The Real Blogger Status

I published this blog to the "Notable" theme of the "Responsive" class templates, in February 2018. I never spend a lot of time tweaking and making blog formatting changes - there are so many other Blogger issues to write about. But that ugly big black box, at the top of each post page, was in my list of improvements needed. And last week, I found the motivation, and instructions, to improve the look of this blog.

The "Featured Post" gadget is a useful tool, for spotlighting individual posts . One of the limitations of the gadget is that it, like many (though not all) Blogger supplied gadgets, allows only one copy on the blog, at any time . The gadget is, after all, called "Featured Post" - not "Featured Posts". Blogger does not give us the ability to feature multiple posts, simultaneously. Given a little imagination, we can make the gadget work, for multiple posts. We can't feature multiple posts, simultaneously - but we can alternate featured posts, sequentially.

Some blog owners create a post, with content that should be visible, only when required. The post contains a question - accompanied by the answer to the question. The question should be viewed, without the answer being visible, to make the reader think about the answer. This is called, by many, a "spoiler". Not everybody knows how to construct a spoiler. Some blogs use JavaScript - painful to construct, and maybe not effective for every reader. Security conscious blog readers may block scripts from Blogger blogs - and either your spoiler is visible, immediately - or never becomes visible. Neither of the latter scenarios make the post a lot of fun to read.

One problem with AdSense, that some blog owners have reported, is that AdSense ads are not permitted on pages with very little AdSense relevant content. Unfortunately for some blog owners, the responsibility for preventing this is left to the blog owner. Blogs with static pages, and AdSense gadgets in the sidebar, are a problem here. Static pages with little blog relevant content - such as label indexes , expanded owner profiles, special gadgets like Followers displays - cause problems with the AdSense ad classifier - and can cause blogs to lose ads.

To encourage email subscriptions, and other social connections, some blog owners provide gadget toolbars, with useful links. Some blog owners would like to position their gadgets in fixed screen positions . I want to have a subscribe button hover at the top of the page, while people read my blog. This blog has a hovering AddThis toolbar , which provides selected social sharing options. And, it has a hovering "Top of Page" button .

We see occasional queries, from blog owners who require separation of their blog ownership from their real lives, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . I want to have myself anonymous, so that people do not know who I am when I blog. i think it will contribute to a more exciting blog! An air of mystery is OK, as long as it's not being used to mask criminal activity.

This question comes up, almost daily, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger - and continues into AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / YouTube How do I activate AdSense, on my blog? The activation process does not require a lot of additional work, by the blog owner - but it does require a mature, well written blog - and some patience. And you do need to understand the rules of AdSense accounts .

As you develop your blog, you may observe that some of the post titles don't encourage viewer attention. Since the post URLs are derived from the post titles, renaming a post involves some planning. The post URL should match the post title. If you change the post URL, all of the existing links to that post will break. So, what to do? This makes renaming a post into a major project. Or, do you think your readers enjoy seeing Sorry, that page does not exist. Even with the blog using a custom "404" page , this isn't going to cut it - if you want your readers (not to mention the search engines) to feel loved. But if you plan, and practice, you can rename a post in a minute or so - and possibly half that time, the post actually may be "404".

In April 2015, Blogger blog owners first were faced with the requirements of the European Union , and their problem with cookies used by our blogs and websites . Google released the CookieChoices website, and some useful tools which some blog owners used, to add a cookie notice banner , to their blogs. In July 2015, Blogger added a cookie notice banner, to save blog owners the trouble of using the CookieChoices website tools.

When you rename a blog, the most that you can do, to keep the old URL useful, is to setup a stub post , with a clickable link to the new URL. Yo! The blog is now at xxxxxxx.blogspot.com!! Blogger forbids gateway blogs, and similar blog to blog redirections . When you rename a post, you can setup a custom redirect - and automatically redirect your readers to the post, under its new URL. You should take advantage of this option, if you change a post URL.

One of the neatest ways to combine photos (images, pictures) and text is to display a photo in the middle of the text. It takes very little work to make text "flow" around a photo, or to wrap the text around the photo.

One of the simplest - and most user friendly - displays that you can add, to your blog, is a custom "404 Not Found" display. A standard Blogger blog, by default, provides a terse advice, for invalid URLs. Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist. Would it not be more user friendly, to use relevant slang, maybe. Sorry, bro - that's not on! You can do this - and more - with a little imagination.

Since FaceBook is not a part of Google, they have concerns and problems which only they can deal with. Some problems with FaceBook affect our enjoyment of our blogs. Right now, there is a problem with aggregation of Likes and links , when our blogs are referenced in FaceBook - where all references should be properly "counted" under the common "blogspot.com" URL of each blog, instead of the individual country code aliases. FaceBook does provide a page to " Report a Problem " - and they have a " FaceBook Help Center " community page.

Ever since Blogger improved the comment count caption / link, they have gotten criticism. They just replaced the vague 0 comment count, that was originally part of the link to the comment form, with a more indicative caption "No Comments" (or whatever language equivalent may apply, on your blog). But they cannot please everybody. People think I don't want comments, what can I do? I think the old saying Don't try to please everybody! applies here, in spades. So people ask, periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , about template customisation. How do I replace "No Comments" with something more reader friendly? And the first question needs to be Are you comfortable with editing the template? This can be a rather forbidding question, to some blog owners.

This week, I added a gadget that's been needed, on this blog, for some time. You may see my new "Top" button, at the lower right corner of this blog. If you have a normally wide browser window, with wallpaper showing on either side of the posts / sidebar section, you'll see the new gadget floating on top of the wallpaper. If you have squeezed your browser window to save horizontal space, you may see the new gadget floating on top of the sidebar (but beneath the sidebar gadgets).

We see various questions about getting advice and non standard accessories / code, from blogs and websites advertised outside Blogger / Google control - generally in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why can't I see my blog? Every time I click on "View blog", I get a face full of ads! and Where can I get accessories, gadgets, and templates for my blog?? and How do I know what accessories, gadgets, and templates are safe, for my blog? and Why did Blogger lock my blog, as a malware host? All of these folks are discussing the same issue - blog content security. Some are asking properly , before they cause their problems - but others are not .

If you do any work on your blog, and the template, eventually you will need to extract gadget source code. The ability to extract source code can be useful in various tasks. Identifying a problem gadget, to others. Publishing a gadget on a separate page, by embedding the code in a page or post. Recovering the content of a deleted gadget. In each case, use of the proper text browser or source listing is where I start.

Blog owners add the Blogger supplied Contact Form, then wonder about the details, and what options are available. The Blogger supplied "Contact Form" gadget provides a very basic form, with few options. There's not a lot to do or see.

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see a plaintive query How do I remove my blog from using Draft Blogger? Some blog owners use Draft Blogger because of a specific problem - then discover later, that use of Draft Blogger, in general, is not a good idea .

When it comes to encouraging visits to your blog, by people who need help, a properly presented "Contact" form is a very useful feature. Some time ago, I used a comment form, and a specially written post, " Contact Me " (titled "Leave Comments Here"), to provide private contact . For this blog, with comment moderation before publishing, I simply read the unpublished comments published against my post "Contact Me", without publishing them. Time moved on, however - and various changes made by Blogger made my unpublished comments based contact form less useful.