Use The Post Feed Redirect URL, When You Rename Your Blog

When we rename a blog, we use the Post Feed Redirect URL to redirect all feed references, from the old URL to the new feed URL.

When we setup a custom feed for a blog, maybe using FeedBurner, we use the Post Feed Redirect URL to redirect all feed references, from the blog, to the FeedBurner feed. That lets us use a FeedBurner feed without having to change all of the feed links in the blog.

Besides using the Post Feed Redirect URL to setup a FeedBurner feed, you can use the Post Feed Redirect URL when you re publish the blog to a new BlogSpot URL.

Please! Be sure to setup the Post Feed Redirect in the proper direction.

Using the post feed redirect is a simple, 1 - 2 - 3 exercise.

1. Publish a stub blog, to the old URL.
2. Determine the URL of the blog post feed, under the new URL.
3. Set the post feed redirect, for the stub blog.

Publish a stub blog, to the old URL.

Immediately after you re publish the blog to its new URL, you should be setting up a stub blog, to visually point your readers to the new URL. Besides visually pointing your readers, you can re point your subscribers - again using the stub blog.

Determine the URL of the blog post feed, under the new URL.

Copy the updated feed URL from the blog header. Precision is essential when redirecting the feed, so let Blogger do the work for you here - determine the new post feed URL, properly.

Set the post feed redirect, for the stub blog.

Go to Settings - Other, for the stub blog, published to the old URL. Edit the "Post Feed Redirect URL", and paste the new feed URL, as just copied.

When you do this, all subscribers to your blog, under the old URL, should see the blog feed in its new home, with linked content. The search engines, indexing the blog using a sitemap based upon the old URL, should start indexing it using the new URL.

Properly done, this should give your blog, under the new URL, a good start towards regaining the search engine reputation that it had, under the old URL.

The Blog Feed Redirect Option Needs To Be Used Properly

When you setup a Blogger blog, and use a properly configured feed, the combinations of comments, labels, and posts feeds can do wonders for making your blog more accessible and maintainable. You have a number of feeds, with URLs based upon the URL of the blog, to work with.

For more possibilities, you can use a custom feed, provided by an aggregation service like FeedBurner or FeedDigest. When you use a custom feed, you can even redirect references, within the blog, to the custom feed, so you don't have to manually reconfigure things like post footer feed links.

You redirect feed references using the dashboard setting in Settings - Other - "Post Feed Redirect URL".

Always use this setting properly - only put a valid feed URL in the box, or you will end up with a broken blog feed. A valid feed could be:

• A feed from another Blogger blog, as when you move the blog to another URL, and setup a stub blog with a redirected feed.
• A valid external URL - one provided by FeedBurner, FeedDigest, or a similar service.

Do not point this internally, to the same BlogSpot or domain URL. You cannot use this to simply change the URL of the feed for any one blog - it must be used in conjunction with a second blog, or a custom feed setup.

Here's the redirect setting, for this blog:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Nitecruzr-Blogging

That's my FeedBurner feed URL. Yours will be similar, excepting the

Nitecruzr-Blogging

If you use the URL of a feed for the same blog, you'll end up with a feed redirect loop. If your readers see anything from the feed, when it's directed to itself, it will be something like

The page isn't redirecting properly

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

If you have no FeedBurner or second blog feed to redirect into, or if you don't know what is needed here, leave this setting blank. If you're using the setting, and you're experiencing a feed related problem, you should first clear the setting.

Also, be aware of the interaction between the Google Sitemap and the blog feed. A Google Sitemap will break, if you redirect your blog feed to a URL outside the blog naming space.

Finally, note that the blog feed is intended to let your readers read your blog, with greater ease. It's not designed to let you randomly distribute the blog content to the Internet, while abusing your Followers and subscribers.