The latest tips and news from the Blogger team
Updates and Bug Fixes for August 27th
August 27, 2008
The big news for this release is
following
, but we’ve snuck a few other fixes in since
last time
:
As
reported on Blogger Buster
(and elsewhere), the
3rd party Add Widget API
was broken. It has been fixed.
The new button style appears clickable in all browers.
The Blog List widget can show thumbnails specified in Media RSS feeds.
Atom feeds now include the blog’s description as the
<subtitle>
element.
Updates and Bug Fixes for August 14th
August 14, 2008
We’ve added a few new features and things in today’s release:
There’s a
new look for the Blogger Dashboard
, which we think you’ll find more attractive and functional. If you have a ton of blogs (as we do) try out the “hide” and “show all” links to help manage the list.
Google Gadgets in your Layouts blog can now
set their height automatically
(if the gadget author supports it). Read more about
adding Google Gadgets to your blog
.
AdSense page elements can now optionally have image ads. We’ve found image ads have a higher click-through rate, so you might get more money if you turn them on.
We
wrote up a
Features page
to help you keep track of everything you can do with Blogger. Take a look and see if you’ve been missing out on something cool.
The Flag Blog button in the Blogger navbar now pops up a window for you to tell us why you think the blog violates our terms of service. Flag Blog is always handled exclusively by human reviewers,
not
the automated spam locking system, so this information will better help them decide what, if any, action should be taken.
And also fixed some bugs, including:
Fixed Moto template header overlap in IE7.
Blocked the /feedReaderJson URL from web crawlers, to reduce 404s in Webmaster Tools.
Increased cacheability of CSS and JavaScript throughout Blogger, for faster page loads.
Button style and layout improvements throughout Blogger.
Spice Up Your Blog with Google Gadgets!
August 11, 2008
Fresh out of Blogger's own
testing ground
,
Google Gadgets
have now been enabled for all layouts blogs. This new interface allows for the integration of iGoogle Gadgets directly into your sidebar, with an array of customization options for easy tweaking. Also built into Gadgets is our robust
Gadget Directory
, which lets you browse through thousands of coo
l gadge
ts and add them to your blog with a simple click of a button.
You can access Gadgets from your dashboard under the
Layout | Gadg
ets
tab (the tab formerly known as "Layout | Page Elements.")
Gadgets have built-in configuration for easy integration into your layout. All gadgets are automatically sized to match the width of your sidebar, and their height in pixels can be adjusted using the Gadget's built-in options. Our large list of Gadgets is constantly growing and evolving.
You can browse them all from our comprehensive Gadget Directory, which runs the gamut from
sports updates to site counters, and flash games to local information tickers. To bring up the Gadget Directory, just click
Add a Gadget
from your layout. Have an idea for a gadget that isn't listed? Then
build it
yourself! We are always on the lookout for great ideas, so please
submit
your own creation to the
iGoogle Gadget Directory
, and then let us know about it in our
Help Group
— we may just add it to our 'Featured Gadgets' Section.
Itching to get started? Have a look at our our help video below for some guidance on browsing, adding,
and customizing a gadget on your blog:
Blogger Babies
August 04, 2008
Babies are all the buzz at Blogger. Within the last few months we've had three new additions to the Blogger Team: Ryan, Aditya, and Haley. Although it'll probably be a few years before they start sounding off themselves, we get to post some cute pics of them now.
You Are Not Spam
August 02, 2008
You knew that already, and now we do too.
We have now restored all accounts that were mistakenly marked as spam yesterday.
(See:
Spam Fridays
)
We want to offer our sincerest apologies to affected bloggers and their readers. We’ve tracked down the problem to a bug in our data processing code that locked blogs even when our algorithms concluded they were not spam. We are adding additional monitoring and process checks to ensure that bugs of this magnitude are caught before they can affect your data.
At Blogger, we strongly believe that you own and should control your posts and other data. We understand that you trust us to store and serve your blog, and incidents like this one are a betrayal of that trust. In the spirit of ensuring that you always have access to your data, we have been working on importing and exporting tools to make it easier to back up your posts. If you'd like a
sneak peek
at the Import / Export tool, you can try it out on
Blogger in Draft
.
Our restoration today was of all blogs that were mistakenly marked as spam due to Friday's bug. Because spam fighting inherently runs the risk of false positives, your blog may have been mis-classified as spam for other reasons. If you are still unable to post to your blog today you can request a review by clicking
Request Unlock Review
on your Dashboard.
Spam Fridays
August 01, 2008
While we wish that every post on this blog could be about cool features or other Blogger news, sometimes we have to step in and admit a mistake.
We've noticed that a number of users have had their blogs mistakenly marked as spam, and wanted to sound off real quick to let you know that, despite it being Friday afternoon, we are working hard to sort this out. So to those folks who have received an email saying that your blog has been classified as spam and can't post right now, we offer our sincere apologies for the trouble.
We hope to have this resolved shortly, and appreciate your patience as we work through the kinks.
Introducing Knol
July 23, 2008
A few months ago, we
announced a new web authoring tool called Knol
.
Well,
today we've announced its public launch
, and we wanted to tell you a little bit more about it and how you might use it to complement your blog. Blogs are great for quickly and easily getting your latest writing out to your readers, while
knols are better for when you want to write an authoritative article on a single topic
. The tone is more formal, and, while it's easy to update the content and keep it fresh, knols aren't designed for continuously posting new content or threading. Know how to fix a leaky toilet, but don't want to write a blog about fixing up your house? In that case, Knol is for you.
Except for the different format, you'll get all the things you've come to expect from Blogger in Knol. Like Blogger, Knol has simple web authoring tools that make it
easy to collaborate
,
co-author
, and
publish
. It has community features as well:
Your readers will be able to add comments and rate your article, and, if you want, they'll be able to suggest edits that you can then either accept or reject.
And, just like in Blogger, you can also choose to
include ads from AdSense
in your knols to perhaps make a little money.
One other important difference between Knol and Blogger is that Knol encourages you to reveal your true identity. Knols are meant to be authoritative articles, and, therefore, they have a strong focus on authors and their credentials. We feel that this focus will help ensure that authors get credit for their work, make the content more credible.
All in all, we think
Knol will be a great new way for you to share what you know, inform people about an issue that is important to you, raise your profile as an expert in your field, and maybe even make some money from ads
.
Create your Knol right now for free
.
Updates and Fixes for July 18th
July 18, 2008
Here’s a quick summary of recent fixes and changes we’ve made to Blogger:
Blogger is now available in Malay! Blogger has a large base of users in Malaysia and we are excited to now bring them Blogger in their native language.
Comment moderation can now be automatically enabled after a fixed number of days.
Spam interstitials now let readers click through to blogs.
Blog feeds optionally include your email address.
Show off your favorite blogs with a Blog List
June 05, 2008
Today we’re releasing a new page element for Layouts blogs:
Blog List
. The Blog List improves on our Link List page element by using blogs’ RSS and Atom feeds to show update times, post titles, and snippets.
Use a Blog List to
put a blogroll in your sidebar
, or make a few to categorize the blogs you read. The Blog List works well for any page that has an RSS or Atom feed, so you can get creative: link to
news sites
,
podcasts
,
Twitter streams
,
search results
, or anything else with a feed.
Here’s a quick summary of the features that a Blog List gives you:
Link to blogs, web pages, and feeds from your blog’s sidebar, with an optional favicon
For pages with RSS and Atom feeds, Blog List can show last updated time, post title, and a snippet of the latest post
Sort links alphabetically or by last update time
Show all links, or hide some behind a “show all” link
Import subscriptions from Google Reader
Blog List links are visible to search engine crawlers, so your blog’s
PageRank
and reputation flow to those you link to
Want to see it in action? We made a help video to walk you through adding and configuring a Blog List:
Thanks go out to everyone who
chimed in
on the
Blogger in draft blog
while this feature was being developed. You helped us a lot!
Tip:
Want to show more posts from a single blog? Use the Feed page element to put any RSS or Atom feed in your blog’s sidebar.
Updates and Bug Fixes for June 5th
June 05, 2008
Today’s release brings a handful of tweaks and fixes, as well as the new Blog List page element. Here’s some of what we fixed:
If you delete a post or make a typo in a post URL, the resulting 404 page now says “page not found” instead of the incorrect “blog not found.”
<blockquote>
tags no longer break the line height of later paragraphs in the Minima, Scribe, Harbor, Dots, 867/565, Moto, and Thisaway templates.
If you’ve edited your CSS or blog widget template, you may not get this fix, or, worse, you’ll lose line spacing in your posts.
For a fix, see the
known issue on this bug
. (We apologize for this one-time disruption.)
OpenID logins for comments now work when the OpenID URL redirects to another page.
Layouts blogs will now display on Blog*Spot even when the template has invalid
data:
tags, rather than showing a bX code page.
Performance improvements across Blogger.com and Blog*Spot.
Enjoy! We’ll have a bit more to say about Blog List later today, as well as some new fixes and features on
Blogger in draft
.
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