The Real Blogger Status

I have suggested that properly sizing the Jump Break and Title sections of each post is an important decision, when publishing a post in your blog. Publishing this blog, using carefully sized post title and jump break sections, allows me to consistently publish posts, with maximum detail visible in main page view - and with the "Read more" link visible. Potential readers may read a post in this blog - instead of returning to a SERP , and reading another blog. This affects a key reader retention metric, the " bounce rate ". All of that considered, sizing of the introductory post sections won't always produce predictable results.

Some blog owners setup a new blog - and want to know if the blog title and URL may - or (alternately) should - be the same. There is no policy for Blogger, about blog title and URL - either that the "words" in each can, or cannot, be the same. Some SEO experts suggest benefits from having relevant words, in the URL - and some blog owners confuse this advice, as suggesting having identical titles and URLs. Be wary of advice that references websites, in discussions about blogs. There are subtle, but real, differences between dynamic blogs, and static websites . Rules that may be important for websites may not be relevant, for blogs.

Whenever dealing with any problem with a blog, you should verify the URLs involved. Some of the most baffling problems, with blog connectivity, identity, or ownership, can start from simple typographical errors. This possibility will involve both native "blogspot.com" and custom domain URLs. The Publishing wizard window, in the Blogger dashboard Settings - Basic page, is essential for identifying errors. Whether you paste or type a URL into the registrar's zone editor, the Publishing wizard, or the browser address window, you can make a mistake. Checking the Publishing wizard is as important as examining a Dig log extract - or as viewing an HTTP trace .

Besides optimizing post content , to make the blog easier to read and encourage readers to remain. you have a similar task in optimizing the blog structure. The posts content is what people read, when they are in the blog. The blog structure is what you similarly need to optimize, to get people into the blog.

Renaming a blog is not difficult - but it can produce unwanted side effects. We've seen a few problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I renamed my blog, last year - and I have had no new visitors, since then! or I looked at the old URL, and it's got my posts, and lots of spam! These blog owners did not plan the renaming process.

Every month, we see a concern about content theft or impersonation, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I deleted my blog last year! Now, I see it online again, using my name - but it's not in my dashboard! or I renamed my blog, last month! Somebody else is publishing it, this month!! These former blog owners have discovered the unpleasant reality of never ending spammer activity. URL recycling (a feature begged for, by many), plus blog content and feed caching (a reality, with most blogs), can lead to spammer harvesting and resurrection. And in some cases, to identity theft.

Sometimes, we see odd confusion in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I deleted my blog - can somebody help me restore it? I worked so many days writing it! or alternately I am trying to write a new blog, but it says my url has already been taken (by me). If the first owner is kind enough to include the URL of the deleted "blog", we may use our favourite online diagnostic tool - and discover that the blog is still online, and not deleted! In the second case, we may find a new blog, with one post. Investigating further, we discover that the problem here involves terminology. This article that I am writing, "Blogger Terminology - Blogs Vs Posts", is a post, which is part of my blog, "The REAL Blogger Status" (which right now is actually The ONLY Blogger Status - but that is another tale ). The terminology here is pedantic, to us - but it's very real, to the blog owner who has just deleted an important post. Or to the owner who has publi...

The first task in starting a new blog involves taking an available blog name (aka "URL"). The rules for picking a blog name are reasonably simple. Pick a blog name. If "Create a blog" gives you that name, it's yours . Continue with #4. If "Create a blog" shows "Sorry!", pick another name, and continue with #2. Setup your new blog. Some folks need even simpler rules. If "Create a blog" gives you the name of your choice, it's yours. If "Create a blog" does not give you that name, you have to pick another. Which ever rules you wish to go by, the "Create a blog" wizard has the final say .

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Occasionally, an oddity in our Blogger profiles will cause confusion - and offer some blog owners a opportunity to make a bad mistake. For some unknown reason, some Blogger blogs may be listed twice, in the dashboard or profile Blog List. If you are one of these blog owners, seeing the same blog listed twice in your dashboard or profile, think before you act! Check the URL behind the blog title , for each entry - you'll see an identical URL behind both.

The issue of URL availability has been a subject of intense debate, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , for several years. Many would be blog owners URLs learn that neither "dormant" blogs , nor deleted blogs , nor spam locked blogs , are automatically available for the curious nor desperate. Those denied the URL of their choice ask How do I find an available URL? All of the good ones are taken - and picking one that's available is way too much work! I'm moving my blog to WordPress! And that complaint is somewhat valid . Under the Classic GUI, picking an available URL was a pretty painful process.

Occasionally, we see evidence of wistful thinking in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I make an exact copy of my blog, to another URL? This should be a simple enough task - but it's not.

One confusion, which we see in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken regularly, concerns blog owners and their understanding about search engine functionality. I can't find my blog! This is frequently more completely expressed as I can't find my blog, listed in a Search Engine Results Page, when I search by URL (blog title, some other obscure detail ...)! Equally as mystifying are people who report I typed in the name of some obscure porn concept, and found my blog listed. Why is my blog listed with porn? This problem is partially caused by some browser producers, who confuse us by combining the browser address and search windows . There are other reasons for the confusion, too.

Anyone is free to publish a Blogger blog, discussing any subject. The Blogosphere is full of many blogs, some discussing the same subject as others. A blog on any subject can have any title desired by the owner - and the title can be identical to the subject, or it may differ from the subject, as desired. This leads to many blogs having the same title - and this is OK. Unfortunately, though many blogs may have the same subject and title, each blog must have a unique URL . Some blog owners have a problem with this policy, since they believe that their subject, title, and URL must match. Not every blog owner understands why not every blog, ever written, can have a matching subject, title, and URL .

Identifying Blogger blogs, as with identifying people, is an exercise in futility - or at least, complexity. As a person, you are addressed in number of ways, which will be contextually significant. Depending upon how / where you live, you may have: First name. Last name. Nickname (one, or many). Government identifier (" Social Security Number ", and others). Home address. Business address. "Phone" number. How many phones do you have? Email address. How many email addresses do you have? SMS address (which may or may not be same as one or more "phone" numbers). Website address. How many websites do you publish? I'm not going to take all day writing this - give me a break! Your blog has a number of ways of addressing it, too - and it may be to your benefit to consider each identifier, canonically.

Many times when diagnosing a problem, we may need to examine the URL that is attached to a link. Every link has a caption (that we see) - and a URL (that we can't see). The URL is the important part of a link - and knowing how to extract the URL can be a crucial part of diagnosing a problem. This post has a title "Extracting The URL Behind A Link", and the title (as with every post in this blog) is the caption to a link. The URL that is attached to the link, in the title here, is http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/09/extracting-url-behind-link.html .

Occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see the innocent question How do I redirect traffic, automatically, from my Blogger blog to my WordPress blog? or I just moved my blog to a real website - how do I get my readers from my Blogger blog to my website? This need, like redirecting traffic between BlogSpot URLs , is one feature that Blogger will probably not ever provide. If Blogger were to allow the automatic forwarding of traffic, from a Blogger blog to a non Google website, spammers could use BlogSpot blogs as gateways, and move their spam content around , at will. You can redirect traffic from a BlogSpot URL to a non BlogSpot URL - but you must use a properly setup custom domain , to do this. You can combine your Blogger blog(s) with a non Google website , if you think about it. Setup a virtual host pair, in the website domain. Publish your blog to the virtual host. Add a custom link bar to the blog, and the website. Use the same template on the blog and the webs...

Occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see the innocent question How do I redirect traffic, automatically, from one BlogSpot blog to another? or I just changed my blog name - how do I get my readers from the old URL to the new one? And this is one feature that Blogger will probably not ever provide.

When we rename a blog, we use the Post Feed Redirect URL to redirect all feed references, from the old URL to the new feed URL. When we setup a custom feed for a blog, maybe using FeedBurner, we use the Post Feed Redirect URL to redirect all feed references, from the blog, to the FeedBurner feed. That lets us use a FeedBurner feed without having to change all of the feed links in the blog. Besides using the Post Feed Redirect URL to setup a FeedBurner feed , you can use the Post Feed Redirect URL when you re publish the blog to a new BlogSpot URL .

Your blog depends upon traffic for its success. Anything that affects the traffic to your blog, such as a change in the URL, affects the success of your blog. If you republish your blog to a different BlogSpot URL, as with migration to a custom domain , you will not lose any content. Both comments, posts, the template, and all custom settings, will stay with the blog. And if you plan the republishing effort, you can minimise the loss of traffic.