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Change The Display Name, On Old Posts

We see the occasional query, about name changes, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger.
I just got married, and now I have a new email address, and a new name. How do I change my Blogger identity?
And the usual advice was
You can change youe email address, and / or change the display name (not the account name) - and you can transfer control of the blog to a new Blogger account, which bears your new name. But old posts will remain, with your old name.
And there, we would have one more disappointed blog owner.

But that does not have to be the final answer.

You can change the name, on old posts, with some effort.

You will have to re publish your old posts, one post at a time. This is not a minor change - but for legal and responsible name changes, maybe this is not a lot of effort.

It's possible that simply reverting each post to draft status will pick up the name change - as it lets you change the post publish date and the URL - when you re publish. If re publishing does not pick up the name change, you may have to publish new posts. This may require a bit more work.

Make screen prints of the main page, of one or two individual recent post pages, and one or two older posts (from a previous month, if applicable). You will need them, for comparison with the new posts. It's always good to verify a few posts, before starting the bulk of the project.

Start by transferring control of the blog, to your new Blogger account. Then, re publish each post, one by one. Reverting each post to draft, before publishing a new post, prevents duplicated content.

With each post, you

  • Open the current post in Post Editor, and revert to draft.
  • In a separate tab or window, make a new post.
  • You will have to copy all content, one element at a time, from the current post to the new post.
  • Title.
  • Content.
  • Labels.
  • Search Description (if used).
  • Schedule. You will want the same date and time, to retain post sequence.
  • Options. Copy all settings, for consistency.
  • Then "Publish".
  • And make a custom redirect, from the original URL to the new URL.

Do the recent posts for which you took screen prints, above. Compare the "new" posts with the screen prints. If you like what you see, do the older posts for which you took screen prints, and compare the results.

If you like both the recent and old posts, as re published, then start converting each post, one by one.

This is not an instantaneous project - but neither is a legal name change, for whatever reason you need. Maybe it will take more than one day - so do a bit each day, carefully, and slowly.

And if you end up with posts with changed URLs, use custom redirects, to point the old URLs to the new URLs.

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