Publish To Your Readers In Multiple Languages

Some blog owners speak / write in multiple languages - and want to interact with their different readers, separately, in each different language.

Blogger, and Google, support the need for publishing multiple blogs, each written in a different language. The "hreflang" tag, added to a blog, identifies other blogs, published to different languages, with identical or similar content.

There are three ways to provide content, in multiple languages.

• Publish one blog, with posts published in different languages.
• Publish one blog, and add the Google Translate gadget.
• Publish multiple blogs, one language / blog, linked using "hreflang".

You can publish a single blog with multiple posts written in different languages - if you wish.

Mixing multiple posts in different languages creates a compromise.

One blog, mixing posts written in different languages, will be a compromise. Each different world language has its own character set, phrasing, spelling, syntax, and other characteristics.

If you publish extensively, you will get better results publishing multiple blogs, each blog with content in one language. Your readers will appreciate reading a blog, that's published in one language - their own language.

Best results come from multiple blogs, in one language for each blog.

Blogger lets us indicate a language for any blog, in Settings - Language and formatting. One blog == one language.

If you want to publish content in multiple languages, and have everything properly indexed by the search engines, you can create an "hreflang" blog cluster - with each blog published in its own language.

To get the best result from "hreflang", you publish similar content, equally to each blog - and add "hreflang" tags identically to each blog.

If I was tri-lingual, I could publish a set of blogs in English, French, and Spanish.

Si j'étais trilingue, je pourrais publier un ensemble de blogs en anglais, français et espagnol.

Si fuera trilingüe, podría publicar un conjunto de blogs en inglés, francés y español.

I could publish three blogs to BlogSpot.

1. en-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com
2. fr-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com
3. es-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com

In the template header, for each blog, I would add three complementary tags.

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://en-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="http://fr-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://es-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />

Multiple blogs, properly intercnnected, gives improved search results.

As any one blog in the cluster is being indexed, the "href=" in the tags links to the other two blogs - just like any three blogs being cross linked. This gives search indexing between all three blogs, equally.

For improved search reputation, based on three "identical" blogs, this technique can't be beat.

You can publish one blog, indexed in one language, and translated when needed.

You don't have to use "hreflang", to publish content written in multiple languages. If you only want to write in one language, and let readers to read your blog in their own language, you can use Google Translate.

Look in the sidebar, of this blog. Google Translate ("Translate Me") lets every world resident read a blog in their own language - when they select their language.

Just add a Google Translate gadget to your one blog, using the "Add a Gadget" wizard, on the Layout dashboard page. Each reader, surfing to your one blog, can use the gadget to translate to their language, as necessary - as long as they:

• Understand the gadget header "Translate Me" (or however you name your gadget).
• Know to use the "Select Language" pull down list.
• Know how to locate their own language in the list.

The "Google Translate" gadget is labeled in English. The French people use "français" when describing their naive tongue - and call our language "Anglais", not English.

The language list, in French, will be in a different order. Other languages will be even more challenging. If you examine a language list, on a blog written in Chinese, could you locate their label for "English"?

Writing in each different language is much more respectful, to people who don't read English.

With a blog using Google Translate, the blog content is indexed, only using the published language. Readers who don't read in your native language will never find your blog, when they search in their language.

To index content in multiple languages, use "hreflang".

If you want to develop a reader audience in multiple language groups, you can use "hreflang" to publish multiple blogs, each written and indexed in one specific language. Each of your potential readers can search, in their own language, and find your blog.

And none of your readers have to know - or care - that a blog is published in other languages.

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There are several ways to provide blog content in multiple languages, depending upon how relevant you want to be, to your readers, in their various "foreign" languages - and how much work you are willing to do.

Blogger Magic - Using Sitemaps To Diagnose Problems

Knowing how to read, and follow, sitemap entries is a useful skill in diagnosing many Blogger problems.

The Blogger generated sitemaps, which apply to each blog, index both pages and posts. This blog, like every other blog, has two sitemaps, automatically generated.

"sitemap.xml" (posts) roughly duplicates the "Archives" gadget - but has advantages, over the gadget. "sitemap-pages.xml" (static pages) is not redundant, to any Blogger accessory.

The two Blogger generated sitemaps provide possibilities for content and problem analysis, unequaled by any Blogger accessory.

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

The posts sitemap is valuable.

• The Archives gadget, which provides a canonical list of posts, is not included on all blogs.
• The Archives gadget, for most blogs, must be examined one month at a time - and does not provide a search option.
• Manually searching for a post, using "Older Posts", is time consuming.

The pages sitemap is especially valuable.

• There is no canonical accessory, that lists pages.
• The Pages gadget only lists pages that the owner wants to index.

You can view pages, and posts, using either sitemap. Note only a published page or post will be listed. Draft status pages and posts will not be listed.

This blog, like many, has a paged posts sitemap.

Each posts sitemap page will list up to 150 entries. Any blog with over 150 posts will have a paged sitemap.

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

The posts sitemap, for this blog.



Page 1 of the posts sitemap contains the 150 most current posts.

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

Page 1 of the posts sitemap, for this blog. It's a very simple display - just URL and "last edited" date / time, for each post.



Here is the pages sitemap.

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

I don't have a lot of pages published, in this blog, that are of public interest.



You can access pages and posts, from the sitemap.

Using browser features, you can access any listed page or post, directly from either display.

Highlight the URL that you need to examine.

Right click, select "Go to http://blogging.nitecruzr.net /p/what-are ...".

And there is the page in question.



You can access "http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/p/what-are-differences-between-pages-and.html" from the pages sitemap - or "http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2013/12/what-are-differences-between-pages-and.html" from the posts sitemap.

Most browsers have a right click context menu, and a "Go to (URL)" selection - and provide direct access to any page or post, using a properly formatted URL.

One practical case, diagnosed using the sitemaps.

One of the intriguing uses of the sitemaps, that we find useful, involves a blog with content - yet when viewing it, we see

No posts.

in the blog "status message" section. Why do I see "No posts." - instead of blog content?

People who confuse "pages" (aka "static pages") and posts (aka "dynamic pages") may publish a blog, using nothing but static pages. The blog main page will normally only display posts - and show "No posts.", when viewed.

You can, however, redirect the home page to a given static page - and add links between the static pages. Or, republish the pages as posts, if convenient.

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The recently added #Blogger generated pages and posts sitemaps offer canonical access to all published pages and posts, in every publicly accessible blog. These sitemaps are useful to people - as well as to search engines and other indexing processes.

Search Engine Reputation, And Vanity Domains

One hot Internet topic, these days, involves specialised ("vanity") domains.

The hot names seem to change, by the week. This week, enom is hyping ".family", ".live", ".rocks", and ".social". Other registrars may have other recommendations.

The blog Address (Name) is a key blog identity element, in a well designed blog. It's visible both to people, and to search engine crawlers.

The requirement that addresses must be unique is a supposed benefit of vanity top level domains - but vanity TLDs, alone, will not provide blog uniqueness. There will always be competition for some names, in any useful Top Level Domain.

My suspicion is that the shinier the TLD, the more competition you may see, between people who plan their uniqueness around choosing the perfect name.

Any popular blog / website subject will have name competition.

I could publish this blog as "chucksblog.com" - and that would be a shiny and unique name. Until another "Chuck" registered "chucksblog.us", or maybe "chucksblog.name". How unique would "chucksblog" be, then? How many readers could I expect, if they know "chucksblog" - but can't remember if it is "chucksblog.com", "chucksblog.info", or "chucksblog.name"?

If your blog has a popular subject, you won't have a unique name - unless you register your name, in every possible TLD that might be relevant to your name. And that will be a financial limitation, for many blog owners.

What name would you want your blog to have? For a truly shiny domain, you'll have competition.

Complete uniqueness == No competition == No interest == No readers.



McDonalds, for instance, may be able to register "mcdonalds.com", "mcdonalds.franchises", "mcdonalds.hamburgers", "mcdonalds.smallbusiness", etc (as each hypothetical TLD comes online) - and local domains "mcdonalds.co.uk", "mcdonalds.de", "mcdonalds.us", and so on.

Very few of the readers of this blog will be in a financial position to do all of that.

enom is hyping ".family", ".live", ".rocks", and ".social" - this week.



Your uniqueness strategy should include content.

You will have to develop a "uniqueness" strategy based on content - not solely on the address. You will need to understand that your blog may lose traffic, from people who know the blog "name" - but may not remember if "yourname" is a ".com", ".net", or ".us".

Of course, if you publish only to "blogspot", you will automatically have "yourname.blogspot.com", "yourname.blogspot.co.uk", "yourname.blogspot.de", and so on. You won't have "yourname.com", "yourname.net", and "yourname.us", however - unless you pay for the privilege.

Are you getting a feeling for the complexity of the branding issue? Good. Concentrate on content. The search engines index your blog - and provide you traffic - based on informative, interesting, and unique content.

Google denies the value of vanity domains, for raw SEO.

AdWeek weighs the issue, in What’s in a Name on Social?.

When it comes to vanity domains, Google has long denied that they affect search rankings. Their in-house tech team advised way back that registering a vanity domain for the sheer, hopeful sake of page rankings would be a fool’s errand. But there’s a solid number of marketers that disagree, and they watch these things very closely. Chalk it up to wishful thinking, if you like, but time will tell. And there are only so many .com domains available.

Only time will tell. I suggest that you keep your traffic and uniqueness strategy diverse. Don't depend upon a vanity domain, alone, for search reputation and traffic.

For best results, keep it in perspective.

Consider the name issue, if you want. But keep it in perspective. Blogger blogs will benefit from well written and unique content - as much as from a carefully chosen name / URL.

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Some #Blogger blog owners are intent on publishing a blog to a custom domain, using a top level domain that relates to the blog subject. They do this, hoping to have a unique blog name.

They may overlook the idea that Blogger blogs benefit from well written and unique content, as much as from a shiny and unique URL.

Are Meta Keywords Useful, In Blogger Blog Posts?

Some blog owners do not completely understand the concept of meta description, vs meta keywords - and how blog search reputation can be affected.

We see occasional questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger.

I know how to enter meta info on each blog post under the Search Description field - but do I have to put all permutations of a subject in the Search Description?

Here, we see the possibility of unintended "keyword stuffing", and degraded search engine reputation.

We must be careful to not misuse the meta search description feature - and avoid keyword stuffing.

Well written meta descriptions can help search reputation.

A well written meta description can be part of a well designed blog and of well written posts. It can help search engines index a blog, or a post, properly - and in a SERP listing, can attract readers.

Contrarily, a collection of meta keywords can look like keyword stuffing. The latter can cause degraded search engine reputation.

Search engines are long past benefiting from meta keywords.

Search engines have long been made more introspective, than for a blog to benefit from meta keywords. Search engines now extract keywords from indexed content, automatically.

While it is possible to design blog or website pages to use keywords, keywords now are extracted from visible content. Google is quite blunt about meta keywords.

Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking.

Write good posts, to get good SERP positions.

If you want good SERP positioning, write good posts, using informative, interesting, and unique content. That's the best advice, for Blogger blogs.

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Some #Blogger blog owners still try to use meta keyword tags, to improve search engine reputation. They don't realise that search engines now develop their own keyword lists, from visible content.

Good search list positions come from good content, to be read by people - not from jumbles of words, randomly strung together.

https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

https://moz.com/community/q/meta-keywords-should-we-use-them-or-not

http://cohlab.com/blog/stop-using-keywords-meta-tag.html

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812

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.

A Blogger Blog Needs Informative And Unique Content

Too many blog owners have been listening to spammers, who tell them lies, and encourage dodgy publishing practice.

You can make lots of money - just start a blog, scrape content from other blogs and websites, and add ads!

This is wrong, for many reasons.

Blogger gives us the basic definition of what is not allowed, in Blogger Help: Spam, phishing, or malware on Blogger.

Spam blogs cause various problems, beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines, making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own. And if an automated system is creating spam posts at an extremely high rate, it can impact the speed and quality of the service for other, legitimate users.

I summarise this definition, by advising you to publish blogs that are informative, interesting, and unique.

Until you have lots of friends, and regular readers, who read your blog - and return later, to read some more - you will need traffic, from the search engines.

AdSense requires original content.

AdSense explicitly forbids copied content, on blogs that will show paid ads.

Fact: We don’t allow sites with auto-generated or otherwise unoriginal content to participate in the AdSense program. This is to ensure that our users are benefiting from a unique online experience and that our advertisers are partnering with useful and relevant sites.

To get search traffic, your blog needs unique content.

You don't get traffic from the search engines, without unique content, that causes your blog to be listed, in good position, in a Search Engine Results Page - aka SERP. And, you don't get return reader traffic, without informative or interesting content.

The recently deployed (March 2017) Google search engine update, colloquially named "Fred", targets low value content blogs and web sites. Many blog owners have observed an abrupt loss of search rank - and of search originated traffic - in their ad driven blogs.

Nobody is going to search for details - because they don't know the details.

Blogs which contain only lists of details, such as "Answers from Professor X's exams", "Best truck driving schools in Southern India", or "Free Proxy Servers", will not contain indexable material.

• They won't contain key phrases or words, that people might use, when searching for blogs to read.
• Their content won't be unique.

Since people don't know the answers to the exams, they won't be typing the key phrases or words, that lead to your blog - if your blog contains "Answers from Professor X's exams". And even if you spend a week, copying the names and addresses of each truck driving school, what you copy won't be unique.

If your blog contains only details, it will appear lower in the SERPs.

If your blog only contains lists of details, copied from various blogs and websites, your blog will have a lower SERP position than the sources of your content. Your blog will be vulnerable to spam classification - and will later fail review.

Websites which contain only "Answers from Professor X's exams", "Best truck driving schools in Southern India", or "Free Proxy Servers" may be allowed outside Blogger. Since Blogger is a personal website platform, you should try to write about things which you, personally, are familiar with - and host your lists, and other scraped content, outside Blogger.

If You Want To Keep A Secret, Don't Publish It

Have you ever heard the old saying

I had a friend, and I had a secret. I told my friend my secret - and now, I have neither a friend, or a secret.

Occasionally we see signs of naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

I have a private blog! Why do I see my blog listed in Google?

or

I distinctly set my blog to be invisible! Why is my blog being indexed?

Not all blog owners know that neither the "disallow" statement, in "Robots.Txt" - nor the "noindex, nofollow" directives, in our blogs - are mandatory.

If you publish content on the web, chances are it is - or will eventually be - indexed somewhere, by some search engine.

Obedient search engines won't index content, when instructed.

Obedient search engine robots will observe the Google privacy directives, such as "noindex, nofollow" directives in HTML code, and the instructions in the "robots.txt" file. Not all robots are obedient, however.

There are many search engines besides Google - and not all search engines observe privacy directives.

The various robotic processes, which scan for abusive content, scan all blogs and websites out of necessity. Some archiving robots archive everything - not just content that's provided openly.

Many search engines share indexed content - obedient, or not.

Many search engines share data with other search engines, and / or retrieve data from other search engines. Even Google will index some sites, indirectly, that are not intended to be indexed.

Ownership and privacy laws vary - from country to country, and between Internet services. What you consider private (personal data), if you live in Germany, may be treated as common knowledge, by someone in Russia, or the USA. And if you report someone publishing your private data to Blogger / Google, you may get different treatment than from WordPress, or from an independent hosting service in China.

If you publish content, expect that it will be indexed.

If you want to keep a secret, do not publish your secret on the Internet. Regardless of whether you publish it to a blog with designated readers, using the Blogger dashboard Privacy settings, or even using a custom "robots.txt" file, your secret may be visible on any search engine - even on Google.

If you think the Internet is your friend, try publishing a secret there. You will learn the truth, eventually. And hiding your secret, after it gets out, will not be an easy task.

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.

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(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".

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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.

Blogger Magic - The "Robots.txt" File

Some new blog owners spend time examining the various settings provided by Blogger, in the dashboard.

Some dashboard settings inspire questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More about Blogger. As helpers there, we know from experience that some questions, asked and answered there, will lead to later questions in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

The "Robots.Txt" file is one feature which inspires these types of questions.

I was updating my settings on Blogger, and I discovered some settings that I didn't understand. What do I add for "Custom robot text" and "Custom robot header tag"?

When I was young, my mother used to provide advice "That is a well enough!" - as the proper answer, to this question, is to "Leave well enough alone!".

The "Robots.txt" file is a collection of various settings - and the dashboard "Search preferences" wizard provides useful options, for Blogger blog owners.

You may edit "robots.txt", if you wish - but be mindful of possible consequences.

When used properly, "Robots.Txt" provides us several possibilities. That said, we should heed the warning.

Warning! Use with caution. Incorrect use of these features can result in your blog being ignored by search engines.

The section "Crawlers and indexing" is a dashboard feature which should probably be left alone by 99% of all Blogger blog owners - except in specific, documented examples.

All "robots.txt" entries are carefully designed, by Blogger / Google Engineers.

Some portions of "Robots.Txt" are maintained by various well documented Blogger and Webmaster Tools features.

• The Blogger label search exclusion is essential to preventing search engine penalties.
• The Blogger search engine options are essential to proper search engine activity.
• The Webmaster Tools maintained site feed may be essential to effective search engine access.

Other sections of "Search preferences" have similar value. Unless you understand "Robots.Txt" functionality, however, you should leave settings in "Crawlers and indexing" alone.

If you are not familiar with the settings, it's best to not play with them.

Leave the magic spells, to the magicians and wizards. See Blogger Help: Help people find your blog on search engines, and Google Developers - Webmasters: Robots.txt Specifications, for details.

Use the Blogger dashboard "Privacy" wizard - and stop there - unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences.

Work on publishing blog content - informative, interesting, and unique. Learn more, as you publish your blog. Indexable blog content will get you more search reputation, than tweaking "robots.txt".

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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Blogs Viewed, Using A CC TLD Alias, Will Continue To Be Indexed Using "BlogSpot.Com"

We're starting to see some evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, about the impact of the new CC TLD aliases, upon indexing and reputation.

There's no cache for my blog, after redirecting to a ccTLD!

This is an example of the confusion, from a concerned blog owner.

99% of all Blogger blogs will see no difference, in indexing or reputation, to their blog, in Blogger / Google services.

Properly constructed Blogger blogs always reference a "blogspot.com" URL.

Every BlogSpot published blog, which uses a standard blog header, has a "Canonical" tag, defining the "BlogSpot.Com" URL for that blog.

Search engines which recognise the Canonical tag will simply index all BlogSpot content, whether accessed as "blogspot.com.au", "blogspot.in", or whatever new CC TLD alias is deployed in the future, under the base URL, "blogspot.com". Blogs such as this one, published outside "blogspot.com", will continue to be indexed under the current non BlogSpot URL.

<link href='http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/' rel='canonical'/>

That's the Canonical tag for this blog, "blogging.nitecruzr.net".

Search engine metrics are always checked as "blogspot,com", if no custom domain.

When you check the Page Rank, you should continue to check the "blogspot.com" URL - if your blog is published to "blogspot.com".

Some non Google services such as Alexa - and some third party accessories such as commenting, provided by Disqus and Intense Debate - are known to require tweaking of their code, so they will recognise the Canonical tag for the host blog. Once the code is properly updated, they should simply reference the host blog under the "blogspot.com" alias - no matter where the blog viewer may be geographically located.

It also appears that the Stats "Traffic Sources" display is displaying the different CC aliases, rather than aggregate inlinks using the canonical URL. This is causing some confusion with people who are not yet aware of the CC aliases, and their purpose.

Some Blogger features only reference the Blogger blog name.

The "Forgot?" wizard, on the other hand, uses only the blog name. Whether you are seeing your blog as "xxxxxxx.blogspot.ca" (in Canada), as "xxxxxxx.blogspot.mx" (in Mexico), or "xxxxxxx.blogspot.com" / "xxxxxxx.blogspot.us" (in the USA), you'll always use only "xxxxxxx" when recovering access to your Blogger account.

If your blog uses no third party accessories or services, relax just a bit - then get back to work on your blog.

Search Engine Results Are Not Permanent

One of the oddest problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken comes from blog owners who only want their blog to be found, in search engine results.

I started a blog 6 months ago. I spent a week getting my blog publicised, it started showing up in search engine results, and all was well. 6 months later, my blog shows up nowhere, it's like it doesn't exist. What happened to my blog??

These blog owners do not realise that a position in any page of the search results is not permanent.

Your blog, to get more readers, needs to be indexed by the search engines - and to appear in search results, which your potential readers use.

Each Search Results Page has only 10 entries.
Each page of search results, for any search query, has only 10 entries. In order for your blog to show up on Page 1 of any search hit list, this month, one entry, that was there last month, now appears on Page 2 of that search hit list.

The owner of the blog recently demoted to Page 2 in the search hit list now has to spend some time getting his blog publicised, so his blog will appear again, on page 1. Next week, a third person is going to find his blog demoted to Page 2.

During the churn over Page 1 and 2, somebody who last month was happy to find her blog listed on Page 2, now finds it listed on Page 3. And people on Pages 3 and 4 are constantly struggling to get their blog to Page 2 and 3, respectively.

Nobody is guaranteed any desired position, in any page for any search.
The lesson here is simple - any position in the search hit list, for any search query, is not permanent - nor will it happen immediately. Similar to the churn over Follower count, when your blog gets a better position, that's because another blog is now getting a worse position.

You will get a good position from hard work, more than from imaginative techniques.

Use Search Console / Webmaster Tools to monitor search activity.
While you are busy checking the search hit lists for the appearance of your blog, you should be checking the diagnostic tools in Google Webmaster Tools. The problem that you see, reflected in the search hit list this week, may have been visible in one or more diagnostic reports last week.

You need to monitor your blog proactively, using Google Webmaster Tools, as much as reactively, using search engine results.

Getting Traffic To Your Blog Involves Indexing

We continue to see evidence of frustration about getting a blog indexed, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

I can find the blog using the URL - but my visitor log shows nobody is reading the blog!

and

My blog was #1 for my title, in Google, 3 months ago! Last month, it dropped out of sight!! Why does Google let people hack their results???

People who report these problems do not understand that getting traffic to the blog involves more than simply getting the blog indexed, using the Author, Title, or URL of the blog.

Getting your blog indexed, so you get useful traffic from the search engines, requires effort.

1. You have to get the blog indexed.
2. You have to get the blog indexed, in searches which people actually use, when searching for blogs to read.
3. You have to get the blog indexed, with good position, in searches which people actually use, when searching for blogs to read.
4. You have to repeat #3, constantly - because you are competing with everybody else who wants their blog indexed, with good position.

Note that your blog will be indexed faster, if the search engines can read the content. If you have a custom domain, it's best to set the domain up, properly.

How useful is it, to index the blog by title or URL?

Getting the blog indexed, so you can find the blog by searching for the title or URL, gets the blog indexed by the title or the URL. Use Search Console, and look at the "Search queries" list on the dashboard.

How many Impressions do you see, which reference the blog by the Title or the URL? How many Impressions are from people, other than you, checking to see if the blog is indexed?

How valuable will the blog be, if you publish to a vanity domain - which may (or may not) give you a unique URL?

How useful is it, to have your blog indexed, using terms that people search?

If you want new viewers, you need to get the blog indexed, appearing in a search engine results page (aka "SERP") that people (besides you) are using - and appearing in a good position on that page.

To benefit from any search used by a potential viewer, your blog needs to appear at the top of the search list.

• Any position on SERP Page 1 is better than any position on SERP Page 2.
• SERP Page 1 Position 1 is better than Page 1 Position 2.

Which SERP positions, when clicked, yield the most traffic?

All SERP positions are not going to produce the same amount of traffic, to your blog.

Look at the observations, discussing SERP Page One results, from Click Distribution & Percentages by Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Rank. Which positions, on Page One, get more clicks - and more traffic to your blog?

Position #1: 45.46% of all clicks
Position #2: 15.69% of all clicks
Position #3: 10.09% of all clicks
Position #4: 5.49% of all clicks
Position #5: 5.00% of all clicks
Position #6: 3.94% of all clicks
Position #7: 2.51% of all clicks
Position #8: 2.94% of all clicks
Position #9: 1.97% of all clicks
Position #10: 2.71% of all clicks
Total: 95.91% of all clicks occur on SERP Page One

Your blog, linked from SERP Page One Position One, stands an equal chance of getting a new viewer, than appearing in All Other Positions, combined. And only 1 in 20 viewers will even look beyond SERP Page One.

How different will each SERP page be?

Every different search, from people looking for blogs to read, will produce a different list of blogs.

No matter what the subject - or search terms - there can be only one blog, linked from Page One Position One.

• The more potential readers, searching using a given subject or search term, the more readers you have a chance to get.
• The more potential readers, searching using a given subject or search term, the more other people will publish their own blogs to that subject.
• No matter how much hard work you may do with your blog, you are not guaranteed Page 1 Position 1, in any given SERP.

Would you prefer being a small frog, in a large pond - or a large frog, in a small pond? A pond without other frogs - or even with lots of larger frogs - can be a lonely place.

When you have a new blog,you're better off in a community of blogs. As your blog becomes mature, and you have your own reputation, you're better off on your own. You control your domain - and your own destiny.

Try to find a pond which interests you - not one which other people tell you should interest you. And if you're important in your pond, that's good - just don't expect to be important in other ponds, consistently.

How important is unique content?

Finally, if you want new viewers who will return, and who will send you other new viewers, you'll need informative, interesting, and unique content, that is regularly added - and properly targets your potential readers.

Attention Blog Owners - Nobody Knows Your Blog

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.

When you have a blog with an established audience, and you are able to examine demographic detail found in various visitor logs and meters, you'll observe activity from various sources.

• Search engines and similar robotic indexing services.
• People, using newsfeed subscriptions, and various newsfeed clients.
• People, pasting or typing the URL into the browser address window.
• People, clicking on links in bloglists (on other peoples blogs), and bookmarks (in their personal browsers).

People using search engines find your blog from searching for content.

When the visitor log, that you are examining, provides you with detail about your search engine traffic sources, you'll notice that most people using search engines find your blog when using search terms that reference blog content. This is because people using search engines do not know about your blog, and do not know (or care about) the blog name, title, or URL.

People who know how to use their browser most effectively, and already know about your blog, will use one of the latter 3 services to find your blog.

People who use search engines do not know about your blog - they want content.

The people who use search engines, for the most part, will be people who do not know your blog, or are looking for material other than - or in addition to - your blog. None of these people will use the blog title or URL, in their search activity.

If you are going to get new Followers, readers, subscribers, and viewers in general, you have to work hard, get the blog indexed, and get it properly publicised. And, it needs to appear in a good position, in a popular search engine results page, for some amount of time.

Use Search Console (pka Webmaster Tools) to measure search indexing results.

If you're using a blog URL search to measure search engine indexing of your blog, use the diagnostics in Google Webmaster Tools, for a more efficient and objective analysis. If you're using a blog URL search to measure visitor perception of your blog, wise up and get to work on your blog.

Blogger Magic - Custom Domain Publishing And Search Engine Reputation

There's a lot of confusion seen in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, about our blogs, and how they are treated by the search engines, after being published to a custom domain URL.

Does the Page Rank transfer to the new domain?

and

Is the blog automatically indexed after the change?

and

Will my readers be able to find my blog after the change?

Each of those questions has a simple answer - but each simple answer leads to interesting detail.

The basic facts to consider are quite simple.

• Search engines index our blogs, and calculate page rank, by domain / subdomain URL. Better search engine reputation leads to better search listing placement, and more traffic.
• When you publish the blog to a custom domain, you are giving it a new URL.
• With the blog published to a new URL, it has no page rank, and is not indexed.

So, the immediate answer is reasonably simple.

Like a new blog, and like a blog renamed within BlogSpot, a blog newly published to a custom domain has Zero page rank, and is not indexed.

Now, look at the details.

• Unlike a completely new blog, a blog newly published to a custom domain has reputation, in the minds - and links in the blogs - of the readers.
• Unlike a completely new blog, there is an existing BlogSpot blog that is indexed, has search engine reputation, and now links to the domain URL.
• Unlike a blog renamed within BlogSpot, a blog published to a custom domain has a DNS based redirect, from the BlogSpot URL, to the domain URL.
• Unlike a blog published to BlogSpot, a blog published to a custom domain may have some value simply because of the non BlogSpot URL.

And here is where the magic starts.

When you combine the assets, held by the BlogSpot URL

• Links, in our readers blogs.
• Reputation, in our readers minds.
• Reputation, in the search engines.

with the DNS based redirect - applied against a properly setup domain, and using a proper complement of sitemaps - you get a blog which acquires indexing and page rank from the existing reputation of the former BlogSpot URL, as that BlogSpot URL, and our readers blogs, are being re indexed. And, there is the magic.

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Jump Break, Main Page Contents, And Search Engines

The articles in this blog, which discusses production and use of Blogger blogs, are written as posts.

The various posts are combined, using embedded links, in different ways. Each new post appears on the main page, as it is written - and the various posts, appearing together on the main page, create opportunities for confusion, with the readers of the blog.

Long ago, the task of moderating comments was rather depressing to me, as the focus of many of the comments made me think that nobody was actually reading the articles. Maybe, I would write an interesting post about URL availability; but when moderating comments, I would find questions about posting comments on static pages. Or maybe a post about dynamic template concepts would attract complaints about referer spam.

Why should I publish my advice, if nobody cares enough to read the articles and comment relevantly?

Just previous to this post, I wrote about Stats displays, and the contents of the Posts lists.

In the process of writing the latter article, I discovered one obscure benefit of using "Jump Break" - and how "Jump Break" affects main page view, search engine indexing, and finally, relevance of comments to post subject.

A home page, with a variety of posts, naturally produces un focused comments.

Why the apparent lack of focus, of the comments? One reason is that many different posts, published one after the other, appear in sequence, in the blogs main page.

People will read the posts - and the search engines will index the posts - using main page view. Only after newer posts force the older posts, one by one, from main page view, will the individual posts have any significance - to people or search engines.

Using my example above, and looking at my main page when this post was new, one would have found a post about URL availability, published a week after a post about posting comments on static pages. By the time the search engines indexed the latter post, I would have published the former post. The post about URL availability would be visible in main page view, ahead of the post about posting comments on static pages.

Clicking on the link to my blog, attached to a SERP entry referencing static pages, the reader will read my main page from the top, find the previously visible post about URL availability, and the Comments link following the post. Clicking on the first Comments link found, the reader will post his question about static pages, against my post about URL availability.

Use of Jump Break gives a home page that can be easily read, top to bottom.

So, what effect does the use of "Jump Break" have on this problem? Using "Jump Break" on all main page posts makes it more likely that a potential reader of the blog, following a home page link to the blog, has more chance to see all recent posts, with their summaries.

The reader is more likely to scan down the page, see a summarised relevant post, click on "Read more" - and read the relevant post, on the individual post page, before commenting.

Use of Jump Break gives more weight to the individual posts, as indexed.

Additionally, with the posts summarised in main page view, the search engines will find less content on the main page. The full posts will be indexed as individual post pages, more than as part of the main page. This gives more weight to the individual posts, and less weight to the main page.

When indexed using an automatically generated, robust sitemap (2014), the posts will appear individually in SERP lists, decreasing reader main page confusion. Each SERP entry, pointing to an individual post, will be more relevantly focused - giving it more weight than a SERP entry, pointing to main page view.

Use of Jump Break, consistently, produces a win-win-win scenario.

In summary, careful and consistent use of "Jump Break" leads to:

• Better focus on individual and relevant blog articles, by the search engines.
• Less confusion to the blogs readers, when accessing the blog using SERP hit lists.
• Less frustration for the blog owner, when moderating comments.

It's really a win-win-win, when used consistently. And, it's so simple to apply, on a post by post basis. Check it out, in action.