lost my top writer status for multiple topics. My readers are unable to see what topics I specialize in.

2- Lost links to my previous profile

Hundreds of links to my profile in my posts such as blogs are now showing 404 error. The backlinks to my profile on search engines fail.

Losing backlinks is the most destructive aspect of the change.

My readers noticed this issue which concerned me a lot.

And my thousands of backlinks are not bringing readers to Medium anymore. My efforts for sharing my content and bringing traffic to Medium are wasted.

When I accept the domain name offer, my assumption was Medium would map my previous account link to the new profile domain address. This is a common practice in the industry. I don’t understand how this fundamental requirement was missed in the design or implementation phase.

Worst of all, due to this missed requirement, I couldn’t add many new writers applied to my publications. The provided links in application forms do not take place in the publication. We simply cannot add some writers to our publication. Their profiles show 404 error. But I know that these writers exist on Medium. Not being able to add writers to publications is a serious issue.

I notified the Medium help desk and am waiting for a solution to these issues.

3- Lost my engagement activities

The comments I left for stories on other writers disappeared.

My readers were enjoying my comments, and they were extending them.

In the new profile format, readers cannot see my comments any more.

4- Lost MPP status

In the previous profile format, my MPP membership was evident with a green circle around my photo. The new design does not indicate membership status.

I know that some readers prefer reading content from MPP members.

As a reader, I cannot tell the membership status of writers any more.

As editors, missing this feature has some implications for us too.

5 — Lost my editorial roles for my publications

In the previous format, the profile was showing my publications as editor of them.

The new format removed indication of editorial roles for publications.

I want my readers to know about my publications.

Now, new readers won’t know which publications I own or edit.

6 — Lost LinkedIn and Facebook for connection

The new profile offers only Twitter. Frankly, I don’t want my readers to connect with me on Twitter, instead of with my LinkedIn profile which depicts my content much better than Twitter. I have only 1.8K followers on Twitter but 24K on LinkedIn. My major network disappeared from my profile.

Impact and Implications

Loosing these six important elements from my profile concerns me because they made negative impact on my profile.

The most important one is losing many backlinks that I created for my profile through my blogging, collaboration posts, and other social media activities.

When new readers click on my links in search engines, the links show that profile does not exist error, a.k.a. 404. Whereas, I even have a more robust and more engaging profile on Medium especially after establishing my significant publication, ILLUMINATION. Losing links is an unacceptable symptom of the recent change.

Losing credibility indicators such as top writer and editor status may affect the perception of my potential readers.

Losing interaction indicators such as the disappearance of my comments do not reflect my collaboration with other writers any more. I understand and respect that some don’t want their comments visible but this should be at least an optional feature so that those who like it can display their comments.

Limiting to connectivity to only Twitter is not desirable for me. I prefer my readers to connect with me on LinkedIn, which is a much more reliable platform than Twitter. For example, Twitter suspended my account twice with no valid reasons and put me into an awkward position, but I never had such an issue with LinkedIn since its inception.

Top writers like Julia E Hubbel pointed out the decline in readership. Interestingly, since these changes happen on Medium, I noticed a decrease in visibility and readability of my stories.

To conclude, I want the backlinks of my profile to be fixed ASAP. I also want my profile to show my top writer status and editor credentials of my publications. It will be nice to have my comments to be visible. My readers should be able to connect with me on platforms I choose, not just Twitter.

These points are by no means complaints about changes. I embrace the change. All I want is to have the great features of Medium profiles back.

Positive change is desirable, but the change must have a meaning for the transformed position.

If the change makes things worse, what is the point of the change?

I didn’t see greatness in changes to my profile.

It feels like a change for the sake of change.

Did you see the benefits of change to your profile?

Please comment.

Thank you for reading my perspective.

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