As Blogger Engineering continues to upgrade Blogger code so our blogs will support SSL (aka "HTTPS" protocol), they are having to update many blog components, at the same time.
Sometimes, they upgrade a component - and the upgrade has a more extensive effect than they hoped.
Right now, the navbar search gadget is broken - for blogs published to custom domains.
If you publish a blog that has a custom domain (non BlogSpot) URL, and you or your readers depend upon the navbar based search gadget to find content, you may have a problem.
Add a blog search gadget, for a quick fix.
If you publish a blog to a custom domain, and your readers use a blog search to find blog content, you'll need to add a blog search gadget. The direct search gadget is most similar to the navbar blog search gadget - though you may find the custom search gadget useful too.
Blogger is making our blogs secure - and this may cause intermittent problems.
In their long and complex effort to upgrade Blogger, so our blogs can provide secure access, Blogger Engineering recently updated the navbar code. Now, blogs published to non BlogSpot URLs produce navbar based blog searches, using "HTTPS" rather than "HTTP", based URLs.
Since our blogs do not support SSL, this leaves the reader (or you) with yet one more "404". Try the search box, in the navbar, for this blog.
Right now, the navbar based blog search is simply broken.
A "Direct Search" gadget can be added to almost any blog, in 10 minutes.
Then, try the sidebar gadget "Search Me, Direct". Look at the top of the sidebar. Adding that gadget is a simple 10 minute project. If you can setup and maintain a custom domain, you can probably add a Direct Blog Search gadget.
We may not see this fixed, immediately. Many owners of custom domain published blogs won't worry about this, as they may be using different indexing / search techniques - custom search gadgets and / or label searches. You can do the same - the inconvenience should be minor.
Just rejoice that Blogger has made this upgrade - though it has broken the navbar based blog search. This brings us one step closer to providing SSL based blog access, which will help our readers to access our blogs, securely.
Reduce reader confusion, and disable the navbar search box - if possible.
Use the Template Designer "Add CSS" feature, and add the following 4 lines. The first line is blank, hit "Enter" before copying the 3 lines of text. Hit "Apply to Blog", and you're done.
(Update, 5/17): Please note that this CSS tweak, to disable the navbar search box, may or may not work, with some templates. We are seeing signs that some recent change has broken the "Add CSS" wizard. In some cases, you may have to use "Edit HTML" - and add the CSS, manually, into the template.
Sometimes, they upgrade a component - and the upgrade has a more extensive effect than they hoped.
Right now, the navbar search gadget is broken - for blogs published to custom domains.
If you publish a blog that has a custom domain (non BlogSpot) URL, and you or your readers depend upon the navbar based search gadget to find content, you may have a problem.
Add a blog search gadget, for a quick fix.
If you publish a blog to a custom domain, and your readers use a blog search to find blog content, you'll need to add a blog search gadget. The direct search gadget is most similar to the navbar blog search gadget - though you may find the custom search gadget useful too.
Blogger is making our blogs secure - and this may cause intermittent problems.
In their long and complex effort to upgrade Blogger, so our blogs can provide secure access, Blogger Engineering recently updated the navbar code. Now, blogs published to non BlogSpot URLs produce navbar based blog searches, using "HTTPS" rather than "HTTP", based URLs.
Since our blogs do not support SSL, this leaves the reader (or you) with yet one more "404". Try the search box, in the navbar, for this blog.
Right now, the navbar based blog search is simply broken.
A "Direct Search" gadget can be added to almost any blog, in 10 minutes.
Then, try the sidebar gadget "Search Me, Direct". Look at the top of the sidebar. Adding that gadget is a simple 10 minute project. If you can setup and maintain a custom domain, you can probably add a Direct Blog Search gadget.
We may not see this fixed, immediately. Many owners of custom domain published blogs won't worry about this, as they may be using different indexing / search techniques - custom search gadgets and / or label searches. You can do the same - the inconvenience should be minor.
Just rejoice that Blogger has made this upgrade - though it has broken the navbar based blog search. This brings us one step closer to providing SSL based blog access, which will help our readers to access our blogs, securely.
Reduce reader confusion, and disable the navbar search box - if possible.
Use the Template Designer "Add CSS" feature, and add the following 4 lines. The first line is blank, hit "Enter" before copying the 3 lines of text. Hit "Apply to Blog", and you're done.
#searchbox { display: none !important; }
(Update, 5/17): Please note that this CSS tweak, to disable the navbar search box, may or may not work, with some templates. We are seeing signs that some recent change has broken the "Add CSS" wizard. In some cases, you may have to use "Edit HTML" - and add the CSS, manually, into the template.
Comments
I haven't been able to get the code to work that removes the navbar search.
I've applies the code to the custom CSS section, and have the blank line before it. Another site said put the blank line after the code, but that didn't work either.
Any ideas for troubleshooting?
I've seen a couple suggestions, that "Add CSS" is not working properly, for all blogs.
Right now, I'll suggest that you post in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, so we can try to diagnose the problem.