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Retrieving The PostID, From The Blog Posts Newsfeed, To Recover A Deleted Post

Blog owners, seeking to recover a deleted post, can do so easily enough - if the post has been indexed by the search engines.

A post that's not indexed by the search engines can sometimes be found in the blog posts newsfeed. With the post retrieved in the feed, we generally tell people to copy the post contents into a new post. To re publish the post, the owner has to re format the post content - and has to publish the recovered post, under a new URL.

But with a little work, you can find the PostID, in the posts newsfeed - and frequently, re publish the post in question.

A post, published in a publicly accessible blog, will generally be present in the blog posts newsfeed, some time before it's indexed by the search engines.

To parse the newsfeed, you will need a text browser, that's capable of displaying newsfeed content, in a readable format. In this case, I find Rex Swain's HTTP Viewer to be most useful. An alternate, "Web-Sniffer: View HTTP Request and Response Header" may be good, in some cases.

The newsfeed URL, for this blog, is
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default
Since this blog redirects the newsfeeds through FeedBurner, I'll add a modifier.
?redirect=false
This gives me a non redirected feed URL.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?redirect=false
You can use a similar technique, for your blog. If your blog does use a redirected feed, you may use the simpler URL.

Using Rex Swain, starting with the proper newsfeed URL for my blog, and selecting "Display Format" of "Text", I get a nicely laid out display. Searching on "postID=", I am rewarded with an extractable snippet of
href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=24069595&postID=8942135024084707315'
And there is a BlogID / PostID pair.
24069595 / 8942135024084707315


Using Web-Sniffer and starting from the proper newsfeed URL for my blog, I get a long single line of newsfeed content. Using a browser based text search, and searching on "postID=", I am rewarded with an extractable snippet of
href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=24069595&postID=8942135024084707315'
And there is a BlogID / PostID pair.
24069595 / 8942135024084707315

This example, from my blog, is for the immediately previous post, "The Stats "Don't track ..." Option Does Not Work, For Everybody".

For a post published some time before the immediately previous post, you'll have to search, repeatedly - or more selectively - through the newsfeed text. Depending upon whether you know the exact Title or URL, you may still have some repetitive work, to find the right "postID=" entry.

But, this is a start - and is surely better than retrieving the text of the post, reformatting it, and re publishing under a new URL.

Just take the retrieved BlogID / PostID.
24069595 / 8942135024084707315
Add them into the base Post Editor URL, and you have the Post Editor URL, for the deleted post.
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=24069595#editor/target=post;postID=8942135024084707315

Using the right URL - and when you are logged in to Blogger under the right Blogger account - the Post Editor window opens up, and there's your deleted post.

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