Showing posts with label Blog Feed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog Feed. Show all posts

Monday, March 19, 2018

Edited Posts Will Not Produce Updated Newsfeed Content

I've written a few posts about editing post content - and discuss clearing cache after editing, to see updates.

Generally, my posts reference cached posts content. Sometimes, blog owners need to clear cached feed content, in addition to / instead of clearing cached post content.

There is a difference between post content, and newsfeed content - and how both are cached. Newsfeed cache is not as frequent a concern.

When we provide instructions to clear cached blog content, we reference browser cache.
Clear cache - then restart the browser, and check again.
or maybe
Clear cache, cookies, and sessions (yes, all 3) - then restart the browser, and check again.

Posts, updated after published, may create a problem with the posts newsfeed.

In some cases, updated posts may create an "out of sync" condition with the posts newsfeed, as well as the displayed content.

If comparing post content and feed content is important, you need to synchronize the newsfeed with the posts. This will restart the newsfeed - and sync it with the posts.

  1. Deactivate the blog feeds.
  2. Publish a post - or delete a recently published post.
  3. Reactivate the blog feeds.

Activate / Deactivate the blog feeds, using the "Allow Blog Feed" wizard.

The "Allow Blog Feed" wizard, on the dashboard Settings - Other page, in the "Site feed" section, is used to activate and deactivate the newsfeeds.

Look for "Site feed", and "Allow Blog Feed".



"Site feed" is on the Settings - Other dashboard page.



Open the drop down menu, and note the current setting. If you have "Custom" selected, dig deeper.



There are a few selections, in "Allow Blog Feed". For consistent results, note what you have before Step #1 - and re select them after Step #3.

This blog, like many others in Blogger, is "Always Under Construction".

This post, like many earlier ones, was just published. Now, I plan to spend many long hours, reorganising and tweaking the content, phrasing, spelling, syntax - and correcting typos.

If you wish, you can subscribe to any of several posts newsfeeds - and compare the newsfeed content in each, with the displayed posts content. The older any post is, the more changes will be made.

The more revisions I make, the less this post, and the posts feed, will match when compared. Check it, for yourself.

Maybe one day, I will need the feed, in this blog, be accurately updated to compare more closely to the updated posts. Many of my posts double in size, even after post publish edits are "complete".

If you use email, and other feed subscriptions, to read new posts in this blog, you may be missing out on interesting details, added long after posts are published.

Newsfeed content is published once, as each post is published.

Post content may be out of sync with feed content, because post content and feed content is not updated at the same time.

You can update your posts, when you wish. Newsfeed updates are published when the posts are published - and the cached newsfeed is not updated, when you edit a post after it is published.

When you synchronise published posts content with displayed content, you generally clear browser cache. Newsfeed cache is not in the browser - so the latter instructions won't help with newsfeed cache.

That is the basic procedure for syncing the blog content, and feed content. You may have other concerns, though, that might complicate the above procedure.

The procedure is exciting - but painless.

I initially published this post, without any photos - and we see my Reading List, an hour ago.



And my Reading List, after I restarted my blog feed.



It took all of 5 minutes, including making screen prints of my Reading List - before and after, to restart the newsfeeds.

As always, I'll suggest that you Follow this post - and observe the changes. And watch for changes (unlikely) to the newsfeed.



Many #Blogger problems, when being diagnosed, start with advice to clear browser cache (maybe, cache, cookies, and sessions). Not all problems involved the published posts - some involve the posts feed.

You can't clear feed cache, as you can browser cache, because newsfeed content is not cached in the browser. You can, however, force a newsfeed rebuild, by restarting the newsfeed.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Atom Vs RSS - Choose One, Using FeedBurner

Occasionally, we see a blog owner in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, asking about newsfeed formats.
Which is better, for my readers - Atom or RSS? How do I choose, what to provide, in my blog?
The competing newsfeed formats - Atom and RSS - have been a part of Internet life, for many years. Both formats have their devotees - and this is why there are two formats.

Both formats have their own advantages - and disadvantages.

You can change the URL of a FeedBurner source feed, to select Atom or RSS feed formats, from your blog.

You can use FeedBurner, or edit the blog template, to select a feed format.

Use the FeedBurner "Edit Feed Details" wizard, if you redirect your blog feed to FeedBurner.

If you don't use FeedBurner, you can edit the blog template, and manually change feed URLs. Note this will involve editing the post template, to change some links in the blog. This is not a recommended solution.

You may choose from 5 blog posts feed URLs, provided by this blog. You can do the same, with your blog.


Do you really want to select Atom or RSS this way?

FeedBurner has two services, that let you mix and match Atom vs RSS.

  • SmartFeed dynamically serves the right choice - Atom vs RSS.
  • Convert Format Burner lets you statically select one format, or another.

Using either service, FeedBurner selects the desired feed format for you - regardless which Original Feed URL you provide, in "Edit Feed Details". Just give FeedBurner the default feed URL for your blog " ... /feeds/posts/default" - and let FeedBurner do the work, depending upon the service that you select.

You activate either service from the FeedBurner dashboard "Optimize" tab. Note that you should choose only one service, for each FeedBurner feed provided.

Important: We recommend not using this service if you use SmartFeed. SmartFeed will override any Convert Format settings in order to make your feed compatible with all feed readers, whether they support Atom, RSS, or both.

"SmartFeed" selects the best format, dynamically.

For the best experience by all readers, SmartFeed will automatically provide the feed format favoured by any feed reader used - as each reader views your feed.

Translates your feed on-the-fly into a format (RSS or Atom) compatible with your visitors' feed reader application.


Enable SmartFeed - and let FeedBurner choose the best format, for each different feed reader being used.



"Convert Format Burner" lets you choose the format - and version.

If the choice of feed format (Atom, RSS) - and even choice of format version (Atom 0.3, Atom 1.0, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0) - matters to you, you can use Convert Format Burner, and select a specific format and version.

Nine flavors of RSS and now two formats of Atom ... who has time to keep track of it all? FeedBurner does! Let us convert your feed to any of the format choices listed below.


Enable Convert Format Burner - and you choose what feed format and version gets served, to all feed readers.



You can have multiple feeds, and multiple FeedBurner outputs.

If you have conflicting requirements, you can always setup multiple different FeedBurner feeds - and use different feed service options, for different feeds. You can then provide each feed in a consistent display, using the "BrowserFriendly" service.



If you want to serve the right newsfeed format from a #Blogger blog, you can either tweak the code in the blog template - or you can use a #FeedBurner feed, and activate the "SmartFeed" or "Format Burner" service. Using FeedBurner is a simpler choice, than the template editor.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Private Blogs Limit Other Blog Features

Private blogs affect other Blogger features - and the combination of results are inconsistent.

With dynamic templates, the private blog selection causes an inoperable display. Conversely, with Google+ Comments, enabling Google+ Comments disables the private blog (designated reader) selection - and vice versa, in the various Blogger dashboard pages.

The two interactions - and differing mutual exclusiveness - contribute to some interesting diagnostic sessions, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

Intriguingly enough, when one of the known limitations with private blogs is diagnosed, some blog owners may treat the limitation as a personal insult.

Not all blog owners understand the technical limitations, with private blogs and other Blogger features. The limitations are based on simple technical interactions.

  • Dynamic templates, and private blogs.
  • Google+ comments, and private blogs.

Dynamic templates, and private blogs.

Private blogs do not publish blog newsfeeds. Dynamic templates require comments and posts newsfeeds, to generate the displays.

You can make a blog private - and you lose the "Dynamic Template" selection, in the dashboard Template page.


Some of the templates offered on the Template page, for a public blog.
Simple.
Dynamic Views.
Picture Window.
Awesome Inc.




Some of the templates offered on the Template page, for a private blog.
Simple.
Picture Window.
Awesome Inc.



If the blog has a dynamic template already, you can change to private access (edit Permissions, and designate readers), with no warning. The next time the blog is accessed, you will see the Spinner of Death.


My Dynamic Template test blog, set to Private.



Google+ comments, and private blogs.

When Google+ is used, no access to the Blogger permissions database is available. Since Google+ Comments are (or can be) Google+ stream posts, Google+ Comments can only support public blogs.

If you enable Google+ Comments, you will see a warning in the Permissions wizard - and you'll have no ability to Edit "Blog Readers".

Google+ Comments enabled. Learn more

If the blog is private already, you'll similarly see a warning on the dashboard Google+ page.

Google+ Comments are unsupported on non-public blogs and blogs marked as containing adult content. Learn more

So Google+ Comments, and private blogs, are mutually exclusive, on the dashboard - though Dynamic Views and private blogs are not, with intriguing result.

Why won't my blog load? It was fine, yesterday!

And when the blog address is provided with the problem report, we can see the problem.

Learn More.




The option to designate permitted readers, for a #Blogger blog, affects other Blogger features. Not all blog owners know about or understand the limitations that exist.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Blogger Magic - FeedBurner Email For Your Blog

Some people who will enjoy your blog may prefer to follow it using their email.

It's not difficult to setup email delivery of the comments or posts - from various source selections. FeedBurner offers a wide assortment of delivery options, for the many sources.

Blogger offers the "Subscribe by Email" gadget and service, which delivers the posts newsfeed. That's one feed possibility - and you can have many more, with very little work.

Using the many options provided by FeedBurner, combined with the many feed possibilities, you can produce a generous set of email subscription options.

  1. Setup a FeedBurner feed.
  2. Activate the "Subscribe by Email" service, for the feed.
  3. Add a FeedBurner form, to the blog.
  4. Setup the Post Feed Redirect, to connect the blog and the FeedBurner feed.

Setup a FeedBurner feed.

To add a standard blog posts subscription, add a "Subscribe by Email" gadget (for blogs with non dynamic Blogger templates) - or a "Subscription Links" gadget (for all blogs, including those with dynamic templates).

The standard blog posts subscription is not the only possibility. You can setup a FeedBurner feed for any blog published feed - including various label based feeds.

Blogger now publishes a pages feed, which complements the posts feed. And FeedBurner will distribute the pages feed, as it does the posts feed.


Start with the URL of any blog native feed.




Give the feed an Address and a Title.




The feed is setup. Proceed to the dashboard, to Activate the feed.



Activate the "Subscribe by Email" service, for the feed.


Activate "Email Subscriptions", for the FeedBurner feed that you setup.



From the FeedBurner dashboard Publicize - "Email Subscriptions" - "Subscription Management" page, Activate the "Email Subscriptions" service, for the feed.


The service is active - now check out other options.



With the "Email Subscriptions" service activated, look at the various formatting and distribution options available.

Add a FeedBurner form, to the blog.

You can use the form provided with "Subscribe by Email", if you are setting up the standard blog posts feed. For any other feed, you can use either form provided on the "Subscription Management" page, installed as an HTML / JavaScript gadget.

Using the "Subscription Link Code", you can add a fixed location ("floating") subscription icon.

Setup the Post Feed Redirect, to connect the blog and the FeedBurner feed.

FeedBurner "Edit Feed Details" is used to link the FeedBurner feed, to the blog. Similarly, you use the Blogger "Post Feed Redirect" to link the blog to the FeedBurner redirected feed.

Just use your imagination.

FeedBurner presents you with endless choices, for letting your readers enjoy your blog from their Email inboxes. Think about what will look good on your blog - and what will interest your readers.



Not all #Blogger blog owners know how easy it is to use #FeedBurner email delivery, to provide your readers the option to view your blog - in many content options - using their email inboxes.

Friday, March 11, 2016

Private Google Groups Email Distribution Is Broken

Some blog owners have reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, about broken email distribution.

There are various ways to distribute Blogger blog content, to email. For those unable or unwilling to use FeedBurner Email Distribution, one popular alternative is Google Groups.

One drawback of FeedBurner based distribution is that FeedBurner uses the blog newsfeed - and is unusable for private blogs.

Google Groups is the best content distribution medium, for private blogs.

The only scalable distribution medium, for private blogs, is Google Groups. Right now, Google Groups, for some owners, is not accepting incoming email.

This problem may not be unique to Blogger blogs. There are other reports of this problem, in the Google Groups Support Forum.

We are asking for details, in a previously posted forum Problem Rollup topic.

We have a previously discussed article, and a Problem Rollup topic, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue - where we are requesting details, as phrased above, about the problems. If you have details to contribute, solution to this problem may result from your contribution.

Please help Blogger Engineering to help you - and make your responses polite, relevant, and responsive. If this problem is to be identified, and you are affected, resolution depends upon you. And also report your problem in Google Groups Support.



Some #Blogger blog owners are reporting that distribution of private blog content, using Google Groups, is not operational. This problem may not be unique to Blogger blogs, as there is some discussion in Google Groups Support.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Verifying Blog Ownership, In BlogLovin

In BlogLovin, the ownership verification process is termed "claiming your blog".

Claiming your blog involves installing a BlogLovin link, with embedded token, on your blog where it can be seen, by the BlogLovin claim verification process. Getting the claim link, from the BlogLovin dashboard, is not an obvious process.

Not every blog owner is able to get the BlogLovin blog claiming link, for their blog.

  1. Some folks can't find the "Claim blog" button.
  2. Others don't provide the right URL, into the "Claim blog" window.

If you have either problem, you end up unable to "claim your blog".

Finding the "Claim" button is not obvious.

You start the Claim process from the "Blog analytics" display. In some instructions, this is referred to as "My blogs". There is no menu selection to "Claim your blog".


From the home page, click "View all in Analytics".





From "Blog Analytics", click on "Edit blog settings".




Find the blue "Claim blog" button.




BlogLovin needs the blog published URL - not the blog feed URL.

Observe the caption in the "Claim blog" window.

When you provide the URL, only provide the published URL - not the blog feed. This works best if the blog publishes a feed, and if the blog has a standard Blogger header. BlogLovin gets the feed URL from the blog header - when the URL is there.


Paste the published URL of the blog - not the blog feed - into the window, and hit "Search".




Select your blog.




And, there is the BlogLovin link, with an embedded token.



Now, you install the token on your blog - and that is another source of confusion.



Not every #Blogger blog owner is able to verify ownership of their blog, to BlogLovin. Some folks can't find the "Claim blog" button - and others don't know what URL to provide, in the "Claim blog" process.

And the term "claim blog" is not obvious, to everybody, either.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Static Pages Do Not Appear In Newsfeeds

We see occasional confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger.
How do I let my readers subscribe to my pages?
A static page, by definition, does not produce newsfeed content. This is one original purpose for the static pages feature, in Blogger blogs.

You can publish posts, to any non home page, as you wish - and create a dynamic page.

From a label based dynamic page, you can publish a labels newsfeed. Then, you can publicise your label feed.

Any feed based accessory gadget - such as a "feeds" gadget, a "Subscribe to my blog" gadget, or even a "Subscribe to email from my blog!" gadget will use a labels feed, as well as a posts feed. A label search produces a subset of the posts - and a labels feed is simply a subset of the blog posts newsfeed.

If you want specialised content on a page, separate from the main page - and you want to distribute your content using a newsfeed - make a dynamic page based on a label. That will give you the feed that you need.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Blogs To Have Automatically Generated Sitemaps

Last week, Blogger gave us a feature that various blog owners have asked about, for many years.

The previous sitemap, based on the blog posts feed, has been replaced by an automatically generated, dedicated sitemap. You can see one, for this blog, as an example.

Accompanying the new sitemap will be an updated "robots.txt" file.

The new sitemap will be very simple.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml

The sitemap will include 2 data elements / post.

  • Post URL
  • Last updated date / time (UTC).

The new sitemaps offer interesting diagnostic possibilities, for various blog problems.

By eliminating the posts newsfeed, sitemap access becomes much cleaner.

With these data elements now available without requiring searching through the post content in the newsfeed, any process which indexes or searches, using any of these data elements, will be much simpler - and be more stable, when run.

My suspicion is that several Blogger / Google features, no longer immediately requiring the blog feed in indexing, will be much more usable. Blogs which use dynamic templates, the Reading List, and search engine indexing, will eventually benefit.

Accompanying the new sitemap, which will index posts, will be a sitemap for static pages. You can see a pages sitemap, for this blog, as an example.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap-pages.xml

The pages sitemap appears to have 2 data elements / static page.

  • Page URL
  • Published date / time (UTC).

You will see the new sitemap specified in the "robots.txt" file.


Check the "robots.txt" file on your blog. When the sitemap is installed on your blog, you will see the change.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, you may read my other posts in this blog - or the Webmaster Tools Help: Learn about sitemaps. Now, we can do other things with the blog feed, without impeding indexing. Possibly, even private blogs can now be indexed.

Large sitemaps will be broken into pages.

Any sitemap with over 150 entries (pages or posts) will be broken into pages - 150 entries / sitemap page, automatically.

Examine the posts sitemap, for this blog - as of 5 June, 2016.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=1</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=2</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=3</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=4</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=5</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=6</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=7</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=8</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=9</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=10</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=11</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=12</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=13</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=14</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=15</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=16</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=17</loc></sitemap><sitemap><loc>http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=18</loc></sitemap></sitemapindex>

The most current posts will be listed on Page 1.


http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml?page=1

The sitemap will have a limited size.

The sitemap will provide a maximum of 3,000 entries - 20 pages at 150 posts / page. As new posts are published to the blog, they will be added, automatically. Hopefully, not too many blogs will have 3,000 posts published, before the blog is indexed.

Since the announcement was made, I have added maybe a dozen posts to this blog. I just looked at Page 1 of the sitemap for this blog, and this post is now, there - 5 minutes after this post was published. You may, or may not, see the same update promptness on your blog.

The old sitemap is now not needed.

Both the old and new sitemaps index the same post complement - the old "sitemap" (posts feed) simply contains irrelevant content - the post material.

Let's compare the old sitemap, with the new, using either the content itself or an HTTP trace pair. Click on two of the links below, and compare the results.

The old sitemap:

The old sitemap URL:

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?redirect=false

The old sitemap HTTP trace:

http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi?url=http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default%3Fredirect%3Dfalse&uag=Mozilla/5.0+(X11%3B+CrOS+armv7l+7978.74.0)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/50.0.2661.103+Safari/537.36&ref=http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html&aen=&req=GET&ver=1.1&fmt=TXT

The new sitemap:

The new sitemap URL:

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml

The new sitemap HTTP trace:

http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi?url=http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml&uag=Mozilla/5.0+(X11%3B+CrOS+armv7l+7978.74.0)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/50.0.2661.103+Safari/537.36&ref=http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html&aen=&req=GET&ver=1.1&fmt=TXT

The old and new sitemaps index the same content. The old sitemap simply includes all of the post content, as blog feed - and the new sitemap includes only search engine useful data. Some of the processes that read sitemaps will simply be able to digest the new sitemap easier - they simply walk the sitemap, to index the posts themselves.

Blogger Blogs To Have Automatically Generated Sitemaps

Last week, Blogger gave us a feature that various blog owners have asked about, for many years.

The current sitemap, based on the blog posts feed, is being replaced by an automatically generated, dedicated sitemap. You can see one, for this blog, as an example.

Accompanying the new sitemap will be an updated "robots.txt" file.

The new sitemap is not being setup, immediately, on all blogs. Only blogs with standard "robots.txt" file will get the sitemap, initially. It's being installed, automatically, with no action required by the blog owner, on a limited number of blogs.

I've seen a handful of blog owners report seeing the new sitemap being installed, on their blogs.

The sitemap will include 3 data elements / post.
  • Post Title.
  • Post URL
  • Published date / time (UTC).

With these data elements now available without requiring searching through the post content in the newsfeed, any process which indexes or searches, using any of these data elements, will be much simpler - and be more stable, when run.

My suspicion is that several Blogger / Google features, no longer immediately requiring the blog feed in indexing, will be much more usable. Blogs which use dynamic templates, the Reading List, and search engine indexing, will eventually benefit.

Accompanying the new sitemap, which will index posts, will be a sitemap for static pages. You can see a pages sitemap, for this blog, as an example.

The pages sitemap appears to have 2 data elements / static page.
  • Page URL
  • Published date / time (UTC).

Check the "robots.txt" file on your blog. When the sitemap is installed on your blog, you will see the change.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, you may read my other posts in this blog - or the Webmaster Tools Help: Learn about sitemaps. Now, we can do other things with the blog feed, without impeding indexing. Possibly, even private blogs can now be indexed.

The sitemap will provide a maximum of 2,500 entries - 5 pages of 500 entries, each page. As new posts are published to the blog, they will be added, automatically. Hopefully, not too many blogs will have 2,500 posts published, before the blog is indexed.

Since the announcement was made, I have added maybe a dozen posts to this blog. I just looked at Page 1 of the sitemap for this blog, and this post is now, there - 5 minutes after this post was published. You may, or may not, see the same update promptness on your blog.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

The Mysterious Disappearing Reading List

One long known mystery, reported from time to time in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, involves the dashboard Reading List, and panic from disappearing entries.
Where are the blogs, in my Reading List?
Some Blogger blog owners and readers can spend days setting up their Reading List complement - and see their work vanish, in seconds.

One of the reasons why this problem has not been solved is that it is not reported in consistently high volume, and has no obvious pattern. Another is that many people who use the Reading List - as opposed to a third party NewsFeed Reader - are not of the highest in technological skill level, and do not have the patience to provide coherent and relevant details about the problem.

From my observation of forum problem reports, I suspect that there are at least 3 different problems, which cause this intermittent Reading List scenario.

It's likely that each problem is caused in part by the people, who depend upon the Reading List to follow blogs published by them, and by other people. Some people also publish their own blogs, while others only read blogs, using their own Reading List - and this can complicate both the diagnosis, and resolution, of the problems.

At least some of the reports of "My Reading List has disappeared!" involve three long known problems - each problem caused, in part, by the Blogger account owners who use the Reading List.
  • Cookie / Script Filters, which prevent the Reading List code from identifying the reader, and displaying the personal Reading List.
  • Multiple Blogger accounts, where an account owner sets up their personal Reading List while logged in to one account, and later uses a different Blogger account, with no personal Reading List setup for that account.
  • Load Timeout is a problem with the Reading List assembly process, similar to timeout by the Dynamic Template assembly process.

The cookie / script filtering issue is similar to another long standing problem - Blogger Comments, particularly using the Embedded comment form. Third party cookies, which carry the identity of the person logged in to Blogger, being filtered and unavailable to the Reading List generation code, lead to the empty Reading List display. The Blogger Comments problem, like the Reading List problem, seems more common to people with lower tech skills set.

The cookie / script filters issue may also involve people who access the Internet through countries subject to country code alias redirection. People who live in the UK may not consistently update their security filters to permit cookies or scripts from "blogspot.co.uk", as they do for "blogspot.com". People who live close to international boundaries may not be aware of the vagaries of geolocation, and how their country code alias redirection may be affected, from day to day.

Another filter issue may involve recently updated filters. Thanks to ever changing security needs, and frequent unannounced updates by many security product vendors, a filter which worked yesterday may not work today. People unaware of the intrusive nature of security updates won't think to check the update log for any security product.

The empty Reading List problem can be caused by aggressive cookie / script filters, as is a similar problem - inability to remove specific blogs from the Reading List.

The multiple accounts issue is common to almost every Blogger feature. Ever since Blogger added the "Create an account" link to the Blogger / Google login screen, people have been setting up multiple Blogger accounts. Some people setup multiple accounts accidentally, and others do so on purpose.

If you combine the "Create an account" link with the ease of setting up a non GMail based Blogger account, you see that many people who don't use GMail can easily setup a new Blogger account without realising what they are doing. The owner of a new account, newly able to login, finds an empty dashboard. People who use the Reading List, purely to Follow other peoples blogs, will not be interested in the empty "My blogs" list, and will simply observe the lack of entries in the Reading List.

Other people setup additional Blogger accounts intentionally, to host different blogs under different accounts. People who intentionally segregate their blogs may not understand the similar personal nature of the Reading List.

Cookie / script filters can also block the contents of the Google "One Account" display from being properly generated - and may similarly contribute to creation of multiple accounts. The "reflexive action" design of the "One Account" display also contributes to use of the wrong account, in multiple account situations.

Both aggressive cookie / script filtering, and use of multiple Blogger accounts, can lead to lack of proper identification of the Blogger account owner - and to an empty Reading List.

The load timeout issue is similar to Dynamic Template load timeout. If you have any interesting assortment of feeds, in your Reading List, clear cache, cookies, and sessions, restart the browser, and login to Blogger. Immediately, scroll to the bottom of the screen, and watch the Reading List on your dashboard.

The list will, initially, be completely empty - then suddenly, it will fill with some number of posts, instantaneously. This is the same way a blog displays, in a dynamic view.

The various feeds in the Reading List have to be merged, so the individual posts can be displayed in proper sequence - in the same way that the components of a dynamic template display are assembled. This will make the Reading List display vulnerable to intermittent local and network problems, as the dynamic templates are vulnerable.

Different client computers will be differently vulnerable to load timeout, because of details like differing reading list content, individual network problems, and individual local computer problems. Reading List load timeout will have the same effect as Dynamic View load timeout - no display. This will be a truly intermittent problem.

Besides the inconsistent and intermittent load timeout, we'll see consistent errors, like the empty Reading List - and the mysterious lack of ability to remove Reading List entries.

All of the above issues are caused, in part, by the Blogger account owners. Blogger Engineering has worked for many years to solve the problem of cookie filtering and commenting, in vain. I suspect that they have also worked on the Reading List display problem, with similar result.

As long as people use their own computers, with security components of their own choosing - and neglect to consistently use the same Blogger account - Blogger is never going to solve the problem of the empty Reading List. The panic will never go away.

Thanks to the Google "One account" login, as Blogger is made a way of life to more of a reader population who have no interest in maintaining security on their computer, these issues will become more problematic.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Blogger Blogs Use The Posts Newsfeed, As A Sitemap

Some Blogger blog owners don't know how to setup a sitemap, for their blog.

Setting up the sitemap, for a website, is a major process - and takes time. Every time you add a page to a website, the sitemap has to be updated - or how do your readers find the new page?

Alternatively, you can use a sitemap builder service, which builds the sitemap. This gives you a file, hosted by the sitemap builder service. Will the sitemap builder service be in business next week?

In either case, you take your sitemap file, and upload it to the blog. Every time you add a page, you update the sitemap, then you upload the updated sitemap. Every time - or the new page remains unindexed, until you do.
(Update 2014/11/04): Blogger is now providing an automatically generated, dedicated sitemap, to replace the newsfeed sourced sitemap - and an automatic "robots.txt" update. There is no need for a custom sitemap - nor to update "robots.txt".

With a Blogger blog, you designate the sitemap, using Google Webmaster Tools, referencing the URL of the posts newsfeed.

You can substitute any custom sitemap, if you wish, but this will be at your own risk - and you can develop your own installation instructions.

Once done with the Webmaster Tools sitemap wizard, you are free to work on the visible parts of the blog. Every time you publish a new post, the post is updated into the newsfeed, and becomes part of the sitemap.

The next time a search engine bot hits the blog, it picks up the new sitemap - and indexes the new post.

Combine the automatically and immediately updated sitemap, with more time spent updating the blog, and you get happier readers, and better search engine reputation. That's a win - win.

If your blog gets very large, you can add a new sitemap segment - at your convenience - for every 500 posts.

Why spend time manually updating a sitemap, with every new post (and worry about a file, hosted by someone who may or may not stay in business)? Use the posts newsfeed (hosted by Google), and work on the blog content.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Confusion From Feed Gadgets That Don't Display All Feeds In The List

One of the more intriguing subjects of confusion, about feed gadgets, involves gadgets with more feeds in the list then they are set to display.

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we see the petulant query
Why does my blog disappear from (feed gadgets on) other peoples blogs?

This confusion starts with the question of how often and when we update our blogs, as opposed to how often and when the other blog owners update their blogs. It continues with the little known effect of the difference between how many feeds are in the gadget list, as opposed to how many feeds the gadget is set to display.

A gadget which has 10 feeds in the list, but is set to display only 5 feeds, will display the 5 most recently updated feeds.

A feed gadget will display only the count of feeds that it is set for.

The other 5 feeds will not display - and since the display order will vary according to date last updated, so will the set of feeds displayed. As different feeds are updated irregularly, they become the 5 feeds displayed. The other 5 feeds, updated less recently, will seem to disappear from the display.

This blog has a BlogList with 6 entries (currently) - but set to display the 5 most recently updated feeds. There will always be 1 feed which does not display - and the missing 1 feed, at any time, will be the least recently updated.

Look in the sidebar, for the gadget labeled "THE REAL BLOGGER STATUS - POSTS". Below that gadget, you'll find an unlabeled feed gadget, displaying feeds from 6 different blogs.

What displays, over time, will vary - depending upon recent updates.

If you watch this blog over a period of days or weeks, you'll see 5 feeds display, in an occasionally changing sequence. That sequence, seemingly random, will reflect the 5 feeds most recently updated - and the 6th feed will seem to disappear.

If you are an owner of one of the blogs which are featured, in that feed gadget, you may be occasionally asking yourself

Why does my blog seem to disappear from The REAL Blogger Status, from time to time?

The disappearance will not involve your imagination - just how often you update your blog, compared to how often the other blog owners update theirs.

You can look at the gadgets on your blog - and see the effect on your blog.

Look at the various BlogList and Feed gadgets, on your blog. Do any of your gadgets have a list that's longer than the display number? It's perfectly valid to do this - but if you are doing this, consider that somebody who publishes one of the blogs, that you've featured in your gadget, is occasionally asking himself

Why does my blog disappear from (your) blog?

Friday, March 30, 2012

Non Existent Blog Feeds, Replaced By Mysterious Content, On Our Reading Lists

Periodically, we see reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, about hijacked blogs. Sometimes, the reports come from blog owners (or former blog owners) who cannot now control (or publish) their blogs - or maybe who report mysterious content on their blogs. Other times, the reports come from people who report mysterious and unwanted content in their Reading List (Google Reader) displays.

Of the latter group, many are being found to have earlier Followed blogs owned by people who are naively trying to attract random readers to their blogs, and who overlook the reason for having blog feeds in general. Different Followers would report seeing multiple streams of randomly changing content in their Reading Lists.

Recently, we've gotten reports from people who are seeing a single, and unique hijacker in their Reading Lists - producing consistent streams of duplicated, repetitive content. This does not appear to involve blog owners, naively misusing the Post Feed Redirect.

Some time ago, we explored a mysterious scenario, of people unsuccessfully trying to setup a blog feed gadget, who reported a mythical "Net-Temps Job Search Feed" displayed in their "Configure Feed" display. It appears that Blogger fixed the condition which caused the "Configure Feed" gadget to display the mythical "Net-Temps Job Search Feed".

Now, people who Follow blogs lacking a feed, or who Subscribe to blogs with no feed, are not seeing an error message - they are simply seeing an unwanted feed in their Blog Feed gadget or Reading List / Google Reader displays.

If you are seeing mysterious, repetitive, and unwanted content in your Reading List / Google Reader display, take some time and diligently check each individual feed. Instead of finding one or two blogs which are using an inappropriately redirected feed, you may find multiple entries referencing non existent feeds. Blogs that you were legitimately Following may now be producing no feed.
  • Blogs that have been deleted.
  • Blogs that are now private.
  • Blogs that simply have the feed disabled.
Any of these blogs, viewed en masse, may now be producing a single, repetitive stream of mysterious and unwanted content. This will possibly be more likely with homogenous and large Followed communities.

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Thursday, March 15, 2012

Deleted Posts, And The Blog Feed

Occasionally, a bewildered blog owner will write into Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, and ask
How do I completely remove a post? I deleted a post - but my readers still could read it, in Google Reader!
Some owners are not clear about the nature of post deletion, and the blog feed.

One of the solutions for recovering a deleted post is to retrieve it from Google Reader. Even if you have not subscribed to the blog feed, you can, at any time, subscribe, and retrieve the text content of any previously published post. This solution works because once published, a post will remain in the blog feed for eternity.

Until the post is published, it's in Draft status. As soon as the post is published, the published copy goes into the blog feed. If you immediately revert the post to draft status, the post disappears from the blog main page (subject to clearing browser cache) - but once published, the post remains cached in the feed.

As long as the blog exists, and the blog feed exists (the blog remains public, and the feed is enabled), all previously published posts will remain cached in the blog feed. It may be possible to reset the blog feed - though both of these solutions should be examined carefully - for how your existing readers might be affected.Depending upon local caches of feed content, the blog feed may, or may not, be reset for everybody, with either procedure.

This is both good, and bad - but it is simply something that you can't change, easily.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012

Dynamic Templates Display Blogs In One Page

Ever since Blogger installed auto pagination. Blogger blog owners have been asking
How do I disable auto pagination?
and
Why can't I display my blog on the main page, without my readers having to use "Older Posts?
The response, up to this year, has been simple.
You cannot disable auto pagination. You have to allow sharing of network resources.
Though technically correct, the latter response has not always been met with appreciation.

The solution, for avoiding auto pagination, is now simple. Install a dynamic template, on your blog.

With a dynamic display, an entire blog is presented in main page view, with no archiving needed.

A dynamic view presents one page at a time - just without requiring clicking.

You get one display page at a time - either the index, or blog content, depending upon which view you select. To see earlier content, you simply scroll downwards, and wait a few seconds while the display refreshes.

The display is still segmented - the segments are simply selected fluidly. When the display is scrolled to the bottom, the dynamic display code (running on the personal computer of the reader) simply requests another page of content, from the Blogger server.

The readers using a non dynamic blog view are not affected.

Since the content is coming from the blog feed, your other readers, using a non dynamic view of the blog, are not affected.

The average reader, who cannot see any more than one page of content at a time anyway (current monitor technology provides limited sized displays) never knows, or cares (subject to bandwidth and processor limitations) that the entire blog is not downloaded to the local computer, immediately.

Within limits, you can combine dynamic and non dynamic views in one blog.

If you want to let your readers use a dynamic view (non paginated), or a non dynamic view (paginated), depending upon personal preference, you can link the dynamic and non dynamic views.


Friday, February 10, 2012

Using A Robust Sitemap, With Your Blog

For a Blogger blog, proper indexing by the search engines is critical to the success of the blog, in getting readers.

Some blog owners are disappointed to find that their blog has no page rank, and no visibility in the search engine results - and little to no chances for getting readers.

Not all blog owners understand details about the custom domain migration process, any issues related to renaming the blog, or simply how to get a blog properly indexed.

One of the most useful tools, that you as a blog owner can use, is the sitemap.

With a Blogger blog, that is typically a collection of posts indexed by date and maybe by topic, the sitemap, properly presented to the search engines, helps the search engines index all of the posts methodically.
Submit a Sitemap to tell Google about pages on your site we might not otherwise discover.
That's the simple advice, from Google, which you should see.

When I created this blog, and submitted my first sitemap, Google setup a default.
http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated
Had you looked at the "robots.txt" file, when this blog was published as "bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com", that's what you would have seen.

Having later published this blog as "blogging.nitecruzr.net", Google setup a new default sitemap.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated
You may look at my current "robots.txt" file, and that's what you will see.

The default sitemap indexes the most recent 26 posts. For most blogs, especially new ones, you will seldom publish more than that number between each indexing pass by the search engines - and a 26 posts submission is generally sufficient.

For a blog that's been published for a while, and has more than 26 posts, you will need a more robust sitemap than the default. When you change the URL of the blog, or when you use Jump Break on main page posts, you need a sitemap complement that indexes each individual post, one by one.

Note that any sitemap will be much more useful, with the blog publishing a "Full" feed.

In the example of this blog, which now has over 1,500 posts, I would add 4 sitemaps (each sitemap to submit a maximum of 500 posts)
  1. http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500
  2. http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=501&max-results=500
  3. http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1001&max-results=500
  4. http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1501&max-results=500

Having added the right complement of sitemaps, you watch the display in the Sitemaps wizard:
Submitted URLs
1,539
1,535 URLs in web index
Having submitted those sitemaps last week, 1,535 out of 1,539 posts, allowing for some search engine indexing latency, is about right.

Your blog, having a different number of posts, may use a different complement of sitemaps - but you can use a similar strategy, in determining the number to use. And however you look at it, adding a new sitemap segment for every 500 posts beats manually updating the sitemap for every new post.

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Saturday, February 4, 2012

Publicising Updates To Your Blog, Using FaceBook And Twitter

If you publish a public Blogger blog, and have a FaceBook and / or Twitter account, then you have an audience for your blog updates, waiting to read your blog posts.

Any Blogger feed (which eliminates private blogs) can automatically post, to FaceBook and / or Twitter.

Until recently, you could publish your Blogger post feed directly to your FaceBook wall.

Right now, you can use FeedBurner to publish your Blogger post feed to your Twitter feed. Alternately, using the third party TwitterFeed service, you can publish any suitable newsfeed - Blogger or other - to any of 5 online services.
  • Twitter
  • Statusnet
  • Hellotxt
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin

I setup a new TwitterFeed account, today, in a single screen transaction.

Having setup my TwitterFeed account, setting up a Blogger to FeedBurner feed was similarly quick and painless.
  1. I provided the URL of my Blogger post feed, unredirected.
  2. In a separate window, I logged in to FaceBook, using my normal FaceBook account.
  3. In the TwitterFeed window, I instructed TwitterFeed to publish to my FaceBook account.
  4. In the TwitterFeed window, I instructed FaceBook to trust TwitterFeed.
  5. That's it.

Now, we see when this post publishes to my FaceBook Wall.

Next, I'll get back to work publishing blog posts. And, enjoy the convenience of automated publishing to additional blog services.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Setup An Audit Trail For Your Team Blog

Ever since Blogger gave us the ability to have team blogs, blog owners have been asking
How do I track what my authors are posting?
as if Blogger blogs have an audit trail option. The unfortunate truth is that Blogger is a website publishing platform - it is (or was, at one time) called
Blogger One Button Publishing
Blogger, quite simply, is not a Content Management System.

However, even if Blogger does not provide a packaged audit trail, which would be a standard feature in any CMS, this does not mean that we cannot set one up, with very little work. If you publish a team blog (or a single owner blog), you already have this option.

The display medium, for a Blogger blog audit trail, is quite simple - your email Inbox. Both Comments and Posts, when published, can post to your Inbox. How to generate the audit trail depends upon whether the blog is public, or private.

Any blog, public or private, can provide an audit trail using email from comments (aka "Comment Notification"), and from posts (aka "BlogSend").

A public blog, which publishes a blog feed, can alternately provide an audit trail using FeedBurner email distribution. Formatting options for FeedBurner email distribution are much more flexible.

Whether your audit trail starts from BlogSend / Comment Notification, or FeedBurner email, just setup a few email filters, and store all Blogger audit trail email in a properly named folder. And there's your audit trail.

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Retrieving The PostID, To Recover A Deleted Post

One of the challenges of using the Blogger dashboard "Posts" menu is the too easy ability to delete posts - if you are not thinking about what you're doing.

Fortunately, under the right circumstances, accidental deletion of a single post won't cause a terrible catastrophe - though you (the blog owner) will need to react properly.

There are several techniques to recreate or recover a post, after it's accidentally deleted from your blog.

You have to be careful, to recover the contents, published to the same URL as before.
  • Recover from the blog feed, using scraped text.
  • Recover from search engine cache, using scraped text.
  • Recover from the blog feed, using the PostID.
  • Recover from search engine cache, using the PostID.
The PostID, similar to the BlogID, is a non publicised identifier, which is attached to a post, when it's published to the host blog.

If you delete a post that's been cached by the search engines, you can retrieve the PostID from the cached content. Combining the BlogID and the PostID, you can directly access the Post editor display for the post itself, and re publish the post.

First, retrieve the BlogID. Next, do the same with the PostID.

The previous post in this subject, Recovering A Deleted Post, was cached by the search engines some time ago. Doing a search engine cache search, I can find a cached copy of that post.

Looking at the source code for that page, as cached, I look for (some line breaks inserted, here)
<div class='post hentry'>
<a name='8899607620317019913'></a>
<h3 class='post-title entry-title'>
<a href='http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/01/recovering-deleted-post.html'>
Recovering A Deleted Post</a>
</h3>

There's the PostID
8899607620317019913

Adding the PostID and the BlogID, I can now access the post editor, as
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=24069595#editor/target=post;postID=8899607620317019913;

From there, I simply
Publish Post
or
Publish
or
Save
or
Update
depending upon what the Post Editor offers -
and my post, with all content and with the original URL, comes right back online.

If you have this problem, just do the same with your blog and page / post - and (hoping that your blog is cached) you should get similar results.

If the blog content is not cached, you may be able to retrieve the PostID from the blog feed.

I'll note that the post editor session, for a given blog, can only be used by a blog author or owner - this is not a security risk. Try editing my post, using the URL above, if you don't believe me.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Recovering A Deleted Page Or Post

In late 2010, Blogger Support announced that they cannot provide the service to restore deleted posts.

Once you (the blog owner) delete a page or post, it's gone - though we have asked for a recovery option. Fortunately, there are several possibilities, to recover deleted pages or posts - though some work may be required.

There are several possible techniques, for recovering one or more deleted pages or posts, that were previously published.

The choices of recovery / restore may depend upon how the deletion / removal occurred.



The post was saved as Draft, because of DMCA violation accusation.

If Blogger deletes a post, because of an accused DMCA violation (righteous, or spurious), you'll find the post saved as Draft. You can, possibly, republish the deleted post(s) - though if you don't have the DMCA Violation accusation resolved, you risk having your Blogger account and blog deleted as a repeat and unrepentant offender.

The post may be retrievable from search engine cache.

If you can find the content of the post, in search engine cache, you can retrieve the PostID. Knowing both the BlogID and the PostID, you can edit the post, and re publish it.

If I was to delete this post, I (or another blog administrator), when logged in to Blogger, could edit this post, and Publish it again, using the Post Editor URL and the PostID - possibly with some extra effort.

You should see some or all of the following detail, in the top portion of the post - when you are able to find the post in cache. You can find "blogID" in other areas of the template. "postID" may be a bit elusive, though.

Note that different templates will put the "blogID" and "postID" in different places. What we see here is from this blog, previously published to the "Simple" template.

<meta content='24069595' itemprop='blogId'/>
<meta content='8899607620317019913' itemprop='postId'/>
<a name='8899607620317019913'></a>
<h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'>
<a href='http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/01/recovering-deleted-post.html'>Recovering A Deleted Page Or Post</a>
</h3>

Using "blogID" and "pageID" / "postID", I can build the recovery URL:

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=24069595#editor/target=post;postID=8899607620317019913

Similarly, for a deleted page,

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=24069595#editor/target=page;pageID=8872543322493900789

Blogger Page / Post Editor may use a different URL structure. Alternately, you may try

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=24069595&postID=8899607620317019913

or

http://www.blogger.com/page-edit.g?blogID=24069595&pageID=8872543322493900789

Using the above technique, and substituting your blogID and pageID / postID, you can recover the entire page or post, including all content and formatting - and the original URL. This technique won't work for un indexed blogs, or for new pages, however. Private blogs are unlikely to be indexed, also.

In some cases, even if you're able to retrieve the postID and recover the post editor session, you may be unable to re publish. If you get a bX error when re publishing, copy the contents from HTML mode - then make a new post, and paste. After you publish the new post, under a new URL, you'll have to add a Custom Redirect, from the Old URL to the New URL.

The post may be retrievable from blog feed.

You may, with a little work, be able to retrieve the BlogID and PostID from the blog posts newsfeed, using a text browser.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default

In that case, you can re publish the post, using the above URL construction. This may work, for pages, also.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/pages/default


If search engine cache isn't available, and if the blog publishes a post feed, you can possibly subscribe to the post feed in Google Reader or a similar feed reader, and retrieve the text content of the post. Having the text of the missing post visible to you, you can copy and paste the content, into post editor, and Publish the post again. Again, this may similarly work for pages.

Feed content retrieval will provide text, which must be reformatted.

Using this technique, you'll have to reformat the post content - as feed content is formatted relatively simply. When you publish the post, it will publish as a new post, with a new URL.

Again, add a Custom Redirect from the Old URL to the New URL, if you want to retain post reputation. This technique won't work for private blogs, or for blogs where the feed is disabled.

So, if you delete a post, or if Blogger deletes it on your behalf, there are various options for recovery - though neither search engine cache nor blog feed options will likely work, for private blogs. And some options may be more or less desirable than others.

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