The Ten Commandments for Bloggers.

The Ten Commandments for Bloggers is a list which I have compiled based solely on my experiences in Bloggerland and in the Blogger Help section of Google Groups where I answer questions not for a living but for cerebral stimulation. ( Doesn't say much for my cerebrum does it? LOL ) This is intended to guide bloggers old and new into the promised land of New Blogger......

While I do not see myself as some sort of latter day Moses dragging a long line of ranting bloggers into the New Blogger,

DISCLAIMER
Any resemblance to divine or real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

I believe that if these commandments are followed the rants may well change into raves. So here goes with apologies to Moses, CECILB. DeMILLE and Charlton Heston ( for good measure )....

1. You shall have no other Blogs but me.

This is not to say that you should stick to Blogger only and not use any other blogging software. You may choose any blogging software you want but restrict yourself to having one blog only. This saves time and simplifies matters. You have only one blog to post to, maintain and market and all your efforts are focussed on it. In the New Blogger the introduction of Labels (read Categories) has further helped in having only one blog. You can now have posts on various subjects and label them into different categories. Any viewer clicking on a particular label in the sidebar will view posts on that subject only. If you are forced to have more than one blog then create as few as possible so that your efforts do not get diluted.

2. You shall migrate to the New Blogger for it is a land of milk and honey.

The old Blogger will be soon phased out and everyone will be driven into the New Blogger.

AFTER MIGRATING IS COMPLETED YOU CANNOT GO BACK TO OLD BLOGGER BUT IF YOU HAVE ALSO UPGRADED TO THE NEW TEMPLATE YOU CAN REVERT TO THE CLASSIC TEMPLATE.

The lie of the land may appear intimidating at first but with more familiarity will come not contempt but delight! You will be surprised at the one click editing and no more republishing after every save. For more see The advantages of Beta Blogger (now called New Blogger).

3. You shall not misuse the name of Google.

I would like to offer a few words for my defense before I am lynched. Here God refers to an authority which has the power to take your plaything from you. Google has this power over bloggers since it owns Blogger.

Statutory Warning: Any attempt to read religious intent in this post may be injurious to health.

Google can make it pay per view but does not choose to do so. It is also my experience that largely Google does not take stringent action against those breaking its Blogger TOS from lesser issues like Navbar hiding to bigger ones like po*n sites. Blogs on hacking, warez and po*n exist cheek-by-jowl along with family sites and teen diaries. You can see this readily by clicking the Next Blog link on the Navbar. The view from up there is that of a benevolent God allowing the co-existence of all types of creatures. In some countries there is a tradition of naming children after the family deities. If that can be taken as proof of divinity Google has certainly earned the right. See here. Google may have also have earned its divine spurs fighting the Micros**t satan. Google's "Don't Be Evil" slogan has also helped in enhancing its halo.

4. You shall upgrade to the new template to seek salvation for your blog.

After migration to the New Blogger you have to upgrade to the new layouts template. To preserve your customization backup your Classic template to PC. Then create a test blog in the New Blogger.

ALWAYS REFRESH CACHE BEFORE VIEWING BLOG. SEE : HOW TO REFRESH BLOG PAGE.

Choose a new layouts template and customize it to resemble your old blog as much as possible. If necessary add the elements from the old template into Html/Javascript Page Elements. Then backup this layout to PC and upload it to your old blog after upgrading to a new layout.

5. You shall submit your blog to the search engines and ping them after every post.

After creating your blog submit it to the search engines as shown in How to Submit Site to Google.and in How to submit site to Search Engines. After publishing every post ping the search engines with the URL of the post as shown in Pinging Simplified.

6. You must not delete a blog lest it be taken over by spammers.

Do not delete your blog, especially an old blog since its URL has value and it will be taken over by spammers.

After deleting the blog you will not be able to access it to edit it again so think thrice before deleting.

Instead delete all the posts in it and all profile information and leave it as an empty stub. If you do delete it first delete all the posts and the profile info in it. Remember after deleting the blog you will not be able to use its URL.

7. You must not copy-paste old blogger templates into the New Blogger layouts.

The old blogger templates are coded in HTML and this will give an error when pasted into the New Blogger layouts which are in XHTML. For more information see Error Messages in New Blogger Templates.. The new language is more strict about closing tags and coding as shown in XHTML Tips and Tricks for Bloggers.

8. You must not steal content even though you maybe "inspired" by it.

You cannot protect anything posted on the Internet from being copied. Hence this is an essential rule to bring order to the latest Wild West frontier. There is no javascript code which cannot be circumvented and content copied. A corollary to this is not to post anything of a personal nature on the Internet including financial data.

9. You must backup your template BEFORE and AFTER any changes to the template.

Always backup template to PC before and after any change you make to it. You should backup before you make any changes so that if the changes are detrimental you can load the backup.

BACKUP BLOG ALSO FOR GOOD MEASURE. SEE HOW TO BACKUP BLOG.

See How to change template. Backup after making changes so as to have an alternative copy on your PC. After making any change always use Preview button to see if the changes are right. After saving the template view the blog only after refreshing the cache.

10. You must not be envious of your neighbour's blogs. You shall not be envious of his blog nor his template.

This is self explanatory.


If you have any rule formulated on basis of your experience in Blogger please add it in the Comments at the end of this post.

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