This article is about the relationship between your RSS feed and the Publish button, and ways of using Blogger to reduce the chances of readers seeing something that you didn't want to publish yet.
Some of your RSS subscribers only see the first version of each post that you publish, not the most recently edited one.
Even if you delete a post from your blog shortly after publishing it, the published version is still in your RSS feed and will be seen by people who read it. (I've heard that some feed-aggregator / reader tools do delete items, however some eg Google Reader, don't.)
Personally, I took a long time to understand the consequences of this: When I started blogging, I Published early-and-often while I was writing each post, so I could see what it "felt" like. (The Preview button, because it shows you the "look" but not the latest content, and editing the content was important to me.) This meant that subscribers saw very early, drafty versions of my posts, so many of them decided to unsubscribe pretty quickly.
Even after I understood, I still occasionally hit Publish by accident. And my writing wasn't good, because I find it hard to proof-read properly in the post-editor.
So far I've found two ways of using Blogger that can address this problem.
Option 1: Turn the blog-feed off, except when you publish the final version
Posts are only sent out in your blog's feed if the feed is turned on. So every time you want to work on a post:
Turn the feed off (Settings > Site Feed > Allow Blog Feeds = None)
Work on your post, Publishing it as you like
Save the Post as Draft (so it's status is back to draft again)
Turn the feed on (Settings > Site Feed > Allow Blog Feeds = anything except None)
Or you could keep Allow Blog Feeds = None, turn it on every time you publish a post for the first time, and turn it off again afterwards.
This is particularly good approach if you have a lot of email subscribers via Feedburner - because that tool is currently (Dec 2010) sending out an update every time a post is published or updated, instead of just for every "new" publication (ie one that changes the post-status from Draft to Published).
However it's very manual, and there's always a risk that you might forget to turn the feed on or off at the right moment.
Option 2: Prepare posts in a separate blog
This is my preferred approach, and now there are at least three different "blogs" for each blog I that run:
The blog (what IT professionals call "production")
A documentation blog, where I keep my notes about how it's put together
A pre-publication blog, when I keep posts that are being worked on.
Private (Settings > Permissions > Blog readers = Only Blog Authors)
Not listed (Settings > Basic > Add your blog to our listings = No)
Not indexed (Settings > Basic > Let search engines find your blog = No)
Not listed on my Blogger Profile (Dashboard > Edit Blogger Profile > Select blogs to display)
At various times, if I'm preparing for template changes or adding new features, I may also have test-blogs. These are always set to Private too.
When I'm preparing a post, I work on it in the "pre-production" blog, and can Publish it as many times as I like. Then when it's complete, I simply copy the post from the pre-prod blog to the real one, and publish it once.
A big benefit is that if I get an idea about a potential post, I can just go to the pre-publication blog and make a very quick note about it: the writing and research quality doesn't matter, because I'm the only person who sees it.
The one thing I need to do is to always check and re-check the blog I'm about to post in, every time I hit "Publish": the day after I first released this post was the first time in ages that I accidentally published a draft post to this blog (subscribers will have seen it come through the feel) .... very embarrassing indeed!
Have you found other ways to avoid problems like this?
This article is about why and how to attach keywords and related text to the pictures in your blog posts. This is helpful for both search engine optimisation (SEO), and for making your blog accessible to people who use screen-reader software.
In most cases, the other content in each post provides enough information for Google's indexing tools to know what the post is aobut.
But if your blog mainly has photos, your posts may not have enough key words to get properly indexed. And even if the image-indexing tools do some auto recognition, a description of a picture written by a human being will almost always be better.
Also, if your blog-viewers may include visually impaired people or others who use screen-reader software, you need to think about how well your content will work for them: if you put key information inside images but not in the text, then they won't be able to get this information in any way.
These two good reasons for adding "alternate text" to your pictures - and there may be more.
What's even better is that Blogger now has a tool for to make it easy to fix this.
How to add captions and alt-text to your pictures
Add the picture to your Post.
In Compose mode, float your most over the picture. This will show the picture-editing-toolbar, like this:
Choose the Properties option.
This opens a dialog box where you can enter
A title - this is shown when a visitor hovers their mouse over the picture
Alt text - this is kept in the background, and only displayed to people who (for whatever reason) cannot see the picture.
What your readers will see
People who read your blog on line, either with a standard browser or an RSS feed reader, won't see anything different, until they hover over the photo. When they hover, they will see the text you put into the Title field.
People who read your blog in their email (because you've offered a subscribe-by-email option) may see the alt text instead of the picture, depending on what setting they have in their email system.
People who use screen reader software will have the text that you added read out to them in the usual way that their software works.
And most importantly, search engines will see the text you added, and hopefully the will use it in indexing your post.
Other Alternatives:
Picasa and Picasa-web-albums captions can be included in slideshows (provided you don't use the Blogger gadget), but aren't included with individual pictures.
And the Post and Pages editor also has an Add Caption option on the photo toolbar, although I only recommend using if you're comfortable editing HTML, because it puts the picture into a table, and so to move it inside the post you need to edit the code, not just drag-and-drop it.
This article is about how to add the FeedCount icon, which shows viewers how many subscribers your FeedBurner feed has, and lets them subscribe themselves. The information is targeted at Blogger users, but most of it applies to anyone who uses Feedburner.
Feedburner also provides another tool that you can use to let people sign up for your blog. This is the FeedCount icon, which shows the number of people who are currently subscribed to your RSS feed.
This is useful because of the "social proof" that it provides: people are more likely to sign up for something once they see that other people have also signed up.
How to add a FeedCount icon to you blog:
Log in to Feedburner, using the Google account that owns the feed.
Click on the name of the feed you want to provide a subscription tool for.
Choose the Publicize tab.
Choose the FeedCount option, from the left navigation bar.
Set the options for your button:
Static or animated (I recommend static, because things that flick unnecessarily are annoying)
Font colour for the background
Font color for the text
At the bottom of the screen, click the Activate button.
Either
Copy the HTML that is shown, and add it to your blog in the same way that you would add any other 3rd party HTML,
OR
Choose Blogger from the drop down list beside "use as a widget in", and click Go.
This takes you to a Blogger screen where you can choose which blog you want to add the gadget to (if your current login has more than one), and what title to use for it.
When this is done, click Add Widget.
This takes you to the Design > Layout tab, where you can drag-and-drop the widget to wherever you want it.
Note: if you want to re-generate the button at a later time with different colour or style options, just choose the options and click Save (which is at the bottom of the screen where Activate was originally).
What your readers see:
Your readers will see an item, wherever you put it, that looks like this:
It shows a count of the current number of subscribers to your Feedburner feed.
When someone clicks on it, they are taken to a screen where they choose which feed-reader software they want to use to subscribe to your site.
Hashtags can be automatically generated based on the Labels you have applied to your post: Feedburner is a Google product, so it understands and can access all the data-structures that Blogger uses to organise your posts.
You can control various other options, including excluding some categories of post from your twitter-feed
You can add some standard text to either the beginning or end of each twitter-message
It saves you time, because you don't have to manually tweet your posts.
A word about Accounts:
Using this feature can involve up to three different accounts:
The Google account that writes the post (may be an author or an administrator - of if you're using mail2Post, it could be neither)
The Google account that owns the feed (because you can burn a feed of a blog-site that you don't own)
The Twitter account that tweets the message about the blog post.
Think carefully about what Twitter account to use: if your blog is personal, then your personal Twitter account is obvious. In other cases, it depends on your niche, and the relationship between the blog and the rest of your life. If the blog isn't tied to your individual identity, or you don't want to bother most of your personal friends with it, then it may be best to set up a spearate account for it, like I have for @BloggerHAT.
As a general rule, if Facebook's rules say that you need to set up a Page rather than a Profile for what you are writing about, then you should probably have a separate Twitter account for it..
Currently the Socialise service only allows sending a feed to one Twitter account. It looks like you should be able to change the Twitter account by clicking Add a Twitter account, and having the new Twitter account replace the current one. but currently this is failing. This means that there is no way to remove a twitter account from your Feedburner / Socialise set-up. If you need to stop the auto-tweets, deactivate the service, or perhaps just delete the whole feed or Twitter account.
How to set up auto-tweeting:
Log in to Feedburner, using the Google account that owns the feed
Click on the name of the feed you want to work with.
Choose the Publicize tab
Choose Socialise (currently from the left side of the screen)
Click Add a Twitter account,.
This opens a official Twitter screen where you enter the name and password of the Twitter account that you want to use for tweeting your posts. (If you are already logged in to Twitter, it defaults to the current account, but there is a Sign-out option on the screen that lets you change accounts.)
Clicking Allow gives permission for Google (ie Feedburner) to post to this account, and returns to you the Feedburner options screen.
Each twitter message can only be 140 characters long, so the service will need to automatically summarise your post. There are options for you to choose whether this is done from the title along, or from the title+content.
There are some other options too
Include a link to the post or not (I can't think of a good reason not to do this)
Use hashtags (created from Labels) or not (this depends on how Labels have been used in your blog: I have it turned on for this blog, but not for one of my other blogs where I have used Labels mainly for internal administration purposes)
Adding some standard text and the start or end of each tweet
Leaving space for re-tweets (ie making the original less than 140 characters long): I'd suggest selecting this, as a lot of the value of Twitter comes from people sharing what you have said.
A maximum number of items (meaning Posts, I think) to include in each tweet: I think this only applies if you post more than once per day, and for BloggerHAT I've set it to 1.
Check the the Sample Item Preview section at the the bottom of the page: this shows you how your recent Posts would look in twitter with the options you have selected.
When you are happy with the options selected, click Activate to start the service.
You will know that the change has been made because the word Socialise (in the left navigation bar) has a small tick beside it. Check for this - it's very easy to miss the Activate button because it's at the bottom of the screen and you have to scroll to get to it.
What your readers see:
People who read your blog through the browser or via email subscription will not notice any difference.
People who are following your Twitter account will start to see regular tweets each time that you make a new Post, or that an existing Posts is re-sent though your blog's Feed.
Twitter users who don't follow your blog, but who happen to search for either the hashtags or keywords that are in your tweets may see your message in their search results. If it's helpful, they may click on the link to your post, and hopefully will become regular readers or subscribers.
(Remember Pages do not go through the feed, so will not be tweeted.)
Post-title == twitter-message
Once your posts are being auto-tweeted, the contents of the twitter-message depends on the title of your post. So you need to really focus on the keywords in the title, to make sure that you get a sensible 140 character message sent in your twitter-stream.
To use it, you need to establish an ChipIn event, finalise your ChipIn widget and install it onto your blog. The following notes describe the process.
There are four steps:
Setting up the details of the specific "chipIn"
Associating the new "ChipIn" with an existing ChipIn account, or registering a new one if you don't have one already.
Customising the widget to be used for the ChipIn
Placing the widget into your blog or website.
Note: ChipIn lets you use a page on their system to promote your event. This could be handy if you don't have a blog, or want to do something good that's outside your usual niche. This facility isn't covered here, as I'm assuming that people who are reading this article want to integrate ChipIn with Blogger.
How long it should run for (ie what date it should end on)
The PayPal account being used to collect the funds
Click Start your Event
Linking the ChipIn event to an account:
Either log in to ChipIn (if you already have an account) or Sign-up. To sign up for ChipIn you need to:
Enter a valid email address (which doesn't need to the the same as the PayPal account that's collecting the funds)
Receive a validation email
Click on a validation link in the email
Enter your full name, and (optionally) the organisation name that you'd like contributors to see
Set a password (the usual security precautions apply - I wouldn't be using the same password on this as I used on PayPal, given that I just told them my PayPal account name).
Do a simple text captcha test
Clicking Get Started implies that you accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy: you should review them.
Click Get Started.
Create your widget:
Click Get a Widget,
Select which of your ChipIn's to use (you can have several of them going at the same time)
Configure the widget:
Enter a title (which shows at the top of the widget)
Enter some background info (which shows inside the widget body)
Choose a size (many of the usual sizes for advertising items are available)
Choose a colour scheme (five options: Blue, green, brown, red or grey. You can't choose the colour of individual items within this)
Select where you want to put the widget:
If you click Blogger, you need to scroll down to see the code. The on-screen instructions say how to put the gadget into a post. But you can equally well put it into a gadget - it's just like adding other third party HTML to your blog.
Select Other if you just want the HTML code so you can place it into any website that you control
Note: currently, if you select Wordpress, the system just says "Note that the widget will not work on hosted WordPress blogs (blogs at yourname.wordpress.com), as widgets are not allowed there." - this suggests that no one has developed an add-on for it yet. But you may want to check with Wordpress support to see if anyone has done one.
Copy the code that is provided, and intstall it into your blog. It might look something like this:
Notice that the gadget doesn't say that payments are done using PayPal: I strongly suggest mentioning PayPal in the text near the gadget, so that you are giving readers assurance this is is something they can trust.
Some people believe it has advantages over the PayPal "donate" button and similar tools:
It organizes giving into campaigns (which can be used to motivate donors and organisers into giving "now" rather than "one day")
It has a progress bar, so everyone can see what's been donated already - again, this is another tool that can be used to encourage potential donors to actually take action.
It has tools for reporting on who contributed, so you know who to thank later on, and
If a particular campaign doesn't meet its target (eg "Let's raise $1000 to send Jimmy to Disneyland"), the funds can easily be sent back to the donors without the organiser having to keep records about who donated what. (I don't, yet, know if the organiser finds out the details of who donated what, or if this is anonymous.)
ChipIn Inc is the company that makes and runs the widgets, aggregates donations, gives you management reports, and (eventually) pays the donations to you. Though most of us think of "chipping in" as something we do (ie a verb), they've re-defined it as noun, saying that a "chipin" is
"an event in which funds from multiple participants are pooled and are either sent to a recipient, or are used to purchase a gift."
The ChipIn approach has these roles that a person, or business, can play:
Organiser: this is the person/business who creates the ChipIn event, puts the associated widget onto a website, and, when the fund-raising event is over, receives the donations. Organisers must register with ChipIn
Donor / Participant: a person or business who gives money using the widget. Participants do not have to register with ChipIn in order to donate.
Beneficiary: this is the target of the money. ChipIn has no connection with them at all.
A ChipIn event ends by reaching a the goal amount of money that was set for it, by reaching the end date, or because the organiser decides to end it. When it ends, ChipIn transfers donations from participants to the organiser "in the form of cash, gift cards, prepaid debit cards, services or merchandise". The cash is actually transferred via PayPay (or perhaps via a credit card account - I'm not certain if this is still an option).
But if the event wasn't successful (ie it hasn't reached the target), then the organiser decides what happens to the donations: if they want, ChipIn will refund all the donations to the participants.
Is ChipIn safe and reliable?
There are plenty of dubious third-party gadgets on the internet, so I'm normally fairly sceptical about ones I haven't heard of before.
I've done some Googling, and haven't found any negative reviews about ChipIn (yet). There are some positive reviews out there, and it looks like it's been around for a while. I've had a test widget installed for a week or so, and haven't noticed negative effects on my blog. And their donations and payments are done using PayPal, which is a service that most people now regard a trustworthy.
But there are a few issues you need to be aware of:
1) Most web-services like this ask you to log in first, and then to create the "whatever" that they are offering. ChipIn reverses this, making signing-up look very easy. But it means that ChipIn Inc collect the email address of your PayPal account before you find how much other information you also have to provide. This isn't enough to stop me from using it, but it's worth being aware of.
2) The email address you use to sign into ChipIn is displayed when people click ChipIn to start to make a donation. This is a good security feature if you're collecting among a group of friends (they know that the person behind the widget they're using really is their friend Fred@Fish.com). But it may not be the effect that a blogger who's trying to stay anonymous is looking for.
This can be worked around: just set up a single-purpose email address just for ChipIn, and set it to auto-forward messages to your regular address. But it's something you should be aware of.
But another weakness of the sign-up process is that there are some quite significant ones buried deep in the fine print, including:
If the organiser is an individual, he or she is 18 years old or older, and a resident of the United States
If the organiser is a business, they are allowed to do business in the United States
Organizers authorize ChipIn to confirm that a payment instrument listed by an organizer on the service registration web page is in good standing with the issuing U.S. financial institution by submitting a request for a payment authorization and/or a low dollar credit or debit to the payment instrument and by other confirmation means. This is close to a direct quote: It's basically saying that they can check out your PayPal account when they register by putting through a low-value transaction. It's possible that this condition is from a time when the service didn't use PayPal. But it does seem like a very broad condition for initial registration, especially since it's so deeply hidden.
Organizers also authorize ChipIn to obtain credit reports and to otherwise make credit or other background inquiries on organizers as ChipIn deems appropriate to assess an organizer’s eligibility for the service, or to review the organizer’s continued use of the service. This is also close to a direct quote: It's basically saying that ChipIn can do a credit check on you when you register.
Some other terms and conditions that aren't so significant, but are worth being aware of :
You can't use the ChipIn logo etc (except as it's shown in the widget) for anything else unless you get their permission.
ChipIn events may be deleted if they have frivolous content or unrealistic targets.
You can't post anything which might be offensive or illegal, or which affect the safety or rights of other users and members. This includes:
Things for commercial purposes, (eg contests and sweepstakes), without permission
Anything that misleads people
ChipIn doesn't get involved in disputes between organisers and contributors.
NOTE: this is an excerpt of my interpretation of the T&C's as at today. It may or may not be correct and up to date. It's most certainly NOT a legal opinion or analysis. Always consult ChipIn's official documents to get the true and correct statement, and a lawyer if you need legal advice.
Transaction Fees
Using ChipIn is free - I'd guess it's funded by advertising, merchandise sales, and (the biggie) interest from donations in between the time that they're made and when the event ends.
But PayPal is used for transactions, and regular PayPal fees apply. At the moment, these are
30c plus 2.9% if you're receiving $US,
30c + 3.9% if you're receiving other currencies.
These amounts are relatively small if you're getting reasonable-sized donations (eg receiving $US10 cost you 30 + 29 = 59c). But if there's any chance that people could donate very small amounts (eg 50c), you may find that most of the donation is used up in fees. Worst case, malicious people start donating less than 30c, meaning that their "donation" will actually cost you money.
For most people, this won't be enough to stop them using the service. But it is something to keep in mind.
Other things to consider:
Other items on your blog
If you also run other advertising or donation items on your blog, you may need to consider whether seeking donations for causes could conflict with the terms and conditions of your advertising. I don't think it conflicts with AdSense, although if you are encouraging your users to click your ChipIn widget, you need to be very careful that the couldn't get confused into thinking you were saying to click the regular ads.
Declare the proportion of donations that don't get to the cause
Many people consider that it's good fund-raising practice to tell potential donors about the proportion of their donations that are used for administration and so don't reach the beneficiary. If you do this, don't forget to mention the PayPal fees.
Widget Ownership
A ChipIn event or widget effectively belongs to your ChipIn account, and is tied to your PayPal account. If you ever transfer ownership of your blog to someone else, it would be good to remove all ChipIn widgets from it, so the new owner has a clean start. Or at very least make this a part of your negotiations over the change-of-ownership.
Getting a collection started
The system won't let you contribute to your own event, so (unlike most real-world collections) you can't pop in a few dollars to get people over the "I don't want to be first" factor. So unless you have two PayPal accounts, you'll need to ask a friend to make an initial contribution.
The widget doesn't show up in feed-readers
Readers who view your article through an RSS-tool (eg Google Reader, Bloglines) won't see the gadget: you may want to put in a sentence telling them to go to your blog to see it.
See how it works:
Click the ChipIn button in the widget on the right, to see what happens when a reader starts the donation process.
There's no need to donate.
But if you do have a PayPal account and fancy putting in 50c, it would give me the opportunity to investigate how the reports work.
This article is about how to stop people who read your blog from clicking on a picture and seeing a full-size copy of it.
Currently, if you put a picture into a blog post using the Picture toolbar item, and someone reading your blog clicks on that picture, then the person sees a full-size copy of the picture. There is no universal setting that you can apply to stop this happening, or even an easy way to stop it for specific pictures.
But you can stop it for each picture in a post by editing the HTML that is behind the post and removing the href part of the picture statement. If you're not sure what that means, read on.
2 Find some unique text that is immediately before (or after) the picture - you will use this to locate the HTML for the picture among all the other HTML used to make up your post. Sometimes, I put "XXX" or some other marker text (ie text that isn't used anywhere else in the post) just before it (and take it out again afterwards too!).
3 Click HTML - it's a tab at the top corner of the Post Editor window.
4 Find the unique text (use your browser's Find tool, eg Edit > Find in Firefox)
5 Then find the HTML-code for the picture which will be just before (or after) that. It looks something like this (some settings may be different in yours):
<img border="0" src="THE URL WHERE THE SOURCE PICTURE IS READ FROM" />
</a>
Job Done!
At this point, you might Publish your post, or you might want to edit it some more - for example by adding alt-text or a title to the pictures, or by showing your pictures in a slideshow.
Either way, I recommend switching back to Compose mode now (using the Compose button at the top right of the editor), so that you don't get confused the next time you edit a post.
This article is no longer current. It was about setting up AdSense on a domain that you own, but are not using. However this feature of AdSense was withdrawn in early 2012, so the feature is no longer available. The information below was correct until then, but has not been update since.
What is AdSense for Domains
Sometimes, you may own a domain, but not actually want to use it for a blog-site as yet. I'm currently working on one new blog for which I found a very appropriate, and available URL. It won't be ready to be public for a month or more, but I've purchased the domain-name now so that someone else doesn't take it: A lot of the design etc is based around the quirky name, and a lot of work would need to be re-done if I waited and tehn couldn't get the site-name that I want.
Or you may find you own a domain-name that doesn't actually work for what you wanted it to: either your don't want to keep the site on-line, or people don't like the domain name. But you still own it until the current paid period runs out. (Don't forget to disable auto-renewal in this case.)
An option that you have is to show paid advertisements on the domain in the meantime. This may earn some advertising revenue - and (for domains-in-waiting) it gives an insight into the number of "natural" visitors that a domain gets without any promotion or links. These visitors can some either through people guessing the URL, or following broken hyperlinks set up when the URL was used for something else.
If you're already signed up to be an AdSense publisher, then AdSense for Domain is an easy choice for putting advertising onto domain like this.
The Rules:
You need to check the terms and conditions: here are the full T&C's for AdSense for Domains.
As always with AdSense, clicking your own ads isn't allowed.
But there are some extra conditions too:
You can't use it with domain URLS that are adult/sexual, promote hate, are overly rude, relate to weapons, alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, about other illegal things or sensitive current events, or which infringe trademarks (even if it's just with apparent typos).
Also, with AdSense for Domains, you're not allowed to promote the domain. So when you're ready to start publicizing the URL on other websites, you need to take AdSense for Domains off it. I'd assume that this is true even if the publicity clearly says "available next week" or similar.
These are just some of the rules - make sure you read the full details before you get started.
Setting up AdSense for Domains:
(These instructions are based on the new - Nov 2010 - AdSense interface. The process is very similar in the old menus, although the command names and positions may be slightly different.)
Log into AdSense with your main account. (For me, this is not always the one that purchased the domain, but it is always the one that paid for it via Google Checkout. There may be some complications later on if your Google account that has AdSense wasn't the same one that paid for the domain.)
Go into the My Ads tab
Choose Domains from the left-hand menu.
Click the New Hosted Domain button, which is at the top of the list of domains.
Enter the name(s) of the domain(s) that you want to set up AdSense for Domains for (or upload a comma-separated-values file listing them, if there are a lot). Use the naked format, eg your-domain.com, not www.your-domain.com
Choose the language that most sense for people who might visit this domain. (eg the domain I've parked at the moment is named with a word from the English language, so I've chosen English).
Click the Add Domains button
The system shows a pop-up box, either telling you that the domain was successfully added, or that there is a problem you need to resolve.
There will also be a message that "To begin serving ads, you must now point your domains to our servers. Follow the Domain Setup Guide to complete the setup process for each hosted domain that you have added."
If you bought your domain through Blogger (and probably through other Google products, eg Sites as well) can ignore this message to start with and close the window.
But if you purchased the domain another way (including directly from GoDaddy or eNom), you need to read the Domain Setup Guide, and take whatever actions are recommended.
Clicking the View the Domain Setup Guide opens it in an new window/tab (depending on your browser). --- except that right now, it shows a message saying "We are sorry but the information that you have requested cannot be found. Please try searching or browsing the help centre". If you get this, just search for the Domain Setup Guide using the search field on the screen.
Closing the pop-up takes you back to the My Ads > Domains listing. There will be a new entry on the list, with status "DNS verification pending".
Under the domain-name, there are links for Details (which shows you what the DNS entries need to be), and Request verification.
After you have set up the correct DNS entries with your domain registrar (or immediately, if you purchased via Blogger et al), click on the Request Verification link. This sends a message to AdSense/Google, asking them to check that your domain setup is correct.
Wait: there will be a delay (perhaps 2-3 days), while Google check that it is valid for you to display ads on this domain (remember those rules from the Terms and Conditions section - it seems that they do check), and that your DNS settings are correct.
If a problem is found, this screen will show a message about this, and tell you how to resolve it.
And once AdSense for Domains is enabled, the status changes to Active.
Note: I said above that if you purchased the domain via Google, you don't actually need to do any further setup. This has been true for three of the four parked URLs that I've put AdSense-for-Domains onto. For the most recent one, I found that Google didn't automatically put the right value into the CNAME. I'm not sure if this was because I hadn't set up a domain administrator account when I tried to enable AdSense for Domains, or for some other reason. Either way, I had to go into the Google Apps control panel for the domain (logged in as the domain administrator), get the details for accessing the domain registrar (in this case GoDaddy), and then go in to the registrar control panel and edit the CNAME record to include my AdSense ID. This wasn't actually hard (Google and GoDaddy's instructions were good) but it may seem a little frightening if it's not the sort of thing you're used to doing.
Stay calm, read the error messages carefully, work slowly and if you get stuck pop into the Blogger (if you purchased the domain that way) or AdSense help forums.
Testing and customizing AdSense for Domains:
Once the status is Active, test your domain by viewing it in your browser: it should display AdSense ads. (Remember not to click any!)
Back in the AdSense > AdSense Setup > AdSense for Domains tab, you can customise the look of the screen by selecting the domain (use the check-box to the left of the name), and choosing Actions > Edit from the menu items just above the domain list. This lets you:
Put the domain into a custom channel (for tracking performance)
Edit the keywords that are used to help choose what advertisements to show
This article is about the issues involved in deleting a Blogger blog.
Before you start:
If you need help with deleting a blog, make sure you understand the words that are used to describe things in Blogger (ref Blogger, Blogs and bloggers, Posts Pages and Screens: some basic definitions) - many people say "blog" when they really mean "post", and are then surprised when they follow some simple instructions and all their "blogs" (sic) disappear.
Also, make sure that you understand that your Blogger account is just a Google account (except for Blogger accounts created pre 2006). If you want to "delete" a Google account (not just a specific blog), think about whether you really need to delete it as opposed to just never logging in to it again.
Deleting a blog:
If you own the blog and know the password of the Google account
Log in to Blogger, using the owning account
In pre-Sept-11 Blogger: Choose Settings > Basic > Delete Blog.
In post-Sept-11 Blogger (aka the new interface): Choose Settings from the drop-down main menu, then Choose Other from the left-hand bar In the Blog-tools row, click Delete Blog.
Only do this if you want to delete the URL (ie blog address) and not use it again.
If you want to keep the URL, then just delete all the posts (see the next sections). If you want to give the URL to someone else, delete the posts and then transfer the ownership.
If the blog has an pictures stored in Picasa-web-albums, then they will not be deleted. If you want to delete them, you need either manage them from Picasa-web-albums directly, or delete all the posts individually (not using the bulk-selection method) before you delete the blog.
If you don't know the password
The first step, if you don't know the password is to use the the Forgotten Password screen, which asks for the blog's URL or the email address that you used to identify the Google account.
The very last option, if nothing else works, is to take Google's Account Recovery Exam. This attempts to re-connect you with the account using the email account that you had listed with it and/or any other security information that you (or Google) provided in the past.
You will need to convince Google that you really did make the blog: this could be difficult if you don't have access to the email address that you originally associated with the Blogger account, but it may not be impossible if you can answer some other security questions correctly. There may be cases where this seems harsh or unfair, but it's necessary so that Google doesn't start deleting blogs based on malicious requests from people who don't own them at all.
If your blog was created before 2006, you may not have converted your original Blogger account into a Google account. In this case, use the Legacy claim form.
If the blog belongs to someone else
You cannot generally get blogs that don't belong to you deleted, unless the person who published it is willing to delete it themselves - the first step is to try asking them.
Dealing with someone who is impersonating you or breaking Blogger's terms and conditions in some other way - in which case you need to use this workflow.
If the blog belongs to someone who has died
In this case, Google have a special procedure which lets the person who is legally responsible for the blog-owner's affairs get access to their Gmail account: once they have access to the Gmail account, they will also have access to the blog via www.blogger.com, so they can delete it as described above.
Note that this procedure requires the legal representative to:
Have an email account themselves, and
Have received a email message from the deceased person, and
Send in a copy of the full message header from this email message.
So, thinking ahead, if you want someone to be able to access your blog(s) after you have died, it's a good idea to make sure that you've emailed them from the Google account associated with the blog - or give them some other way to access your password(s).
Deleting blog-post(s), without deleting the blog:
To delete one blog post:
Log into the dashboard
In the list of Posts for the blog, hover the mouse over the title for the post: this lets you see links just underneath it for Edit, View and Delete: click the Delete link..
You will be shown a summary of the post and asked to confirm the delete.
If the post contains any photos that are stored in Picasa-web-albums, you will be asked if you want to delete them as well. If you do want to delete them, tick the check-box. It's not automatic because these photos may be used in other blogs or posts as well.
To delete many (or all) blog posts, but not the Blog/URL:
Log into the dashboard
In the pre-Sept-11 blogger inteface:Choose Posts > Edit posts, Use the tick-box at the left of the post titles to select all the posts you want to delete Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Delete
In the Sept-11 Blogger interface:In the list of Posts for the blog, use the tick-box at the left of the post titles to select the posts you want to delete. (There are links in the top row for selecting All, Published, etc) Click the trash-can icon at the very top of the list, just beside Revert to Draft..
The number of posts per screen is limited by a drop-down arrow at the top right, and defaults to (I think) 50: if your blog has more posts than you are displaying (some of mine have several hundred posts), then you may need to do this several times.
Removing a blog from your Profile:
If you have a blog that you don't want to delete, but which you do want to delete from your Blogger profile, then:
Log on to Blogger
In pre-Sept-2011 Blogger: From the Dashboard choose Edit Profile > Select blogs In post-Sept-2011 Blogger, from the drop down menu beside your email address in the top right hand corner of the dashboard, choose Blogger Profile
Un-tick the blogs that you don't want to show
Press Save Settings at the bottom of the page)
Deleting a Google account:
Make sure that you are certain you need to delete the Google account: in many cases, it may be safer to leave it in place, even though you never use it again.
To delete your Google Account, follow the instructions on this page.
The page doesn't say what will happen to your any Blogger blog(s) that you Google account owns. However at the moment it looks like the blog(s) are not deleted. If you want to delete the blogs, you must do this separately (see above), before you delete the account.
If the blogs contain pictures from Picasa-web-albums, these pictures may be deleted.
And if the blogs contain items from other Google-hosted products (eg Docs, custom-maps), then it's likely that these items will also be deleted.
This article is about using Feedburner to give your blog a "subscribe by email" option. It is targeted to Blogger users, but most of the information applies to any type of website.
An advantage of Feedburner over some feed-management tools is that it includes an email subscription option for people who don't actually want to use feed-reader software but do want to be told about changes to your site.
Services provided by Feedburner's email subscription tool include:
Giving you the code for a "subscribe by email" link to put into your blog
Receive the email addresses that people enter after clicking on the subscribe link.
Checking that the email-address owner really did sign up (ie that it wasn't just someone else signing up for them), by sending a validation email and checking the response
Putting validated subscriber addresses into a database
Sending a message to the addresses in the database when you post to your blog
Dealing with requests to un-subscribe from your blog, and with undelivered messages (eg because the address has been deleted).
Once you have burned a feed using Feedburner, all you need to do to access these services is to activate the email service, and give people viewing your blog a way to subscribe to the email messages.
Setting up a "Subscribe by email" option for your blog:
The Easy option:
Blogger now provide a Follow-by-email gadget. You can add this to your blog in the same way as you add any gadget. Adding the gadget sets up a feed, starts the email service, and puts a place on your blog where visitors can leave their email addresses.
This is the easiest way to get started - but if you use it, you cannot customise the sign-up form, and won't be shown where to set up your email message content. And it only works if you're using Blogger.
The Manual option:
Follow these steps to add an email subscription option yourself.
3 Go to the email subscriptions tab (on the left side)
4 Choose Activate to start the service.
5 The Subscription management tab has two options.
The top one gives you a subscription form to put into your blog, which includes a field where your viewer can enter their mail address. To use it: a) Choose the language that you want the subscription-tool to use b) Copy the code from the box under "Subscription Form Code", or use the "Use as a widget" option
The bottom one gives you a link to put into your site: when someone clicks on the link a new window opens, and the viewer can enter their email address in the window. To use it, copy the code from the box under "Subscription Link Code", or use the "Use as a widget" option
No matter which option you choose, you can either:
Insert the code manually: If you have copied the HTML code, you need to put it into your blog: it can go into a gadget or into a Post or Page - most people use gadgets.
Insert the code using the auto-insert tool (the "use as a widget" option): If you want to use the auto-inert tool,choose Blogger from the correct (ie top or bottom) drop-down list, and press Go beside it. This opens a window where you can select which blog to add it to (if you have more than one), and also the title to give it.
When you press Add Widget, you are taken to the Design > Page Elements screen, where you can drag-and-drop the new widget into the place where you want it.
What your visitors see:
Web-browsers visitors:
After you have added the gadget, it simply looks like another option on your sidebar (or wherever you put it). When a visitor enters their email address, they are sent a confirmation message and provided they respond to this they also get a message every day that you have posted to your blog - see customising the messages that your email subscribers receive for more information about controlling the content and timing of these messages.
RSS-reader and email visitors
Any people who have already subscribed to your blog using using these tools will not see the subscribe-by-email option if you have installed it into a gadget, but will see if if you put it into a post. This is not a concern though: people who knew how to subscribe before you offered the option won't be surprised when they see you offering the option.
When Blogger users put an image-only link from Amazon into their blog, there is often a problem with the image not being found. It applies to code generated at Amazon, not to ads that are made using the Amazon widgets in Blogger.
One of the options for links is Image-only: the link shows a picture of the item, which your readers can click. When they click on the picture, they are taken to Amazon to buy the product.
This article explains how to fix the problem of the image not actually showing up on the published blog page, even though no error is reported and Amazon's reports say that the ad displayed.
What is causing the picture to not display?
The procedure for building an image-only link has a step:
"Save this image to your server, then cut and paste the HTML code in the lower left textbox into your web page."
Unfortunately, the HTML that Amazon generates assumes that you will save the image onto the same directory in the server that the web-page is stored on. This is fine for many web-site builders, but doesn't work for Blogger users who store their pictures in Picasa by default, or on other image-hosting services.
How to fix it:
Description: You can fix the problem by uploading the image file to Picasa, or any other file host service, and altering the HTML to use this uploaded file.
Choose an album to put the image into (You may want to keep a separate folder for all Amazon Associates products, or you may want some other arrangement eg one folder per page).
Use the From an URL tab, and enter the location that Amazon told you for the source of the image (copied in step 2)
Press Upload, and wait while the picture is loaded.
When the picture has loaded, Picasa-web-album shows the album summary page. Click on the picture you just loaded.
Click Link to this Photo (on the right hand bar) to get the link value (ie the URL or hyperlink) for the photo, and copy it.
Go back to the place in Blogger where you put the HTLM provided by Amazon in Step 1 and edit it.
The HTML will have this structure: (I've put in some link breaks and bolding to make it easier to read - you can do the same, provided the Post Options - Ignore new lines option is selected ):
Find where it says SRC "blah-blah-blah.jpg" (ie the piece in bold)
Select everything inside the quote marks, and replace it with the link value for the picture that you loaded into Picasa, so it becomes something like:
