Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Moving from Google's G Suite legacy free edition to something else

Monday, June 6, 2022
Messages about Google's move from free G-suite to paid Workspace accounts

I've received a number of emails from Google about the move from free G-suite to paid Workspace accounts. Keeping track of them, and the details, is tedious. So here's a post to save them in:
26 May 2022
From: The Google Workspace Team
<workspace-noreply@google.com>
Sent: Thursday 26 May 2022 21:50
To: <<the email account listed as a secondary account for one of my blogs>>
Subject: [Action Required] Upgrade your G Suite legacy free edition
subscriptions to Google Workspace by June 27, 2022
Avoid account suspension and enter your billing details in your
Admin Console.
Dear Administrator,
We previously notified you that you would need to upgrade from the G Suite
legacy free edition to Google Workspace by June 1, 2022 or your account would
be automatically upgraded. However, we've recently updated our timeline for the
transition and you now have until June
27, 2022 to take action.
As your account has been inactive for quite some time, we are now reaching
out to your secondary email address.
What do I need to do?
For businesses, the G Suite legacy free edition will no longer be available
after June 27, 2022
(updated from June 1, 2022). We recommend you upgrade now to a Google Workspace subscription that meets your needs.
Upgrading from your G Suite legacy free edition to Google Workspace will only
take you a few short steps and is not disruptive to your end-users.
When you've identified your preferred subscription follow these steps:
- Go to your Admin console.
- Select your new
subscription offering.
- Enter your
billing information.
If you take no action
by June 27, 2022, we’ll begin to upgrade your organization
seamlessly to a new Google Workspace subscription. The new subscription will be
based on what you currently use with your G Suite legacy free edition.
In addition to recent innovations like smart canvas, meetings in documents,
and dedicated Spaces to help organize people, topics and projects, Google
Workspace includes more storage, increased security, 24/7 support, and more. To
complete the transition and avoid account suspension, switch now and enter your billing
details in your Admin Console before August
1, 2022. You’ll have limited time discount options to support you
in this transition.
If you’re an
individual or family using your account for non-commercial
purposes, you can continue using the G Suite legacy free edition and opt out of the transition to Workspace in the Google Admin
console before June 27,
2022.
If no action is
taken, we’ll begin upgrading your organization seamlessly to a
new Google Workspace subscription starting June 27, 2022. To complete your upgrade
and avoid account suspension, you'll need to set up Google Workspace billing before August 1, 2022.
In case that you need to reactivate your account, you’ll need to log into
the Admin console and enter a valid form of payment.
Qualifying educational institutions and nonprofits have the option to migrate to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals
or Workspace
for Nonprofits without service disruption.
Timeline Summary
Date |
Action |
Before June 27, 2022 |
Upgrade to a new
Google Workspace subscription or opt out of the transition. |
Before August 1, 2022 |
Complete your
upgrade by setting your Google Workspace billing. |
FAQs
Visit the help center for information on the G Suite legacy free edition to Google Workspace
transition.
We’re here to help
If you have questions or need assistance, please Contact Google Workspace support. When you call or submit
your support case, use reference issue number 205265775. If you have trouble
accessing your administrator account, please refer to instructions to reset your administrator password.
Thanks for choosing Google Workspace.
– The Google
Workspace Team
January 2022
We launched our G Suite legacy free edition —the original Google Apps offering for businesses and schools— 16 years ago. In 2012 we discontinued this service, and we will now transition all remaining users to an upgraded Google Workspace paid subscription based on your usage.
What does this mean for my organization?
In 2020, we introduced —Google Workspace— and tailored our offerings to provide more options to fit our customers’ needs. Google Workspace includes all the features you already use, plus several new capabilities including more storage, increased security, 24/7 support, and more.
Upgrading from your G Suite legacy free edition to Google Workspace will only take you a few short steps and is not disruptive to your end-users. To support you in this transition, you will have discount options for 12 months after July 1, 2022.
What do I need to do?
To avoid disruption and maintain your account(s), please upgrade to Google Workspace by May 1, 2022. Begin the upgrade by reviewing the transition help center article, and selecting the option that best suits your organization’s needs. When you've identified your preferred subscription:
- Go to your Admin console.
- Select your new subscription offering.
- Enter your billing information.
Once you’re upgraded, you can use your new Google Workspace subscription and functionality at no-cost until at least July 1, 2022.
If you take no action by May 1, 2022, Google will begin upgrading your organization seamlessly to a new Google Workspace subscription. The new subscription will be based on what you currently use with your G Suite legacy free edition.
If you do not enter your billing details before July 1, 2022, your subscription will be suspended.
If your needs have changed and you do not want to upgrade to a Google Workspace subscription, you can export your organization’s data with the takeout feature.
Monday, June 28, 2021
Moving Blogger custom-domain and email service from DomainDiscount24 to DreamHost

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Moving a web-address and associated blog from DomainDiscount24 to DreamHost Made using icons from MaxPixel - CC0 Public Domain |
Friday, February 12, 2021
Linking a picture in your post to a website

Thursday, February 11, 2021
How to get a valid URL for a picture in Google Photos

Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Working with HTML in Blogger's new (2020) Post-editor

Facebook share counter in the AddThis inline-share tool is wrong

Monday, June 1, 2020
How to make a new blog post in the 2020 version of Blogger

Monday, November 18, 2019
How to start Snapseed from Google Photos

Friday, November 8, 2019
How to find out who posted to your blog by email

Sunday, November 3, 2019
Getting a list of people who have asked (via Feedburner) to have your blog-posts emailed to them

Sunday, June 23, 2019
Telling Google, and visually-impaired people, about the pictures in your blog
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
How to access Bluehost email through your Gmail

Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Adding a separator line between your posts
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Restricting who can read your blog
Friday, September 7, 2018
Comments RSS feed address after turning on HTTPS for a blog with a custom domains

Sunday, March 18, 2018
How to put Google search results controls in the language you actually speak

Thursday, March 1, 2018
Removing the background image from the header of Blogger's Travel theme

Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Friday, January 19, 2018
How to write a blog post - by just talking to your computer
Monday, December 11, 2017
How to show a song, track, album or artist from Spotify in Blogger

Friday, November 10, 2017
How to change AddThis Follow button settings for a gadget on blog or website
(Note: this is only relevant for Wordpress.org users. Wordpress.com users do not have the same freedom to add or configure plug-ins.)
Monday, September 25, 2017
How to put posts into pages in Wordpress - without using a plug-in
(For this task, the answers for Wordpress.org and Wordpress.com are so very similar that they have been combined into the one article.)
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Understanding the Follow-by-Email gadget and Feedburner

Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Putting files into Blogger's root directory
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
The difference between Themes and Templates in Blogger

Monday, March 6, 2017
How to edit your Theme in Blogger

It supports many other articles on this site, which suggest specific theme changes needed to solve particular problems. Note that until early 2017, themes were called templates. In practise, "edit your template" and "edit your theme" mean the same thing.
How to find things in Blogger's Theme editor

Sunday, February 12, 2017
Showing a PowerPoint file in your blog

Thursday, January 12, 2017
How to not show any posts on your blog's home page, using Blogger
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Saving a post if Blogger's Publish button doesn't work

Putting a badge for a Facebook Page into your Blog
How to rename picture files in Picasa-desktop
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
How to center gadgets in Blogger

Monday, October 17, 2016
Lining up the first post and the sidebar
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Getting the HTML code to put a picture into your blog's sidebar, header or footer

Saturday, October 1, 2016
Showing your oldest blog-post first - and the rest in reverse order.

But this article describes displaying your posts in this way by manipulating their post dates. And it links to an article about some other possible options.
Monday, September 5, 2016
mail2Post: How to update your blog by email, instead of using Blogger
Sunday, August 21, 2016
How to put a gadget above your blog's header

Wednesday, August 17, 2016
How to use Picasa-web-albums without being re-directed - August 2016 update
Monday, May 2, 2016
How to set up Page-level AdSense ads in your blog

It also describes how to fix an error in the code which is supplied, which causes a message like "Attribute name "async" associated with an element type "script" must be followed by the ' = ' character".
Monday, February 15, 2016
Taking action when someone has copied your blog without permission
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Displaying a gadget only on the home page - or only on a specific page
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
How to use your own icons in Google My Maps

Making someone an author on your blog
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Turning the RSS feed off or on again

Tuesday, November 24, 2015
How to remove the numbers in blogger post URL's

Monday, November 2, 2015
Using Labels to categorize your Blogger Posts

Copying all the posts from one blog to another
Sunday, October 18, 2015
How to set the URL for Blogger posts

Monday, October 5, 2015
How to change or remove the Newer Post and Older Posts links
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
How to centre-align the sharing-icons from AddThis in Blogger
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
How to put pictures into unusual shapes, using PowerPoint

Original title: How to put a square peg into a round hole - in pictures
Monday, July 20, 2015
How to find the URL for a picture in Google Photos
Saturday, July 18, 2015
How to share pictures from Google Photos, using shareable-links

Tuesday, July 7, 2015
How to tell Google about problems with activity on your AdSense account

Sunday, July 5, 2015
Using a custom domain for something other than your Blogger blog
Friday, June 5, 2015
How to change the date of a photograph in Google Photos

Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Blogger and Google Photos - what's changed, and what hasn't (yet)
Monday, June 1, 2015
Use Google Takeout to back up all your blogs at once
Friday, May 29, 2015
How to change the author for a published blog-post
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Stop people from submitting a Google Form more than once

Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Advertising & Blogger: things to consider
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
How to turn on a mobile theme / template for blogs in Blogger
Thursday, November 6, 2014
How to include the blog post description when you share on Facebook

Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Deciduous blog posts leave evergreens for dead
Monday, October 20, 2014
Letting other people send email from your Google account - and checking who can do this already
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Understanding Google Accounts
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Moving some posts from one blog to another
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Did you know that your blog is in the cloud?
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
How to find other blogs to read
Monday, September 1, 2014
The Ten-Minute-Guide to starting a blog
Monday, August 18, 2014
Finding a picture's location (URL) in Google+ Photos or Picasa-web-albums
Monday, August 4, 2014
How to find a gadget in the Add a Gadget list - quickly
Putting pictures side-by-side in a blog post or gadget

Tuesday, July 29, 2014
How to change internal links when you chance your blog's web-address
Monday, July 21, 2014
Find things in your blog-posts' HTML by using temporary "marker text"

Monday, July 14, 2014
How to add a Google Contacts button to your blog, website or desktop
Monday, July 7, 2014
How to copy and paste a website address on an Android smartphone

Monday, June 30, 2014
Introducing the "Free high-quality picture search" tool

Sunday, June 1, 2014
How to add a badge to a blog made with Blogger

Saturday, May 31, 2014
How to take better pictures - no matter what sort of camera you have

Giving your Blog a Home Page
Monday, May 19, 2014
AdSense, mobile templates and Analytics - and how they do (or don't) work together
- use AdSense to make money on your blog, and
- have a mobile template enabled
(which should, unless the blog is about something that makes no sense on a mobile device),
then it's an extremely good idea to have at least one AdSense ad-unit that was made with Blogger's official AdSense widget rather than by getting the code from AdSense and installing it manually.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Non-US based Amazon Associates must "perform all services" outside the US
“If you are a Non-US person participating in the Program, you agree that you will perform all services under the Operating Agreement outside the United States. If, for any reason, you cannot comply with this requirement, you must notify us using this link for an exception.”
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Look at the receipients of the "registration will renew automatically in X days" email to work out your domain-administration login name
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Help visitors who arrive at your blog via a link to a deleted post
(Even if you don't have any links to those posts, it's likely that a search-engine somewhere will have some - and other people may have bookmarked or shared them, too.)
There are two options for doing this:
Adding an RSS feed icon to your blog, using Feedburner
Monday, April 21, 2014
Keep a backup copy of complicated gadget settings

Thursday, April 10, 2014
Use diagrams to make pictures for your blog posts
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Make it easy for visitors to find other posts in your blog
Some visitors arrive at your blog from a search engine. Others will have subscribed to an RSS feed, or followed a link from some other blog or website. A few might even go directly to your home page because someone told them about it.
But no matter how they got there,
If you want people to read more than one post then you need to make it easy for them to find other posts. [tweet this quote]
Saturday, March 29, 2014
How to change Labels on more than one post at a time

Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Introducing Weekly Blogger Tips: A new type of post from Blogger-HAT
But then I found other people were visiting - because they were looking for solutions to the same problems! And looking back, I was embarrassed about how low-quality the original posts were. So I made a commitment to only publish properly researched articles, and I started keeping a private blog with post-ideas that I haven't researched fully (which now has 200+ posts in it).
Then in Sept 2012, I started posting "Quick Tips" - very quick posts about changes in other products that are people tend to use with their blogs, which I didn't have the time or ability research fully, but which I really wanted to share with my readers quickly.
Recently, however, the number of Quick-tips has decreased: as Blogger and the other tools have become more mature, there just haven't been the same number of changes.
And at the same time, other projects have been taking more time and I often don't have the capacity to do the in-depth research for the quality articles that I want to publish here.
But one thing I that noticed on another project is that I get a lot of satisfaction from publishing regularly: in one niche, there's a type of post that I can write in about 20 minutes, and this is great for my motivation and satisfaction, as well as for the blog's traffic levels.
So, between now and December this year, I've set myself a target of publishing at least one short post here once a week. This won't be a fully researched article. Instead it will be a short hint about some aspect of either Blogger or blogging in general- in short a Weekly Blogging Tip.
To start with, I've made a list of potential topics, but I'd love hear your suggestions about aspects of blogging where a quick post would be helpful - you know where to find the comments box ....
Friday, March 21, 2014
How to use Picasa-web-albums with your Google+ Page's photos

Thursday, March 20, 2014
How to give a Google+ page its own password and login-name

Tuesday, March 4, 2014
How to put put Posts into Pages in Blogger

Saturday, February 22, 2014
RSS feed reader options - the saga continues

Eventually I settled on TheOldReader. This had a few headaches - too many other people made the same choice, so they had performance problems. Then they were going to shut down. They they got help and weren't shutting any more. Now they've siaid that only the first 100 subscriptions are free, and that people need to pay to have more than this. The design still looks a bit clunky.
I may yet end up paying them $30/year - it's not unreasonable for the service. But OTOH, I don't see paying a small amount for any service as a guarantee that it will actually survive.
But in the meantime, I'm hunting for options again. Here's some info about what I've tried.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Setting up Google Analytics for a 2nd or later blog
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
AdSense Direct: A new way to sell direct advertising on your blog
Monday, January 20, 2014
Putting a picture on your blog as a Gadget
Friday, January 17, 2014
Google use Google-Sites, so we should too!
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Delete, change or re-format the "Showing posts with label" message.
Friday, December 13, 2013
How to show AdSense ads that are non-standard sizes
Friday, November 1, 2013
Finding the co-ordinates of a place in the new Google Maps

Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Adding tooltips or hover text to Blogger posts and gadgets
Monday, October 21, 2013
Stop Google from "fixing" pictures that are loaded through Blogger

How to let another person load pictures to your Picasa-web-album
Saturday, October 19, 2013
How to set up a Google+ profile for an existing Blogger account
Thursday, October 10, 2013
The "follow by email" gadget: an easy way to add an email subscription to your blog
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Dealing with the "Keyword not provided" problem in your statistics
Saturday, September 28, 2013
How to edit a picture in Picasa Web Albums or Google+ Photos

Friday, September 20, 2013
What is Creative-Kit, and how to use it

Tuesday, September 17, 2013
How to set up Twitter's "view summary" cards to work with Blogger posts

Thursday, September 12, 2013
How to automatically share every Blogger post you publish on your Google+ page or profile
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
How to embed a Google+ post into your blog post or website - and what happens when you do
Put a survey questionnaire in your blog, using Google Drive's forms tool
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
How to show pictures from Google Plus in any website

Friday, August 23, 2013
Get your blog-posts into Google's in-depth search results

Thursday, August 22, 2013
Removing the label values from the blog-post header or footer
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Webmaster tools Structured Data Testing Tool - helping bloggers who care about SEO

Thursday, August 8, 2013
How to replace a file in Google Drive with a new version
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
How to use Picasa-web-albums, without being re-directed to Google+ Photos

Monday, July 22, 2013
Where is the Blogger help forum now?
Thursday, July 18, 2013
How to make AdSense ads in your site load faster

Saturday, July 13, 2013
What is / was Google Friend Connect
Saturday, July 6, 2013
AdWords external keywords research tool is going to be retired
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
New Google+ badges and follow buttons can be used in Blogger

Wednesday, June 19, 2013
How to make a new category / folder in your The Old Reader subscriptions list
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Why enabling a mobile template just became more important to some bloggers

Sunday, June 9, 2013
How to install Facebook's Open Graph tags into Blogger
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Choosing a replacement for Google Reader

Tell Google more about the posts in your blog with Webmaster Central's Data Highlighter - now supporting more data types

Tuesday, June 4, 2013
How to access your Google Custom Maps after migrating to the new Google Maps

How to keep your Blogger password safe
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Google Buzz's last-gasp addition to your Google Drive

Tuesday, May 28, 2013
AdSense now allow changes to their advertisement code
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Setting up Google Analytics so it gets AdSense data from more than one blog or website

Monday, April 29, 2013
How to re-direct an old custom domain - and all its posts - to a new one
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Introducing Maps Engine Lite - a better tool for customizing maps
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Newer AdSense ad-unit sizes are now available inside Blogger

Monday, April 15, 2013
What happens to your blog if your Google account becomes inactive?
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
How to tick the "expand widgets" checkbox in Blogger's new template editor
Introducing Google's tools for measuring how fast your blog loads
Monday, April 1, 2013
Stop Twitter's "follow-me" spam in its tracks

Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Accessing Pinterest Analytics, and verifying your website with Pinterest

Saturday, March 16, 2013
Getting started with SEO, for Bloggers
Thursday, March 14, 2013
RIP, Google Reader. Google's March 2013 product cancellation summary.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
New resources and help-options for Google AdSense publishers

Friday, February 22, 2013
Easy professional translations for YouTube video captioning

Wednesday, February 20, 2013
A simple time-management tool for bloggers

Monday, February 18, 2013
What "Another blog or Google Site is already using this address" really means

Monday, February 4, 2013
The "Single-Slash Double-Dot" rule for identifying spam links in phishing emails
Friday, January 18, 2013
Custom-search-engine adds an "overlay" results layout
Saturday, January 12, 2013
A quick way to keep an eye on what is posted to interesting YouTube channels

Sunday, January 6, 2013
Stop Blogger offering to share your posts to Google+
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Remove sidebar background in the Travel template
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Teach Google-search about your blog with the Data Validator

Tuesday, December 18, 2012
How to find free pictures for your blog, using Creative-Commons search
Google product cancellations for December 2012
appear to have less impact on most Blogger users than their recent seasonal purges.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
New rule for how many AdSense ads per page - from Jan-2013

Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Google+ communities - another way to grow your blog's influence
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Limiting AdSense ad types for individual websites is now available

Thursday, November 22, 2012
Blog home-pages and mobile-templates: Do they work together?
Monday, November 19, 2012
How to make a blog into a real website
Monday, November 12, 2012
Using an URL from domainDiscount24 for a blog
Most of the information also applies to any who purchased a domain from Key Systems / DomainDiscount24 / dd24 and wants to use it for a Blogger blog.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Simpler - but more limited - AdSense sign-up for Blogger users

Friday, October 26, 2012
Add Google Drive's one-click-new icons to your blog or website

Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Stop spammy links from hurting your blog
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Creative Kit photo editor works in Google+, if not in Picasa

Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Making custom domains work without the www at the start
Monday, October 1, 2012
Google product cancellations for October 2012
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Google Groups now has a "My Discussions" view

Friday, September 28, 2012
Takeout now lets you download your own YouTube videos
Monday, September 24, 2012
Get notified about changes in popularity of pages on your blog/site.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Using a domain purchased from another domain registrar or blogging-platform for your Blogger blog
Desktop search turns a downward corner?

Monday, September 17, 2012
Google Affiliate Network has a widget for UK Bloggers
How to link posts together in Blogger
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Verifying blogs and their Google+ pages
Monday, September 10, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Post author is now the first person to save a post, not the first to publish it
In short, the post-author is set to the first Google-account that saves a post - not the first one that Publishes it.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Verify your Google + page to get more exposure in search results
It's actually been deleted from the blog (probably because it was supposed to be posted on the Google+ blog, not the AdSense one), but the original feed content is still available, for now, at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tuAm/~3/30qIWIcbTMk/social-fridays-gain-visibility-by.html
According to the feed, it's all about verifying Google + pages, ie making an official link between a page and a website. They say
Verifying your +page confirms that the +page actually belongs to you. Once your +page is verified, it’ll appear with a checkmark designed to help our users find what they’re looking for.
and
To verify your page, you need to
- Link your +page to your website: Fill out the ‘About’ section of your Google+ page, being sure to enter your site’s top-level URL.
- Link your website to your +page: Add a Google+ badge or code snippet to your site, ...
- Complete ... [the] verification request form.
- ... continue posting regularly to your +page ....
The verification form, at http://support.google.com/plus/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=page_verification&rd=1 states the conditions a little differently (boldness mine);
- Your Google+ page must be authorized by your commercial entity, organization, brand, or product.
- Your Google+ page’s profile must contain a link to your organization’s website.
- Your organization’s website must connect to your Google+ page, by adding the Google+ badge or by adding a snippet of code.
- A meaningful number of people must have added your Google+ page to their circles.
This will be simple enough for most of my sites - I own the website and the G+ page. Though it should be a little more challenging for one or two community groups that I do things for, where the ownership is a little ore "vague".
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
What bloggers need to know about Responsive Web Design
Some of the information is relevant for people who use other platforms (especially Wordpress) but much isn't, because Blogger does so much of this for us.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Mousetrap or gourmet cheeseboard - how are you treating your readers?
But maybe it's a good day to ask whether your blog is a murderous mouse-trap, a grotty greasy-spoon, or a luscious gourmet cheeseboard.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Google Blogger / Apps access to country-specific domains
To do this, they've partnered with a new-to-them domain registrar http://www.domaindiscount24.com - instead of eNom and GoDaddy, who they used before
If you buy a domain via Google Apps, and DomainDiscount24.com is the registrar, then
- It comes pre-set up to work with Google's tools (mail, apps, sites, etc)
- You need to use DomainDiscount24.com's administration tools if you want to make any changes to the domain set-up
- You continue to use Google Apps domain management tools to manage the Google Services that are available to users in the domain (eg enabling/disabling Blogger)
Can we use one of these domains for Blogger?
I'd guess so: I'm pretty sure that Sites, like Blogger, requires that the domain-registrar provide DNS-hosting and the ability to edit CNAME and ANAME records. You simply have to go through the same process that you need to use if you purchase a domain directly from any registrar.(I'm going to test this very soon, there's a .co.nz domain that I've been thinking about for a while>
Will they work automatically with Blogger?
Not always: domain setup is a complex thing, and it's hard to predict if you will get the dreaded "Another blog is already hosted as this address" message: I've purchased a domain via Google Apps before and and it work perfectly with Blogger - and I've had just the opposite experience, too.If you get stuck, try either
- Use the information in this recent article from Chuck at Nitecruzr (he's one of the best for resolving custom domain issues)
- Going to the Blogger Product Forum: explain your problem and URL and ask the experts there to take a look.
Can we use this new registrar to buy country-specific domains inside Blogger?
Not at the moment, and - there's been no announcement from Blogger about it.(Sideline: I just tested it, and found that eNom is no longer offered as an option for domain-purchase under Blogger's switch-to-custom-domain track. This means that GoDaddy, who not have a tool to make custom domain purchases easier, are now the only option inside Blogger - so I can see why Google might be looking to bring another registrar-partner on board.)
What domains are now available to purchase via Google Apps:
Global
.com .info .org .net .mobi .biz .name .cc .tv
Asia-Pacific
India: .in .co.in .org.in .net.in
New Zealand: .co.nz
Taiwan: .com.tw
Japan: .jp
Latin America
Colombia .co .com.co
Mexico: .com.mx .mx
Europe
Belgium: .be
Switzerland: .ch
Czech Republic: .cz
Germany / Deutchland .de
Spain / Espana .es and .com.es
Republic of Montenegro: .me (though it has obvious wider appeal to English speakers!)
The Netherlands .nl
Poland .pl
Are domains for all countries available - why not?
There are still far more countries not on the list than on it.I'm not surprised that there is no sign of Ireland (.ie) on the list - these domains are hard to get. I do manage one .ie site with Blogger: the domain was obtained for a community group that doesn't have a company registration number, but which does have letterhead, a constitution and a well-connected chairman. For it, I've found that LetsHost.ie provides the necessary domain management tools and their support people were helpful and didn't turn up their noses when I told them I was using it for a Blogger site.
Disappointing ommissions: Australia (.com.au) and England/Britain (.co.uk) - I'm not sure what the story is with these, or which registrars provide the tools needed to let you use a domain purchased from them with blogger.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Tools for applying copyright protection to your blog
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Blogger and valid HTML code
Monday, August 13, 2012
Get ideas for your social media policy by reading other people's
This is mainly for bloggers who look after blogs-sites for companies, community groups, etc - basically any organisation. It came about because I started using Blogger to do the website for a choir that I sing in, and I needed to think about all the issues shown.
If you are having difficulty figuring out how you should use these tools together in your own setting, it might be heplful to look at some of the example social media policies listed on the Social Media Governance website. Some of these are from big companies and non-profits, but some are from far small outfits which might be like yours.
Remember, sometimes it doesn't matter what rules you follow - so long as everyone understands who does what, and acts consistently. Most problems happen when people have different expectations about who should do what, when and how.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Chitika now supporting all countries
Initially, their ads were only shown to website-visitors who were in the USA and Canada. That list extended a while ago. Now they say that they're available in all countries.
Actually, their post makes it sound like you can sign-up as a publisher no matter what country you are in. But I was signed up while they were still limited to showing ads to USA/Canada visitors, despite not being in those countries. So I'm pretty sure that they mean their ads will be shown in all countries.
Custom Search Engine improvements
Important features are:
- Search UI is rendered based on the settings stored on the Google CSE servers ... any configuration changes you make in the CSE control panel ...[are shown] on your web pages the next time they reload. ...
- All element code is loaded asynchronously for reduced page load times.
- Client-side customization allows you to overwrite global CSE settings on a per-page basis ...
Faster load time is very welcome - I've been noticing that custom search gadgets take a long time to load, relative to other things on my blogs.
And the first feature seems very handy - it means not having to copy-and-paste new CSE code whenever you change a CSE using the control panel. But this has a price: the existing code (in the best option for Bloggers) had two parts - one for where the seach box goes, and one for where the search results go. In the new code, there are still these two parts, but each one has two sections: one section that needs to be added to the header and one to the place (usually a widget for Bloggers). That means:
- Four separate pieces of code to install
- Installing means editing the template as well as adding a gadget
- If you change your template, you need to remember to re-install the CSE code too.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Six Reasons why SEO is irrelevant for your blog
It also has a simple guideline for deciding if a particular piece of SEO-advice is relevant for your blog.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Hiding the space where the navBar used to be
Friday, July 27, 2012
Blogger and Analytics adjusted-bounce-rate
I've just discovered that I was right after all: by default, Analytics counts all one-page-only visitors as bounces.
Google have now told us how to change this, and not count visitors as bounces if they stay on the site for a certain length of time (we can choose how long)
Unfortunately this option isn't fully available to Blogger users at the moment. We can either
1) Install Analytics in a way that it works properly with dynamic and mobile templates,
Thsi approach will most likely be supported if Blogger invent any other types of templates in the future, so is what I recommend now. GreenLava explains how to do this here.
OR
2) Install the Analytics code in the same way it gets put into other websites.
This won't count visitors who view the blog using a dynamic template (either because you choose one or because they added a command to your URL in order to see your blog that way).
And if you have enabled a mobile template, it will only count visitors using mobile devices if you have:
- Installed the Analytics code using an HTML/Javascript gadget (I've explaiend how to do this here)
- Edited your template so that gadget is "shown" on mobile templates (by default, HTML/Javascript gadgets aren't - I've explained how to change this near the end of this article)
So at the moment, our options for Blogger are to either count visitors properly and not see the adjusted bounce-rate, or undercount the visitors but get the custom-adjusted bounce rate.
Have all your posts been added to Google search results yet?
The quick way is to search for site:YOUR-BLOG-NAME and see how many results are returned. If it's roughly the same as your number of published posts, then you're about right. But what if it's not?
For example, if I google
site:blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.comI get
About 385 results(0.26 seconds)
However I've only 226 published posts in blogger-hints-and-tips. That tells me there's a problem with content being indexed more than once. Looking at the results, I can see the problem immediately: my dynamic-views have been indexed (goodness only knows why) - but also, my archive pages appear to have been indexed.
For a more in-depth analysis, though, Webmaster Tools now has an Index Status feature, which is particularly useful if there are less pages indexed than published posts, because it shows you if it's always been like that, or if there has been a change at some time which led to a lot of your posts being removed from Google's index.
To use it:
- Log in to Webmaster tools with the Google account that has administrator rights to the blog.
- If you haven't verified the account before, you may need to do this.
(Google have said before that blog-owners are automatically verified, but I've found a few times that this hasn't quite worked - I've had to manually verify by installing a meta-tag that they provide)
- Look under the Health tab for Index Status. It shows a graph of the number of pages indexed vs date for (up to) the last year.
Looking at the graph, if:
- the line is flat and you havn't made posts at that time, or
- you have been posting and the line is going upwards,
then it probably means that all your posts are being crawled and indexed (and so can be found in google searches).
But if there's a different pattern, the advanced tab might be helpful. It shows:
- the number of pages indexed
- the cumulative number of pages crawled,
- the number of pages that Google knows that it couldn't look at because they are blocked by robots.txt, and
- the number of pages that were not selected for inclusion in search results.
These numbers are point-in-time totals, not numbers of additions.
Note the important difference: the first graph shows pages indexed (ie added to Google). The advanced one shows pages crawled. If Google crawls a page and finds it hasn't changed since last time they looked at it, then they don't bother indexing it again.
If some of your posts aren't in Google anymore, and the graph of pages indexed has a sudden drop, then most likely a change that you made at that time has caused a problem with indexing or includign your results.
Of course just knowing when things happened doesn't tell you why they happened. In my case, I remember adding the Archive gadget into Blogger-HAT's layout. Obviously I didn't stop the pages from getting indexed (though it does make me bitter and twisted that Google doesn't just handle this for us!)
What this does point out, though, is that if you're serious about managing your site for maximum searchability (SEO-friendliness), you should keep a note of the date and time of any structural changes you make, so that you can compare this with diagnostic tools and see if there's a link between the changes and changes in your visits, indexing etc.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Stop AdSense showing you the ads you hate the most
For about three months after I got back, Google remembered that I'd looked for this and kept showing me ads from other van-hire companies. Not only were they irrelevant (since I wasn't looking for a hire-van anymore), they really reminded me that I in the office on the other side of the world in wintertime, instead of on the beach in the sun at home. This didn't exactly generate warm-fuzzy feelings towards the advertiser (NZ Van Hire, I hate you with a passion .. and you didn't even do anything!)
This was a lose-lose-lose-lost situation:
- The advertiser was wasting ad-impressions showing me ads even though I was no longer in the market to hire a camper-van. And they really annoyed me to the extent that they're unlikly to get my business next time I go home, because I've linked their brand to negaive feelings.
- The publisher - was wasting valuable screen-space showing me ads that there was no chance I would click - so they lost potential income.
- Google: there was no chance that I'd click those ads for something I didn't want any more, so they didn't get a cut of the revenue either.
To help address this, Google are introducing a “mute this ad” icon on AdSense ads. This will let us tell Google which ads we don't want to see.
How will it work:
- A small [x] will be put in the corner of some display ads on the Google Display Network.
- When a website-visitor clicks the [x], sees confirmation page shows, explaining that the advertisement has been "muted", and linking to the Ad Preferences Manager. And after that, ads from that campaign aren't shown to that person in future.
This is being rolled-out over the next few weeks, and won't be applied to all ads to start with. (And I'm describing it based on Google's description - haven't actually seen it myself yet.)
It's not a guarantee you won’t see that ad again -- the ad could be shown by a different company or in a separate campaign. But it's a start.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Where to get the HTML code for popular gadgets in Blogger
Monday, June 18, 2012
Custom Search Engine ad block background color changes
It looks like we cannot control this colour - it's been chosen to "contrast in a visually appealing way with the default [or user-selected] background color".
In at least one of my blogs, though, the contrast between the ad-background colour and the outer background color selected in blogger isn't quite so "appealing". :-(
I'm still considering whether to change my outer background, or to experiment with different CSE custom styles to see if one is a better fit. Luckily most of my in-post features have been set up with CSS rules, so I can change them easily by adding a new CSS rule to my template.
Google Advertisers Network - now has UK advertisers
(When you're looking for them, don't forget to set Relationship status to "available", instead of the default "approved".)
Fingers crossed some of these will also be suitable for my Ireland-focussed blog!
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Knowing about better pictures Google Maps & Earth
Google's new Follow Your World service tells you just that.
In short, you sign up with your google account, and register to get email alerts when new images for a specific point are availabe in Google Maps or Earth.
Unfortunately you need to select on specific point, not an area, so there's a risk that you might miss updated if you're just a few metres out. But it's beta at the moment, so this may change in future
I haven't seen an official announcement, but it's mentioned in this post on the latLong blog
More info in Google Trends Hot Searches lists
- The list of searches is more visual,
- Related rising search terms are grouped
- You can see more information about those searches
Even if you don't want to blog about these topics, you might like to check them before you post, in case you can associate your somewhat-related post to something that lots of people are looking for right now (which is what Google means by "hot"). Search traffic gained this way may or may not be useful for building long term readership, but can be a nice short-term boost.
Monday, June 11, 2012
How to put a working Twitter message into your blog
Friday, June 8, 2012
Wordle tag clouds - a logo maker for hard-to-illustrate blogs?
Today I discovered Wordle - a tool that creates free-to-use graphic arrangements from lists of words - for example the words used in a website. http://www.wordle.net/create
Here's one for Blogger-HAT, to give you an idea - but there are lots of options and customizations, so lots of looks that can be achieved.
After you've made a wordle, the easiest way (IMHO) to get it into your blog is to do a screenshot, then use Paintbrush (or some other very simple picture-editor) to save it as a PNG file). The it can be loaded to your blog like any other picture.
Monday, June 4, 2012
How to put a gadget into a post in Blogger
Content Experiements in Analytics
It claims to
helps you optimize for goals you have already defined in your Google Analytics account, and can help you decide which page designs, layouts and content are most effective.
I'm not sure how possible it will be for Blogger users to use it - suspect that it may need some serious template editing at lease.
Translations - and better translations
I've also found that by getting the gadget code from Translate, I'm offered the chance to track translations using Analytics. I'm not sure if this is an improvement over the standard widget or not, ie whether it perhaps picks up my code itself. Suspect not though, 'cos part of installing the gadget-code from Google involved adding their meta-tag to my template.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Planning how to use your blog VS your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, G+, etc: what is each one for?
It includes a template that you can use to record your own group's decisions about how to use these tools, and a worked-example.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Docs research panel beats Zemanta gadget
To use it:
- Select a word
- Right-click the word
- Choose Research from the tools menu.
Or just select the word and hit the key-combo ( Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows or Cmd+Alt+R on Mac) if you think mice are evil time-wasters.
This is a far better than the Zemanta gadget that was offered to Blogger users back in 2010; research is done only on the words you want researched, not everything that you're writing. My experience was that the latter approach slowed my machine down horribly, and mostly added no value because it just distracted me from what I wanted to write. Other people seemed to feel the same way, and for a while How to disable Zemanata in blogger was popular reading.
Personally, I'm not sure research-pane will be enough to convince me to write my posts in Docs and load them to Blogger from there: a lot of my research is about "how does Blogger handle this", which I can only find out my testing it. But it will be a very handy tool for bloggers in some niches.
A couple of things to be aware of: the pane offers you imagees that you can "drag into your document", and it add footnotes saying where the image has come from. But the last time I loooked, documents loaded from Docs to Blogger didn't maintain footnotes. And even so, if the image is copyright, you can't get permission to use it in your blog just by linking to the source.