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Confusion From "Add external link" In Pages

The recently redesigned Pages gadget and wizard has been with us for just over 3 months.

We are occasionally seeing some confusion from people who can't add a dynamic page link to their blog - even when they manage to find the redesigned Pages gadget.
I added a dynamic page, linking from "mymainblog.blogspot.com" to "mysecondblog.blogspot.com". Imagine my dismay, when the new page link goes to "mymainblog.blogspot.com/mysecondblog.blogspot.com", instead of to my actual target "mysecondblog.blogspot.com"!
Here is a blog owner who is not aware of the unforgiving syntax of the "New Page › Web Address" wizard, and the "Web address (URL)" entry.

If we were to view the HTML code for this web page, 'Confusion From The "Add external link" Procedure In The Pages Gadget', and look at my link to a previous post "Adding A Link To Your Blog Post, Part 2", where I discussed link entry syntax confusion, we could see the HTML behind a typical post to post link.

<a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html">link entry syntax confusion</a>

See the code for the link target?

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

When adding a link, many blog owners would simply think

blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

If I were to add a link, using the "Add link" wizard in post editor - or using the "Web address (URL)" entry in the "New Page › Web Address" wizard, I would see a window, with the essential prefix "http://" preformatted there.

Taking my target address of "blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html", and pasting the target after the prefomatted prefix "http://", I would get "http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html".

If I were to simply paste "blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html" into the window, I would end up with (no surprise, here)

<a href="blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html">link entry syntax confusion</a>

That's a bit odd looking - and that gets worse. A URL which lacks the prefix (for instance) "http://" has the current base URL added, when the post is compiled into the blog.

This would result in HTML code

<a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html">link entry syntax confusion</a>

With these two Blogger link entry wizards, you must remember to add the link target selectively, if and only if it is not already prefixed by "http://" - after the preformatted "http://".

Conversely, if you start with a target

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

you want to overlay the "http://" prefix in the window. If you follow the "http://" in the window with

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

you'll end up with

http://http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

and that will present a new problem.

Some link entry wizards are more forgiving - and will add / strip the target URL, as necessary, so it always ends up with the right syntax construction. This is just another Blogger peccadillo.

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