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Static Pages In A Renamed Blog

It's possible that Blogger takes the term "static", as in "Static Pages", very seriously.

I've been hearing rumours of odd URLs in blogs that are renamed - ie, published under a new URL - where static pages are present. Today, I setup a brief experiment.

You may see the result of my experiment, in my test blog "Nitecruzr Test Pages In Renamed Blog". The blog started out as "nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-rename.blogspot.com". You are welcome to click on that link, if you wish. It won't get you anywhere, though.

After I setup the blog, I published a couple Static Pages - "About Me" and "About This Blog", with a tab bar below the header, as the Pages gadget.

After publishing the pages, I renamed the blog to its current URL "nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-renamed.blogspot.com". Do you see the name change?
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-rename.blogspot.com
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-renamed.blogspot.com

A very small change, but it's significant.

And now, please examine the blog itself. Observe the URL of the first post, "Lorem Ipsum".
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-renamed.blogspot.com/2010/03/lorem-ipsum.html

And look at the Pages gadget
Home    About Me    About This Blog

The 3 static links:
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-rename.blogspot.com
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-rename.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-rename.blogspot.com/p/about-this-blog.html

That's a problem. What we should have is

Home    About Me    About This Blog

The 3 static links:
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-renamed.blogspot.com
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-renamed.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html
nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-renamed.blogspot.com/p/about-this-blog.html


So, try it. Click on an link in the first example, above.
The blog you were looking for was not found.


What have we observed?
  • Static Pages get a new URL, when the blog is renamed.
  • The links in the Pages gadget are not changed.
I think somebody has some work to do, yet.

Fortunately, if you know that this oddity exists, it's not hard to correct it. Just delete the Pages gadget. Then go to "Layout", and add a Pages gadget again. The re added Pages gadget will now have links with the correct URLs.

But please, only delete the Pages gadget - please, do not delete the individual pages. It appears that pages are given the same duplication prevention treatment, as are posts. If you delete the pages, you'll end up with suffixed URLs, when you re create the pages.

There is more to consider, when we examine a blog published to a custom domain, and the blog In Transition. We will examine that, later.

Comments

Mary said…
What's going to happen when someone else sets up nitecruzr-test-pages-blog-rename.blogspot.com once that name is released again (since you've given it up by renaming your blog)? Will they automatically get those old static pages that didn't get new URLs?

Seems to me that this is just another symptom of Blogger having pushed the "Pages" feature thru far too quickly, without doing a full analysis of what needed to be done.

To start with, the name "Pages" is just daft. It makes a nonsense of years of help-pages that think of pages as collections of posts. No wonder we've got hundreds of people looking for how to make sub-pages!

Secondly, the fact that Pages are not included in the export file is just ridiculous. (Yes - I tested it: http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/02/difference-between-pages-and-posts.html)
Dudel said…
"Secondly, the fact that Pages are not included in the export file is just ridiculous. (Yes - I tested it: http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/02/difference-between-pages-and-posts.html)"

Another reason I'm glad to stick with my fake version of static pages. Thanks to some custom code and alterations certain things are set up that making posts after/before X time/date don't have the problems that would otherwise be there.

I'm going to say that its probably better to use the Gerry-rig, right now. If you are willing to learn and/or already know some HTML, that is.
SCR said…
Thank you so much for answering this question for me and for leading me to this site of yours! Your solution worked, and I am very happy to report that my blogger page and all of its links are now completely accurate, thanks to your advice! Such a simple fix, but I never would have figured it out myself. Much Gratitude!
-Shannon
www.alwayselite.com
King's Daughter said…
Just a thanks for helping me fix a very irritating problem with my blog!

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