Style a Feed from Another Blog.

You can add content from another blog to your sidebar using RSS feeds. This is better than adding a Feed Widget to the blog. Using this method enables you to add a customized amount of your post also. A Feed Widget adds only post titles.



A reader wants to know how to add bullet points to his feed element. This can be done by styling the Feed element.............


The various areas in the Feed element are shown in the diagram below :




As seen from the diagram above the following class shows the feed items :

.rss_item a: variant for the item title and link style

After adding your Javascript code to a Html page element in the sidebar and saving it click on Edit Html subtab of Template tab and scroll down in template code box to the code in your sidebar. Select the code line for the widget which represents the Html widget. It will look something like this :

<b:widget id='HTML1' locked='false' title='FEED ELEMENT' type='HTML'>

Look for the Widget ID Number and note it down. In this case it is "HTML1". In the CSS part of the template ( which lies between the <b:skin> and </b:skin> tags add this code :

#HTML14 .rss_items {
padding-left:20px;
list-style-type: none;
list-style-image: url("LINK OF BULLET IMAGE");
}

Replace the number '14' in above code with number of your HTML widget. You can omit the padding line if you want to. Replace 'LINK OF BULLET IMAGE' with the actual link of your bullet image after uploading to a host like Photobucket.com. Save Template. Here is what it will look like :



Have Fun!

Read Multiple Blogs in One Go with OPML.

Many new bloggers are puzzled about blog feeds and how to subscribe to them. In the new layout templates Blogger has provided a default "Subscribe to Posts Atom" link at the bottom of the Main Page. This is not ideal as a better place would be to place a prominent Feed Icon at the top of your sidebar as in this blog.



To subscribe to the feed of this blog click the big orange icon at the top of the middle column. The feed will get added to your default feed reader. You can do this with every blog you come across which you find interesting but what if you want to read more than 100 blogs. This is where OPML comes into play..............

WHAT IS OPML?

OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines. It is a file containing a list of site or blog feeds that you have subscribed to in your feed reader.


You can open the file with Notepad and see that it is written in XML but the file is saved not with a txt extension but with an OPML extension . You can create this file manually using XML knowledge but more easily using your Feed Reader settings.....

BACKUP FEED LIST WITH OPML

You can backup your full list of blog feed subscriptions from within your Feed Reader. This is important if you wish to share your feed list and also if you upload the file to any free host like Googlepages you can access it from anywhere.
In Google Reader go to Settings and click on "Import/Export" link at the top. Then click "Export your subscriptions as an OPML file" link.


You can also import other feed lists. On the same page click Browse button and select the OPML file on your PC and then click Upload button. All feeds in the file are imported in one go.


In My Yahho login first and then get your subscriptions as a OPML file here. Right click the link and choose 'Save link as'.

SHARE OPML FILES

You can share your OPML files with others by uplading them at online OPML sharing sites like share.opml.org You can search for OPML files in your speciality at www.opmlsearch.com Here is CNET News Blog OPML file :

http://www.news.com/html/ne/blogs/CNETNewsBlog100.opml

Right Click the link and choose Save link as to save it to your PC. Then upload it to your reader. You will get the feeds from 100 blogs all neatly categorized in one go in your reader. You can unsubscribe from the ones you do not wish to read.


Enjoy!

Tips on Using Google Reader with Site Feeds.

As the World Wide Web exploded with millions of sites it became tedious to surf to each site especially in the age of Dial-Up. Hence Site Feeds were invented to push content to your desktop. Instead of using a browser to fetch each site content individually viewers subscribed to Posts Atom as in Blogger Blogs and read all the content in a Feed reader.



Google Reader is an online feed reader or aggregator where you can subscribe to multiple site feeds to read their content. Now with Google Gears you can use it to read your feeds on the tram : Official Google Reader Blog: Oh Sam I Am, can I read it on the tram?



Here are some more tips on using Google Reader.............

LOGIN TO GOOGLE READER

Google Reader is an online feed aggregator where you only need a free Google Account to access it. For this get an account and go to http://www.google.com/reader in your browser.

ADD OR SUBSCRIBE TO FEEDS

To subscribe to a site feed go to that site in your browser and look for the orange feed icon such as the one at the top of the middle column in this blog. Just click on this and the feed will open in Google Reader. You can also right click the orange icon and select 'Copy link shortcut'. Then in Google Reader click on +Add Subscription link in the left pane and paste the feed url there and OK it. Blogspot blog feeds have the following links :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Substitute actual blog name in place of yourblogname. You can also subscribe to Comment Feeds and Label Feeds.

NEXT BOOKMARKLET

The Next Bookmarklet can be used to navigate to the next unread item in your reading list and marks it as read. To get it go to the Settings Page. Under Goodies tab click and drag the Next button to your bookmark bar.

GOOGLE READER IN iGOOGLE

You can add Google Reader to your personalized Homepage. This will enable you to see updates at a glance. Just click this button to do so :

GOOGLE READER MOBILE

To get Google Reader on your data phone point your mobile phone's browser to www.google.com/reader/m. You can also go to iGoogle (Personalized Home) and access the Google reader Gadget if you have installed it beforehand.

GO OFFLINE WITH GOOGLE GEARS

First install Google Gears. Then click the "Offline" link in the top right of Google Reader. This will download your latest items so that they're available when you are offline.

IMPORT/EXPORT OPML FILES

OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is used to exchange lists of web feeds between web feed aggregators.. If you wish to import all your feeds from another feed reader or export to them no need to add each individually. Just go to Google Reader Settings and click on the relevant links.

LABEL/TAG YOUR FEED SUBSCRIPTIONS

Under the Tags tab in Google Reader settings you can add tags to your feeds and make them public or private. Simply hit g then l to bring up the label selector. Then begin labeling an individual item, by hitting the L key on your keyboard.

SUBSCRIBER COUNT

The number of subscribers to your feed is available at Feedburner. To increase the number add a ADD TO GOOGLE button to your site. For example click on this to subscribe to this blog :

PUT A CLIP ON YOUR SITE

Add a clip of items from your Google Reader to your site. This has two advantages : It adds content to your site. It enables you to share your items with your viewers. To do this go to Put a Clip on your site. Click the Add to Blogger button or copy and paste the code given.

MONITOR YOUR READING TRENDS

You can monitor your reading trends by going to the Trends page. This shows the number of subscriptions, read items, starred items and shared items.

TOOLS FOR GOOGLE READER

These are add ons which will optimize Google Reader reading area and Reader button for IE. More tools here.



Have a tip to share? Put it in your comments to this post.


In forthcoming posts we will see how to combine multiple feeds into one feed. Also coming soon is putting your Reader in a Google Gadget.

Recent Comments Widget for Blogger.

There are many benefits to having the latest comments on your blog displayed on your main page. In Blogger comments are only seen on post pages so visitors coming to your home page cannot see them unless they click on the small "COMMENTS" link after every post. If you include a Recent Comments section in your sidebar or your posts column then visitors can immediately read them and hopefully become impressed enough to return or click on them to read the posts.



When readers see the importance you give to their comments by displaying them on the main page of your blog many will take that as an incentive to post a comment.



There are two ways to include a Recent Comments Widget on the main page : The easy method and the slightly difficult Geek method..............

FEED WIDGET (EASY) METHOD

Blogger has the feed widget which you can add to your blog like any other page element. Blogger also puts out post, label and comment feeds. Combining these two we can construct a Recent Comments widget by pasting the URL of your blog comments feed into a feed page element.



To do this login to Dashboard of Blogger and click on Layout link for your blog. This will open the Page Elements subtab of Template tab. Click on 'Add Page Element' link in sidebar. In the popup window click on Feed widget. In the Feed page element window paste the comments feed URL of your blog which is :

http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

Instead of 'YOURBLOGNAME' put actual name of your blog. Choose the number of comments you want to show. The maximum is five at present and OK it. View Blog.
If you want to show comments only from one post put this URL in it :

http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/feeds/THISPOSTID/comments/default

Replace the CAPS.
To get your post ID login to Dashboard and click on Posts. Click on Edit link of the post you want or place your mouse cursor over the link and look at the status bar of your browser bottom left hand corner. (Enable status bar from View--->Status Bar menu of your browser.) You will see something like this :

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&postID=7938018824060714868

Copy down the number after postID and paste it in your comment feed url. You will then get the comments from this post only. The disadvantage of this method is that you get five comments only. The advantage is it is easy.

The FEED-TO-JAVASCRIPT (GEEK) METHOD

This is the second method and it is slightly more complicated. It enables you to have much more than five comments in your widget and also to customize it in the colors you want. It also includes a NOSCRIPT tag in case the viewer has Javascript disabled in his browser.




This method can also be used to add content from your other blogs or any other site which puts out a feed to your blog. Since the new Blogger layout templates do not have a Previous Posts section in the sidebar like the Classic Blogger templates you can use this method to add it.




For this go to http://www.bucks.edu/feed/build.php. In the URL field enter the url of your blog's RSS feed which is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=rss

Substitute actual blog name in place of yourblogname. Verify the URL of your feed before using this form. You can do this by opening the above URL in your browser. It should show all your blog posts. If not check Settings----->Site Feed in your blog and verify that it is set to Short or Full.



Then selct the settings you want :

Show channel? (yes/no/title) Display information about the publisher of the feed (yes=show the title and description; title= display title only, no=do not display anything)

Number of items to display. Enter the number of items to be displayed (enter 0 to show all available)

Show/Hide item descriptions? How much? (0=no descriptions; 1=show full description text; n>1 = display first n characters of description; n=-1 do not link item title, just display item contents)

Use HTML in item display? ("yes" = use HTML from feed and the full item descriptions will be used, ignoring any character limit set above; "no" = output is text-only formatted by CSS; "preserve paragraphs" = no HTML but convert all RETURN/linefeeds to
to preserve paragraph breaks)

Show item posting date? (yes/no) Display the date the item was added to the feed.

Target links in the new window? (n="no, links open the same page", y="yes, open links in a new window", "xxxx" = open links in a frame named 'xxxx', 'popup' = use a JavaScript function popupfeed() to open in new window)

After selecting the settings you want click on Preview and check to see that content from your blog is being displayed. Then click on Generate Javascript button. Copy all the code. Login to your Dashboard and click on Layout. Click add Page element link in sidebar and choose Html/Javascript option. In the popup window paste the code, give it a Title and OK it. View Blog. See picture below :


Click on picture to enlarge it. Number 1 Feed is using the second method and shows much more comments than Number 2 Feed which has been added using the Blogger feed widget. To add a page element to the posts column you will have to alter the code as shown in 10 Quick Tips for Smarter Blogging.

STYLE THE FEED WIDGET

You can change the colors of the feed widget added using the second method above. To do this go to Template------>Edit Html and scroll down to your sidebar code for the feed widget. It will look something like this :

<b:widget id='HTML5' locked='false' title='RECENT COMMENTS' type='HTML'/>

Look for the number id of the widget. In this case it is HTML5. You will use this to add code to CSS part of your template to style the widget. To do this add this code just before ]]></b:skin> tag in your template :

#HTML5 .rss_item {
padding:.5em 0em 1.5em;
width:500px;
}
#HTML5 .rss_items {
margin-left:5px;
}

The CSS classes are :

.rss_box defines the bounding div for the entire display- use to define borders, fill, etc.
.rss_title the title of the feed and link style if displayed. Use with variants of rss_title a:link, rss_title a:hover, etc for rollover styles
.rss_items defines the unordered list <ul>...</ul> for the feed items- use to define the padding/margins for items.
.rss_item display of each feed item description and title, <li>...</li> as well as the channel description, if displayed.
.rss_item a: variant for the item title and link style
.rss_date defines the display of item posting dates

Just add your widget id before the clases above which represent the elements in the feed.

List Count Your Bloglines Feed Subscribers.

Do you want to find how many people read your blog feed through Bloglines? Blogger does not have a method of telling you how any people read your blog feeds. For more information on Blog feeds see What is Subscribe to Posts. If you channel your feeds through Feedburner as shown in Feedburner and Blog feeds you can find out by going to your feedburner account but that does not give you the subscribers to your original blog feeds through Bloglines. Here are some methods to find out your Bloglines subscriber count...........

Bloglines is a "news aggregator" which takes many online information services like weblogs which broadcast their content to the web in so-called "syndicated feeds" or "news feeds" with new technologies like Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and ATOM. You can subscribe to a blog feed and read all that it has to offer without visiting the blog itself. If you subscribe to all the feeds from the blogs you visit it helps you by not having to visit each blog individually to read its contents. You can choose and select to visit only the blog which really piques your interest and the rest you can read at Bloglines.


Feeds are important since all the search engines index them and follow their links to your blog. Hence the more readers you have the better your blog is placed in search engine rankings. You can place advertisements in your feeds and hence the number of readers becomes of great significance to your Ad. revenue. Feedburner takes your blog feeds modifies them and puts them out as a different URL. To see your readers login to Feedburner and click on your feed title. (Assuming that you have already 'burned' your blog feed as shown in Feedburner and Blog Feeds.) For Bloglines the method is different.

BLOGLINES METHOD 1

First you will have to visit Bloglines and register to get a free account. Then login to your account and click on Feeds tab at the top. Click Add link in the top of the sidebar. This opens a Subscribe page onthe right hand side. Copy your blog URL/link/address and paste it in the box and click Subscribe button. As an example I put http://boingboing.net in the box and clicked on Subscribe. See Image below

The number next to the date gives the number of subscribers. Click the Subscribe button at the bottom to subscribe to the feed. The feed name will appear in your sidebar.

LIST BLOGLINES SUBSCRIBERS

After you have subscribed to the feed the name will appear in the sidebar. Double click this name to display the feed contents in the right hand pane. Right click the Related Feeds link shown in the diagram below next to number of subscribers.


Select copy link location and paste into a Notepad file. You will get a link/URL like this :

http://www.bloglines.com/relatedfeeds?siteid=6085477

See the number in the end. Copy that number and paste it in the URL below where it says NUMBER

http://www.bloglines.com/userdir?siteid=NUMBER

Copy and paste the above link in address bar of browser and press enter. You will get a full list of subscribers to this feed who have chosen to make it public. See below :


At the top you get the numbers of all subscribers to the feed and below is a list of the subscribers.

RSS
Feedburner
Feed
Bloglines

Feedburner and Blog Feeds.

Blog Feeds are a method by which viewers can view your blog and updated content without visiting your blog. Their importance is further enhanced by Google's frequent indexing of feed content........

To make sure that your blog content appears in the Search Engine results turn on your feeds. For this go to Settings------->Site Feed------>Select Short or Full Feeds and Save Settings.

Your blog feeds once turned on are accessed using their feed URLs. The URLs for your beta/new blog's feed is

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Substitute actual blog name in place of yourblogname. For example the feeds for my blog can be accessed by clicking on :

http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/summary
http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Click on the above links to see the result. To view a blog's feeds in a Feed reader such as Bloglines or Google Reader simply add these URLs to it.

PUBLICIZE FEEDS

:To ensure that your viewers can easily subscribe to your blog content you have to put these URLs in a place easily seen on your blog. Blogger provides a link to them at the end of the posts. See What is Subscribe to Posts Atom.



Login to Feedburner and click on name of your blog. Then click on Publicize tab on top. Then click on Chicklet Chooser in sidebar. Choose the new standard feed icon by clicking its radio button. Scroll down and choose Use as a Widget in Blogger. Then click Go and follow instructions.

FEEDBURNER.COM

Feedburner.com provides a standard method of sending your feeds out. Your Blog feeds are taken by Feedburner and sent out. If you turn off your blog feeds then Feedburner will also give you error. To 'burn' your feed at feedburner goto feedburner.com and paste your blog URL into the text box provided and click on Next.


There is no actual burning involved. Feedburner takes blog feeds modifies them according to the settings you specify and passes them onto the readers. To make the actual connection with a blogfeed you have to first submit or burn it at feedburner. It is a once only process. Feedburner being separate from Blogger cannot connect with your feed unless you submit it to them. They prefer to call it burning in accordance with their name and probably to invest it with some portent!



Feedburner will show you what feeds are available (Atom and RSS) and ask you to choose one. Choose anyone and click on Next. Feedburner will give your feed a title and a new URL which you can copy and save for personal reference. Click on Activate Feed. The feed is now activated and you have to put the link for it in a prominent place on your site. Click on Skip directly to feed management beside the Next button at the bottom.

PUBLICIZE FEED

Buzzboost is the first option here. This takes your feed URL and turns it into Javascript code which you can embed into any other website you own which will then show the contents of your blog on that site. As an example I have added it to this Googlepages site : http://betabloggerfordummies.googlepages.com/bbd
This gives your content more exposure automatically.

Headline Animator is the second option. This displays rotating headlines from your blog. You can customize its appearance. See the left column of my blog where there is a seasonal Headline Animator. You can add this to the foot of your Emails also. Place this on another of your sites to promote your content.

FeedCount is another way to promote your feed. It is a dynamic graphic that always displays your feed's current circulation, as calculated by FeedBurner. Choose its color scheme and an animated or static appearance. This impresses your viewers into signing up for your feed.




Chicklet Chooser : These are small buttons which are the links for viewing your blog feed in any feed reader or application. You can choose the standard feed icon or any of the many chiclets. Paste the html code into a Html/Javascript Page Element in sidebar. This encourages people to subscribe to your feed by posting a friendly graphic in an easy-to-find location.

PingShot : This Notifies services when you publish. You can notify Technorati, My Yahoo, Bloglines, PubSub, Ping-o-matic, Newsgator and up to five additional services. Click on activate after choosing and then Save. Whenever you publish new content all these services are notified.

Email Subscriptions : Offers feed updates via email. Activate this and you will be given code to put in your site. Viewers can then type in their email address and click the Subscribe button. They will then receive in their email any updates to your blog.

Creative Commons : This service attaches the appropriate Creative Commons license in your feed's content. Choose the options you want and Activate and Save.

Password Protector : Basic security to keep an unwanted Tom, Dick, or Harry out of your feed. Protect your feed with a required username and password using HTTP
authentication. Any requests for your burned feed will require readers to enter a username and password to retrieve it.

OPTIMIZE FEED

Browser Friendly : makes your feed formatting easy to read in any browser. Choose among the options and Activate.

SmartFeed : Makes your feed compatible with any Reader application whether it is RSS or Atom.


FeedFlare : gives the viewer multiple options at the bottom of each post. See image below:

AUTODISCOVERY

It's a tag that tells web-based news readers and browsers like Firefox and IE7 what your exact feed address is. First View your blog in a browser and click on View----->Page Source. Locate these lines at the top :

<meta content='text/html; charset=UTF-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/>
<meta content='true' name='MSSmartTagsPreventParsing'/>
<meta content='blogger' name='generator'/>
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="test blog - Atom" href="http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="test blog - RSS" href="http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" />
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="test blog - Atom" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/875397467806229665/posts/default" />
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://beta.blogger.com/rsd.g?blogID=87539746760806229665" />

Copy this code. Then goto Template----->Edit Html and locate this line :

<b:data='blog' name='all-head-content'>

Replace the above line with the source copied. Save Template.

Then in the same code replace these lines :

<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="test blog - Atom" href="http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="test blog - RSS" href="http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" />

with this line :

<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Your Blog Feed" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/YOURBLOGFEEDNAME" />

where YOURBLOGFEEDNAME is the URI, of your FeedBurner feed. Save Template.

REDIRECT YOUR FEED

If your url is changed you may need to redirect your feed. Follow the instructions here.

Technorati Tags:feedburner, feed, rss, atom, autodiscovery, ping,

Add a Table of Contents to Main Blog Posts Column.

A Table of Contents can be added to your main Blog Posts column. This Table of Contents will list all your posts titles as links. You can arrange this Table to appear before your Blog Posts or after..............

To do this you will first have to add extra Page Elements to your Blog Posts column. Login to Dashboard and click on Layouts of the blog you want to modify. Then click on Edit Html subtab.

First Download your template by using Download Full Template link.

Then scroll down in Edit Template text box till you come to :

<div id='main-wrapper'>
<b:section class='main' id='main'>

Modify the second line in above code to :

<b:section class='main' id='main' maxwidgets='5' showaddelement='yes'>

This will add a Add Page Element (showaddelement='yes') link to your Blog Posts section on the Page Elements tab and allow you to add a maximum of five widgets/Page Elements (maxwidgets='5') to your Blog Posts column. Save Template.

Go to Page Elements tab where you will see a Add Page Element link on top of your Blog posts column as in below picture.





Click on Image to see bigger view.

Now we will convert your blog RSS feed to javascript. For this go to http://www.rss-to-javascript.com/p/138.html. In the URL box at the top enter your blog feed which in case of the new blogger is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Substitute actual blog name in place of yourblogname. Since we want to display only the title of our posts choose No to most of the options like : Show Channel, Show "Simplified" Channel, Show Item Descriptions and Show Item Posting Date. Enter zero for Number of items to show all available items and Yes to Use List Elements. Hit the Preview button to check that your titles are shown.

If the Preview does not tally go to Settings------>Site Feed in your blog and turn on the site feed.

Click on Generate Javascript button to generate the code. Copy that Javascript code by selecting all.

Login to your Dashboard and click on Layouts beside your blog name. On the Page Elements tab click on add Page Element link in the Blog Posts section. In the new window which opens choose the Html/Javascript option and paste the Javascript code in the contents window. In the Titles window type Table of Contents. Save the Page Element. This is saved on top of your blog posts. If you want it to appear below click and drag that page element from the top to the bottom of your blog posts. Click on Save.

Technorati Tags:feed, javascript, page element, rss, table of contents

Technorati in Blogger Beta.

Technorati is the search engine for blogs and hence no blogger can afford to go without it in his/her blog................

Google is the generalized search engine for the web. Technorati is a search engine which is specialized for blogs. Blogs in contrast to other web sites have ever changing content and Technorati focuses on them by searching them for keywords. Each blog is indexed and individually ranked among the 50 plus million blogs in today's blogosphere. The major differences between the two are outlined below :

Search Engines Compared

GOOGLE	TECHNORATI
Generalized Search	Specialized Search
Searches static, inactive Web	Searches Dynamic Web
No Focus	Focuses on Blogs
Infrequent visits to site	Immediate indexing of content
More sites to cover	Less sites to cover increasing efficiency
Covers World Wide Web	Covers World Live Web

Just as you have to submit your site to Google and the other search engines you have also to 'submit' your blog to Technorati so that other bloggers/readers can find your blog in the blogosphere. Also by doing so you can analyze your blog traffic, backlinks and find out your blog rank.

To register with Technorati go to Technorai.com and click on Join link at the top or click here. After registering you have to 'claim' your blog which is like submitting your site. To do this go here. Claiming your blog establishes that you are the (co-)author of the blog and allows you to use other Technorati services to help increase the visibility of your blog.

During the claiming process Technorati will give you a snippet of code which you have to paste in a Html/Javascript Page Element in the sidebar. To do this go to Page Elements subtab of Template tab and click on Add Page Element in the sidebar. In the new window choose Html/Javascript option and paste the code in contents and save. Having done this go back to technorati and click on Verify so that Technorati spiders your blog. Automatic robots known as "spiders" are released by Technorati to discover content on your site and its feeds. Technorati uses RSS feeds to track updates to millions of blogs. After updating your blog or after every post you have to ping Technorati to let them know that fresh content has been added. It then sends the spiders to index the content.


Each blog you claim will be listed on the Your Blogs page. To make sure the world can see it on Technorati, click the "Configure Blog" button and check to make sure that "Include this blog in Technorati's Blog Finder" is checked. This includes your blog in its Blog directory.


Technorati receives alerts from the Blogger servers whenever a user updates his or her public weblog. To set this automated ping go to Settings---->Basic----->Add your blog to our listings----->Yes---->Save Settings. Blogger will now ping Technorati automatically whenever content is updated.


Technorati breaks up your weblog's home page into smaller sections such as posts and sidebars. You can help Technorati's spiders properly identify a unique post and its proper link destination by adding a link with a defined relationship of "bookmark" for each post. For example:

<a href="http://blog.bloghost.com/post1" rel="bookmark">Post title</a>

Technorati also uses tags to index your blog. A tag as a simple category name. People can categorize their posts, photos and videos with any tag that makes sense. For example if you have a post about films you can tag it with the tag 'film'. Another post about family matters can be tagged as 'family'. Thus you can have posts on various subjects within your blog all neatly categorized using tags. In Beta Blogger tags are called as Labels.

There are two types of tags recognized by Technorati. Post tags are tags added to your posts and they allow your posts to be listed in Technorati's tag search here. To add the tags, add the below code for each tag you'd like add to your post into the body of your post.

<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/[TAGNAME]" rel="tag">[TAGNAME]</a>

Publishing a tagged post in Blogger automatically pings Technorati about updated content. If your blog software supports categories and RSS/Atom feeds just use the included category system and make sure you are publishing RSS/Atom feeds and your categories will be read as tags.


Blog Tags are tags added to your blog on Technorati's Blog Configuration page here. These tags allow your blog to be listed in Technorati's Blog Finder and Explore feature.


Technorati indexes the home page of your weblog assisted by the content of your web feeds. If the home page of your weblog contains summaries or plain-text with no links Technorati may not recognize and index your full posts.


If you use the Atom syndication format to publish the content of your weblog Technorati can still index the full text of your post regardless of your content choices on your weblog home page. Just include your entire post within the content element of each entry and we will recognize this content as the full content of your post.


HOW TO SEARCH TECHNORATI :

You can search Technorati Blog diectory.

Technorati Tags:atom, feed, google, ping, rss, search, search engines, tags, technorati

Add a Recent Posts List after Every Post.

Add a Recent Posts List after every post in your blog so that any reader reading a single post can see at the end of the post this list and then if interested may go there..........

To put a Recent Posts List in the sidebar see List Previous Posts.

To do this we will use your blog's feed to put a list of recent posts at the bottom of every post. First we will have to turn on the blog feed. For this go to Settings----->Site Feed---->Blog Posts Feed----->Set this to Short by clicking on the drop-down arrow then----->Save Settings. By setting this to short only a short section of your posts will be delivered to the reader who then hopefully will be intrigued enough to visit your blog to read the rest of the post. For our purpose we need only the titles of the posts so this also serves our interests. Then we need the URL of the feed. For beta blogs the RSS feed URL is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Substitute actual name of your blog instead of 'yourblogname' above.

Now head over to an online RSS-to-Javascript converter. There is one located at :

http://itde.vccs.edu/rss2js/build.php

Type or paste your RSS blog feed url in the text box provided. See picture below. Click on image to enlarge it.




Fill in the other options. We do not want a title so set Show Channel as No. Enter the number of items to display. Set Show Item descriptions to 0 as we want only the titles to be displayed. Set Show item posting date to No. and Set Open links in a new window to Yes as we do not want the original post page to be closed or covered by new content. Click on Preview to check that the feed is being generated properly and then click Generate Javascript. Javascript code is generated along with code for browsers not supporting Javascript. Copy the whole code. This is Step 2.

Login to your dashboard of Beta Blogger and click on Layouts of the blog whose feed you had taken in the first step. The Page Elements window opens. Click on Edit Html tab and first backup your template as described in How to change Template.

Then scroll down in Edit Template text box till you come to :

<div class='column' id='main-wrapper'>
<b:section class='main' id='main'>

In the second line add : maxwidgets='4' showaddelement='yes' so that it reads like this :

<b:section class='main' id='main' maxwidgets='3' showaddelement='yes'>

Then Save Template. This change will enable you to add extra Page Elements/Widgets to the main column.

Now click on Page Elements tab and then click on the new Add Page Element link in the Blog Posts column. Choose Html/Javascript option in the new window which opens and paste the Javascript code from Step 2 here. Type 'RECENT POSTS' in the title field. Save changes. Back in Page Elements view you will see a new element added on top of your Blog Posts. Click and drag it to below your Blog Posts in the same column. This will place it below your Blog Posts and it will appear below each post in individual post view. See how I have added it below.

Technorati Tags:feed, javascript, recent posts, rss

How To List Previous Posts by Title.

To list All Previous Posts by Title...............

you will use your blog's RSS feed to put content into your sidebar. How to do this has already been described in the post : Add Content with RSS Feeds in a general way. This is a special case in which you can use this method to display the title of all your previous posts in the sidebar.

STEP 1. The feed for your beta blog is of the format :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

where instead of 'yourblogname' type in the name of your blog. The feed for your old Blogger blog is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml or
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Step 2. You will have to convert this feed into Javascript code which you can then insert into your webpage so that it displays on your site. There are many RSS-to-Javascript convertors online which you can search out usinf Google. One of these convertors is located at :

http://itde.vccs.edu/rss2js/build.php

Copy and Paste the above link into your browser and press Enter. Copy and paste the link for your blog feed obtained in Step 1 into the "Enter the web address of the RSS Feed" under 'Build your feed'. In Select the options set 'Number of Items to display' as 0 - This will display all posts. In 'Show item descriptions? How much?' set it as 0 to show no descriptions. Set 'Show item posting date?' as No and click Preview to see whether your titles are coming through. If it displays correctly then click 'Generate Javascript'. The program generates Javascript code along with a noscript code for those browsers without Javascript. Copy the entire code.

Step 3. Go to Layout in your blog after logging in to Dashboard. The Page Elements page opens. Click on 'Add Page Element' in the sidebar section. A new popup window opens where choose HTML/Javascript option and paste the code obtained in Step 2 above in the Content box. Click Save Changes.

Refresh cache. View Blog.

You can see an example of this in my right sidebar at the top.

To do this in Classic Blogger just paste the Javascript code in your template in the sidebar section.

Technorati Tags:feed, javascript, previous posts, rss

What is "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)".

"Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)" is a link provided at.................

the end of all your blog posts. This link is for viewers of your site/blog to view your blog without having to come to your blog. In the real world when we want to read a newspaper or magazine we go to the news-stand and buy it.

If you wish to change the words "Subscribe to Posts Atom" go to Template------>Edit Html----->Backup Template first------->Put a Check in
Expand Widgets Template box------------>Scroll down in Edit Template
text box and locate this code in Blog Posts widget :


<b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'>
<div class='feed-links'>
<data:feedLinksMsg/>
<b:loop values='data:links' var='f'>
<a class='feed-link' expr:href='data:f.url'
expr:type='data:f.mimeType' target='_blank'><data:f.name/> FEED ME</a>
</b:loop>
</div>
</b:includable>


Substitute the CAPS instead of (<data:f.feedType/>). Change the CAPS to whatever suits you. Preview and save.

After having read it we like it so much that we decide to read it regularly. However, we cannot spare the time to go to the news-stand daily or monthly to buy the paper or magazine. It is then that we decide to subscribe to it. Then the news/magazine is delivered to our doorstep without us having to visit the news-stand.

In the virtual world regular users subscribe to groups whose members hold the same interst as they do. Some examples of these are Google groups and Yahoo groups. In these groups members post messages which are delivered automatically to all members of the group. They do not have to send emails to each member seperately. After the World Wide Web exploded into millions of websites viewers were confounded and confused and a wasted a lot of time visiting each site separately.

Thus RSS and Atom was born. These are the delivery guys of the Internet. RSS is an acronym that is short for Really Simple Syndication. It's a type of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) that is used for syndicating content. XML is used to describe data and is basically a markup language like HTML. To read the feed easily, download a feed reader like Feedreader.com or use an online reader like Google Reader.


TO MAKE IT WORK right click the link : Subscribe to posts - Atom and left click on 'Copy link location'. This will copy the URL of the link to your clipboard. Then go to your feed reader and paste the link into it.

DO NOT LEFT CLICK THE LINK because it will ask you to download the XML file full of code.

You can paste multiple such links from multiple sites on the Internet and then you will have updated content from all sites ready to read instead of having to visit all those sites one by one.


You can also use it to deliver updated content from other sites/blogs to your site/blog. How to do this is descirbed in Add Content with RSS feeds.

Similarly others can use this to deliver content from your site to their site. To prevent access to your feed you can hide this by pasting following code in your CSS part of template :

.feed-links {
display:none;

}

To see what is CSS part of template see Parts of Template.

The feed url for you beta blog is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

type name of your blog in place of 'yourblogname' in link above.

To add these links to your sidebar go to Settings----->Page Elements---->Add Page Element in Sidebar------>Choose Link List------>Enter the above feed URLs and for Titles add Subscribe to Posts :Atom and Subscribe to Posts :RSS.

In Classic Blogger the feed URL is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml

TO SET THE SETTINGS for your feed in Beta Blogger go to Settings----->Site Feed.

Here you can set the Settings for :

1) Whether you want your full posts to be sent in the feed or none or short.
2) Whether you want the Blog Comments also to be sent in full or short form.
3) Whether you want the per posts comments to be full, none or short.
4) Lastly if you want something else to appear in your feed like Adsense Ads.
5) Always try to set it to short so readers get a sneak preview of your posts and then visit your blog to read more on the topic.

For more info see :

• How to use a RSS FEED.
• What is RSS
• You Need RSS Atom

Technorati Tags:atom, feed, rss, subscribe to

TO ADD A GOOGLE READER BUTTON to your blog go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/add.html . Type in your Feed URLin the first Text box and click on Create Html. Copy the snippet of code and paste it into a Html/Javascript Page Element in the sidebar. For Example a Google Reader button for my blog is :

Clicking on the above button will enable you to add the feed from my blog to your Google Reader or to your Google Personalized Search Page.


TO ADD A Add-to-My Yahoo! Button GO TO :
http://publisher.yahoo.com/promote.php. Choose a button style. Enter your bew blogger feed urls which are described above. Then click on Generate Html. Copy and Paste the code generated in a Html/Javascript Page Element in the sidebar. I have added a button here below :



Clicking on the above button will enable you to add a feed from my site to your MY-Yahoo Page.



RSS Auto-Discovery

Auto-discovery is a way to let applications (such as Mozilla's Firefox browser, Yahoo! Toolbar, etc.) know there's an RSS feed on your web page or site. Then, the application lets users know they can subscribe to your feeds.

To see if your web site currently supports RSS auto-discovery, use the new Yahoo! Toolbar or Firefox browser. If Firefox has an orange box highlighted in the lower right corner , or the Yahoo! Toolbar has a blue "plus" button next to the My Yahoo! button on the toolbar, then you don't need to do anything.

Otherwise, please add the code below to your template after the metatags :

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="[YOUR RSS FEED TITLE]" href="%5BURL%20TO%20RSS%20FILE%5D">

Auto-discovery tips for publishers:

Please make your titles something meaningful and descriptive (e.g., "NYTimes Top Stories") – otherwise users will see "Add RSS" when they use this feature.

If you have multiple feeds, please add this code to all feeds if possible, so users have more choices.

Make sure the LINK tags go in the HEAD and not in the BODY of the HTML document.

Add Content with RSS Feeds.

To Add Content to your blog with RSS feeds.........

First find the RSS Feed Icon. On many sites it is shown as "RSS" or "About Feeds". The icons are shown alongside.
Right click any one of these and select 'Copy Link Location'. Now you have to convert the feed into Javascript code. There are many such convertors online which you can find simply by searching Google. One such convertor is located at : http://itde.vccs.edu/rss2js/build.php. Go there and paste your feed url into the text box under 'Enter the web address of the RSS Feed'. Choose among the various options for the feed. Whether you want the title to be displayed etc... Then click 'Preview' to see if the feed is being generated. If the feed url is correct it will show items and content from the web page where you took the feed url from. If you are satisfied click 'Generate Javascript'. Javascript code is generated along with non javascript code which displays the feed on browsers without Javascript. Go back to your beta blog. Login to the Dashboard and click on Layouts under the name of your blog you want to add the feed to. The Page Elements page opens. Click on Add Page Element in the sidebar and choose HTML/Javascript in the popup window which opens. Paste the Javascript code in the content box and Save Changes. You can also add this to a Page Element in the Main Column of postings but then your feed will appear on all your posts. If you add it in the sidebar it will only appear once on the page.

WARNING :
1) Before taking content from other websites be sure to resd their Terms of Use for feeds. 2)You can fill your webpage with feeds but the Adsense bots are not able to read the content generated by them, so it is ineffective with Adsense. 3) You can use the Feed widget already present in the choices in the popup window which opens when you click on 'Add Page Element' in Page Elements page. However it will deliver only a maximum of five posts and titles whereas you can configure the feed in the above process to deliver all the posts.


You can also add a feed of your blog to your sidebar so that it shows all the posts titles. The URL of your beta blog's feed is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

Instead of 'yourblogname' type the name of your blog.

You can also add RECENT COMMENTS to the sidebar by using comment feeds URL which are

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/TYPE

Instead of 'yourblogname' type the name of your blog. Instead of TYPE use summary or full.

Technorati Tags:adsense, content, javascript, rss