Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Difference Between Pages and Posts

This article is about the difference between Posts and Pages in Blogger, and suggests an alternative way to back up your page contents that are not included in regular backups.


Finding the URL of a Page

You can easily find the URL of the Pages in your Blog, even if you haven't used the Pages gadget supplied by Blogger.


Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Adding the Amazon Associates search tool switches on Blogger's new editor

This article explains the effects of using Blogger's Amazon Associates integration on your Blogger editor, and how this can be undone. 



Sept 2011 Update:  

It now appears that the integration between Blogger and Amazon is history.  

I've left this article here to avoid broken links, but it's no longer relevant.  See building your own Amazon advertisements for update information about putting Amazon ads into your blog.



What is the issue?

In Dec 2009, Blogger added an Amazon Associates option to the Monetize tab.  I've written about this previously in Amazon Integration is with Amazon.Com.


An issue for some Bloggers is that turning on Amazon Associates Product finder automatically switches them over to the updated editor.

 
New Blogger Editor (compose mode) with the Amazon Product Finder


Some people (like me!) don't have a problem with this and barely noticed the change.

But for people who were using the old editor, it may appear that the Amazon integration has changed or removed a number of functions, including the Post Preview option.   And because the editor-selection is for your Google account, not for individual blogs, the functions are removed from all your blogs, not just one.


What to do about it:

Firstly note that one of the effects of activiating the Amazon Product Finder is turning on the new editor for your entire Google account.

Even if you don't turn on the Amazon Product Finder, you can still use the Monetize / Amazon Associates function to link your blog with Amazon.     You will have to build your links manually (as explained in Changing the Look of Amazon advertisements) - and this may be a good idea anyway, as it gives you more control over how they look, and is essential if you're readers aren't mainly from countries serviced by Amazon.com.

Secondly, if you have already turned on the Amazon Product Finder and want to remove it all its side effects:
  1. Under Monetize / Amazon Associates, remove the tick beside " Enable the Amazon Product Finder for the Blogger Editor "
  2. Under Settings / Basic, choose the Old Editor

    Settings / Basic option for choosing which Blogger editor to use



Related Articles:



Amazon Integration is with Amazon.Com

Changing the Look of Amazon advertisements

Integration between Blogger and Amazon is history

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

This article is about the issues involved with using AdSense ads on Blogger blogs.  It discusses some things you should do (using the AdSense application), even though Blogger doesn't currently enforce them.


Saturday, February 13, 2010

Putting Chitika ads onto your Blog

This article is about putting Chitika ads into your site.   It covers the features currently on Chitkia's AdSetup control panel, and how to take the code that is provided and put it into your own blog on blogspot.

Extra customization of Chitika ads

This article looks at extra customisation you can do to  Chitika advertisements, including making changes to the title colour, border colour, and whether or not a new window opens when a reader clicks on a Chitika ad.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Advertising Programmes

This article introduces some of the different advertising programmes that are available to "publishers" - which includes people who write blogs.


Friday, February 5, 2010

Converting Posts into Pages

This article looks at how to make an existing Post into a Page, using the Pages feature introduced in Feb 2010.  It is is part of a series about the Pages feature in Blogger.


Making sub-pages

This article is about making so-called sub-pages in Blogger.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

AdSense Troubleshooting: Javascript

This article explains the relationship between Adsense advertisement display and Javascript


AdSense Layouts: don't use too many Divs

This quick-tip has details about laying out AdSense ads side-by-side with the text in your Blogger posts.


AdSense Troubleshooting: How many ads per page

This article has details about AdSense ads not being displayed because there are too many ads per page, including particular issues with sidebars in Blogger.


How long does it taken until AdSense ads are displayed on your blog

This article has details about the time-delays between Adsense ads being added to your Blogger site (in header, footer, sidebar, or inside your posts), and the ads being visible to your readers.

AdSense Troubleshooting: Extra line breaks

This article is about fixing problems with AdSense advertisements that are caused by having extra line-breaks in the ad-code.



Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Using Blogger to make a website for a community group

This article explains the issues that community groups and non-profit organisations can face with managing their websites, and explains how Blogger can be used to address them.