Google Data » Google Blogger Buzz

A first few tweaks toward a better Blogger

A Googler — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 02:24:00 +0000

From New York to Jakarta, Blogger is one of the most popular ways to publish the things you’re passionate about. Still, we’ve heard that there’s more we can do to make the platform a better place to have your unique voice be heard. So we’ll be making some adjustments over time to bring you a faster, easier to use and more beautiful Blogger.

To kick things off, we’ve taken a crack at simplifying Blogger’s dashboard so that it’s easier for you to get right to the tools you need. Now, whenever you open Blogger, you’ll be taken right to your blog with the most recent post, putting you one click or tap closer to drafting something new.

We’ve also updated Blogger’s header bar, making it consistent with what you’ll find in other Google products. And as part of our commitment to building products that are accessible for all, we’ve adjusted Blogger’s colors to make things easier to see.

We’re starting small with these adjustments, but hope they help you create more amazing work. Please send any feedback our way and stay tuned for more updates to come.

Happy blogging!

Posted by Guy Ronen, Product Manager

Keep your readers interested with the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement

A Googler — Fri, 06 May 2016 17:56:00 +0000

Today, information is at our fingertips and we can access it from anywhere on any device. Just a few taps pull up millions of websites all competing for our attention. For bloggers, engaging with your audience has never been more important or more challenging. To help lay the foundation to a winning engagement strategy, the AdSense team created the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement.

Research shows that 29% of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their needs.

To help keep your audience engaged, get your free copy of the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement.

In the guide, you’ll learn:

How to help your audience become familiar with your brand
Best practices to design user journeys
How to develop content that resonates with your audience
Ways to make your content easy to consume
Why you should share the love with other sites by referring to good sources

If you’re interested in more updates from the Google AdSense team, follow us on Google+ and Twitter. We’d love to hear what you think.

Posted by Jay Castro, the AdSense Team.

Bringing HTTPS to all blogspot domain blogs

Google Blogs — Tue, 03 May 2016 17:04:00 +0000

[Cross-posted from the Google Security Blog]

HTTPS is fundamental to internet security; it protects the integrity and confidentiality of data sent between websites and visitors' browsers. Last September, we began rolling out HTTPS support for blogspot domain blogs so you could try it out. Today, we’re launching another milestone: an HTTPS version for every blogspot domain blog. With this change, visitors can access any blogspot domain blog over an encrypted channel.

The HTTPS indicator in the Chrome browser

As part of this launch, we're removing the HTTPS Availability setting. Even if you did not previously turn on this setting, your blogs will have an HTTPS version enabled.

We’re also adding a new setting called HTTPS Redirect that allows you to opt-in to redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS. While all blogspot blogs will have an HTTPS version enabled, if you turn on this new setting, all visitors will be redirected to the HTTPS version of your blog at https://.blogspot.com even if they go to http://.blogspot.com. If you choose to turn off this setting, visitors will have two options for viewing your blog: the unencrypted version at http://.blogspot.com or the encrypted version at https://.blogspot.com.

The new HTTPS Redirect setting in the Blogger dashboard

Please be aware that mixed content may cause some of your blog's functionality not to work in the HTTPS version. Mixed content is often caused by incompatible templates, gadgets, or post content. While we're proactively fixing most of these errors, some of them can only be fixed by you, the blog authors. To help spot and fix these errors, we recently released a mixed content warning tool that alerts you to possible mixed content issues in your posts, and gives you the option to fix them automatically before saving.

Existing links and bookmarks to your blogs are not affected by this launch, and will continue to work. Please note that blogs on custom domains will not yet have HTTPS support.

This update expands Google's HTTPS Everywhere mission to all blogspot domain blogs. We appreciate your feedback and will use it to make future improvements.

Posted by Milinda Perera, Software Engineer, Security

An update to the Blogger post editor to help with mixed content

Google Blogs — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 18:02:00 +0000

Back in September, we announced that HTTPS support was coming to blogspot.com, making it possible for you to encrypt connections to your blog; since then, many of you have enabled HTTPS for your blogs. In some cases, not all of your blog’s functionality has worked over HTTPS due to mixed content errors often stemming from your template, gadgets, or blog post content.

To help spot and fix some of these errors, we're releasing a mixed content warning tool that alerts you to possible mixed content issues in your posts, and gives you the option to fix them automatically before saving.

To use the tool, turn on HTTPS for your blog, open the Blogger editor HTML view, and click Save or Publish. If the editor detects any errors they will be shown above the editor, along with the option to fix the errors found.

Happy blogging!

Posted by Shweta Karwa, Software Engineer, Security.

Best practices for reviewing products you’ve received for free

A Googler — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 22:07:00 +0000

Editor's note: This post was cross posted from the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

As a form of online marketing, some companies today will send bloggers free products to review or give away in return for a mention in a blogpost. Whether you’re the company supplying the product or the blogger writing the post, below are a few best practices to ensure that this content is both useful to users and compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Use the nofollow tag where appropriate

Links that pass PageRank in exchange for goods or services are against Google guidelines on link schemes. Companies sometimes urge bloggers to link back to:

the company’s site
the company’s social media accounts
an online merchant’s page that sells the product
a review service’s page featuring reviews of the product
the company’s mobile app on an app store

Bloggers should use the nofollow tag on all such links because these links didn’t come about organically (i.e., the links wouldn’t exist if the company hadn’t offered to provide a free good or service in exchange for a link). Companies, or the marketing firms they’re working with, can do their part by reminding bloggers to use nofollow on these links.

Disclose the relationship

Users want to know when they’re viewing sponsored content. Also, there are laws in some countries that make disclosure of sponsorship mandatory. A disclosure can appear anywhere in the post; however, the most useful placement is at the top in case users don’t read the entire post.
Create compelling, unique content

The most successful blogs offer their visitors a compelling reason to come back. If you're a blogger you might try to become the go-to source of information in your topic area, cover a useful niche that few others are looking at, or provide exclusive content that only you can create due to your unique expertise or resources.

For more information, please drop by our Google Webmaster Central Help Forum.

Posted by the Google Webspam Team

An update on Google Friend Connect

A Googler — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 11:02:00 +0000

In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer

Highlight the posts that matter the most

A Googler — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 03:12:00 +0000

As bloggers, we all know how important it is to post frequently in order to encourage readers to come back. Of course, the more you post, the more quickly your posts slip down into the archives, making it harder for your readers to discover everything you’ve posted that they might be interested in.

To help make it easier to showcase the posts you want your readers to see, we’ve created a new gadget called Featured Post. With Featured Post, you can choose posts you’ve shared on your blog and highlight them wherever you’d like.

Whether you’d like to re-share that delicious holiday recipe from a few years back, spotlight a can’t-miss promotion you’re running, or just revive something quirky from the archives, the Featured Post gadget is a simple way to show off the content that matters most.

To try it, just head to your Layout tab, add a gadget, and select ‘Featured Post’. You’ll be able to place the gadget wherever you’d like on your blog and then choose the post you’d like to show. If you’d like to highlight something new, you can change the post you feature at any time.

Happy blogging!

Posted by Guy Ronen, Product Manager

HTTPS support coming to Blogspot

Google Blogs — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 17:18:00 +0000

This morning we posted an update about Blogspot to Google’s Security Blog https://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2015/09/https-support-coming-to-blogspot.html.

Since 2008, we've worked to encrypt the connections between our users and Google servers. Over the years we've announced that Search, Gmail, Drive, and many other products have encrypted connections by default, and most recently, we've made a similar announcement for our ads products.

In this same vein, today we're expanding on the HTTPS Everywhere mission and beginning an initial rollout of HTTPS support for Blogspot. HTTPS is a cornerstone of internet security as it provides several important benefits: it makes it harder for bad actors to steal information or track the activities of blog authors and visitors, it helps check that visitors open the correct website and aren’t being redirected to a malicious location, and it helps detect if a bad actor tries to change any data sent from Blogger to a blog visitor.

While this initial rollout won’t support all of our Blogger users, we wanted to take the first step to make HTTPS available for Blogspot; for those users who want to try it early.

We’re rolling this out gradually and Blogspot authors interested in enabling HTTPS support can begin opting-in today. Simply log into https://www.blogger.com, click on the blog you’d like to make HTTPS enabled, navigate to the Settings page, and select "yes" for "HTTPS Availability". Unfortunately, blogs with custom domains are not supported in this first version.

Once enabled, your blog will become accessible over both HTTP and HTTPS connections. Blogspot authors should be aware that if they choose to encrypt at this time, some of the current functionality of their blog may not work over HTTPS. This can be a result of template, gadgets, and blog post content, and is often caused by mixed content errors, some of which may be fixable by the author themselves.

We’ll also be moving some of our own blogs over to HTTPS gradually, beginning with the Official Google Blog and the Google Online Security Blog.

For the Blogspot authors who try this out - we’re interested to hear your feedback while we continue to improve this feature and its capabilities! For more information, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Jo-el van Bergen, Software Engineer, Security.

Even more expansions to the Blogger template language

A Googler — Fri, 26 Jun 2015 02:29:00 +0000

Recently we introduced a new set of expressions to the Blogger templating language, designed to let you customize the HTML of each post and page on your blog. We’ve gotten great feedback on them, so we figured we'd offer even more.

Now you can try out new tags, like:

b:elseif for a simpler multiple-case b:if branch.
b:switch and b:case for succinctly handling several possible cases of a variable.
b:eval for evaluation of more complex expressions involving data variables.
b:with for creating a nicer variable alias for a calculated value.

An example of customizing the markup of your blog, using the new switch tags.

If you’d like to customize your blog's template using these tags and expressions, just head to the dashboard under Settings > Template > Edit HTML. To see the full specs of the new tags or learn more, check out the help article.

Happy Templating!

Posted by Luke Bjerring, Software Engineer

Adding new expressions to Blogger templates

A Googler — Sat, 23 May 2015 03:40:00 +0000

Blogger's template engine is powered by a flexible editing language, consisting of a set of Widget Tags which use expressions to conditionally change the output HTML for each post and page on your blog.

Using these expressions, you can customize the HTML output of your blog, to adjust the look and feel. You could, for example, show an image behind the header, but only on the homepage. Or add a flower icon, next to a post's title, if the post has the 'Flower' label.

You can customize your blog's template under Settings > Template > Edit HTML.

You can customize your template’s markup, to change the look and feel of your blog.

Previously, the expressions in Blogger's templates could

Add or concatenate values with +
Subtract values with -
Check for equality with != and ==
Compare values with <, >, <= and >=

Now, support has been added for many more expression operators, including:

Inversion of true/false values with !/not e.g. cond='!data:post.allowComments'>...
Picking between 2 values with ?: e.g. expr:class='data:post.allowComments ? "comments" : "no-comments"' ...
Checking if a value is a member of a set or array, with in/contains e.g. cond='data:blog.pageType in {"index", "archive"}'>...
Combining multiple conditions with and/or e.g. cond='data:blog.pageType == "index" and data:post.allowComments'>...
Changing the order of operations with () e.g. expr:style='"max-width: " + (data:width + 10) + "px;"'>...

For a full specification of the new operators, see the help article.

Happy Templating!

Posted by Luke Bjerring, Software Engineer

Custom domains for your blog made easy

Blogger — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:17:00 +0000

You invest a lot of time in your blog, making sure it fits your personal brand and style. And a big part of making it your own comes from what you call it and where it lives. Blogger has long let you host your blog on a custom domain, so that you can give it any URL you choose. To make that process even easier, starting today, we’re integrating Blogger directly with Google Domains, allowing you to purchase a custom domain for your blog right from Blogger with just a few clicks.

If your blog is itching for a new home, you can grab one via Google Domains by popping open Blogger and heading to the Publishing section of your blog’s Settings tab.

If you purchase a new domain from Google Domains, it’s also easy to create a new blog for that domain right there.

Interested in learning more about Google Domains? Read on.

Happy blogging!

Posted by Marc Ridey, Software Engineer

Making it easier to manage pages on your blog

A Googler — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 17:15:00 +0000

Adding pages to your blog can be a great way to organize content - like ‘About me’ or ‘Advertise’ sections. To make managing pages easier, we redesigned the ‘Pages’ tab in the Blogger dashboard to make it look and feel more like something you’re already familiar with: managing posts.

The new look for the pages list on each blog

With the new design, you can:

View important details about your pages like view count and comments
Manage multiple pages at once with new selection tools
Easily see whether pages are in draft, imported, or published states

The new look for the summary of pages on each blog

Linking to your Pages

Managing the Pages Widgets for your blog is now done through the Layout UI. Multiple Pages Widgets can be added, if you want different pages linked to from different areas of the layout.

The 'Pages' widget as it appears in the list, after clicking 'Add a Gadget'

For a Horizontal list, add a Pages Widget under the Header (e.g. "Navigation Pages" below)
For a Vertical list, add a Pages Widget to a side column (e.g. "External Pages" below)

A layout with two Pages widgets, titled 'Navigation Pages' (horizontal) and 'External Pages' (vertical)

Adding external links

To add a link to a URL which is not one of your pages, when editing or adding the Pages Widget, click '+ Add external link' at the top of the 'Pages to Show' list.

Dialog for Pages widget configuration

This will show a dialog where you can set the title and URL to add to the list.

Dialog for adding external links to the Pages widgets

Happy blogging!

Posted by Cal Smith and Katrina Le

Earn money from your blog this holiday season

A Googler — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 16:15:00 +0000

The holiday season is here and retailers are spending more on online advertising to promote their products. Your blog has valuable space and you can earn some extra money by placing Google AdSense ads next to your content.

If you don’t already have AdSense set up on your blog, visit the Earnings tab of your Blogger dashboard to give it a try. It’s free and only takes a moment to sign up.

And if you’ve tried AdSense out in the past, head to your blog and give it a second look. It now has updated controls, so you can match the ads that appear to the style of your blog.

Happy holidays!

Posted by Ian Cohan-Shapiro, Marketing Manager

Automatically share your blog posts to Google+

A Googler — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 04:01:00 +0000

Notifying your followers that you've published a new blog post not only gets the conversation going, it encourages them to reshare your content with others. In this way it's critical for growing your blog's audience and engagement. But it takes time. And we want to give you that time back.

Starting today you can automatically share your blog posts publicly to Google+ — as soon as you publish them, with no additional clicks. And of course: if you've enabled Google+ Comments, any replies on Google+ will also appear on your blog.

Blog post

Google+ post

If you've connected a Google+ page or profile to your blog, this new feature will start working the next time you publish a post. If you'd rather not share to Google+, or you'd prefer to be prompted each time, you can adjust your preferences in the Google+ tab of your Blogger Dashboard.

Happy blogging!

Posted by Marc Ridey, Software Engineer

Bringing Google+ Comments to Blogger

Emily Wood — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:09:00 +0000

Cross-posted from the Google Official blog

Posted by +Yonatan Zunger, Principal Engineer

Reading and responding to comments can be one of the most rewarding aspects of blogging. Not only do they help you connect with your readers, they can also inspire later blog entries. The challenge, oftentimes, is following all the conversations around your content—on Google+, for instance, as well as on your website. So we're making things a lot simpler.

Starting today, you can bring Google+ Comments to your Blogger blog. Once you've enabled the feature through your Blogger Dashboard, you'll enjoy a number of important benefits:

View your blog and Google+ comments, all in one place

Now when you're browsing your blog's comment threads, you'll see activity from direct visitors, and from people talking about your content on Google+. For example, if there's a public Google+ discussion about one of your blog entries, those comments and replies will also appear on your Blogger blog. This way you can engage with more of your readers, all in one place.

Help readers comment and connect with their circles

Your blog readers will now have the option to comment publicly, or privately to their circles on Google+. And when they're browsing blog comments, they can view all of them, just the top ones, or only those from the people in their circles.

In all cases, you and your readers will only see the comments you have permission to see. Giving people these kinds of controls not only encourages more meaningful sharing—it can lead to more blog traffic.

To get started with Google+ Comments, just visit the Google+ tab of your Blogger Dashboard, and check “Use Google+ Comments.” (Older comments will continue to appear in the new widget.)

You can also visit any post on the Official Google Blog (like this one), or on Blogger Buzz (like this one), to see Google+ Comments in action.

Happy commenting!

Improvements to the Blogger template HTML editor

Emily Wood — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 02:08:00 +0000

Posted by: +Samantha Schaffer and +Renee Kwang, Software Engineer Interns.

Whether you’re a web developer who builds blog templates for a living, or a web-savvy blog owner who prefers to make changes to your template using HTML, CSS or JavaScript, you may be interested in some enhancements that we made to Blogger’s Template HTML Editor.

Your blog’s HTML template is the source code that controls the appearance of your blog. This template can be customized to appear however you’d like. The improved HTML template editor now supports line numbering, syntax highlighting, auto-indentation and code folding to make editing your template much easier.

Suppose we wanted to move the date of a blog post underneath the post title, similar to the Blogger Buzz blog. To do this, follow these steps:

Click the “Template” tab on the Blogger dashboard, then the “Edit HTML” button, to see the new template HTML editor:

Locate the “Blog1” widget quickly using the new “Jump to widget” drop down:

This widget controls how your blog posts are displayed. The code inside the widget is folded by default. Clicking the new fold markers ‘►’ next to the line numbers expands the widget and reveals a set of “includable” tags:

Inside the “main” includable is the block of code that renders the post date:

Cut the post date code section and move it to where we want it, in this case, under the post title in the “post” includable:

To check our changes, click the new “Preview template” button to see the updates:

The post date is exactly where we want it, so tab back to “Edit template”, hit “Save template” and we’re done!

Finally, we’ve added a “Format template” button that automatically cleans up the indentation of the template, and made it possible to search for text by pressing “Ctrl+F” once you’ve clicked into the editor. To find and replace text occurrences one by one, use “Ctrl+Shift+F” or to find and replace all occurrences at once, use “Ctrl+Shift+R”.

We worked on this project as part of Google Australia’s BOLD Diversity Internship Program. We hope you enjoy the changes we’ve made!

(Cross-posted from the Blogger Developers Network)

Mention people in your posts with Google+

Emily Wood — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Posted by +Malte Ubl, Software Engineer

Blogs are a great way to spark a conversation, and today we’re giving you a new way to grab someone’s attention: Google+ mentions in Blogger. Now you can add a link to a Google+ profile or page when you want to mention someone in a post. If you then share your post from Blogger to Google+, we make it easier to notify your mentions by including them in the sharebox.

To mention someone, just type “+” before their name while you’re using the Blogger post editor.

The profile or page will show up as a link in your published post. Hovering over will show a card with more info and an ‘Add to circles’ button. Clicking the link takes you straight to the Google+ profile or page.

So, whether you want to credit a co-author (thanks +Gregory Fair!), ask a question, or just kick off a dialogue, connect your blog to Google+ and try mentioning someone in your next post!

Grow your audience with the Google+ followers gadget

Emily Wood — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:28:00 +0000

Connecting your blog to Google+ is a great way to attract new readers, as well as build lasting relationships with your followers. For example, you can easily share your posts in the Google+ stream, as well as enable blog visitors to recommend your stuff in a single click. Today we're excited to offer another Google+ perk: the followers gadget.

The Google+ followers gadget highlights your total Google+ audience (both its size and some friendly faces), and offers visitors the chance to follow you on Google+. As a result, you can grow your readership across the web, and reach them either in the Google+ stream, or through your blog.

To get started, just connect your blog to Google+, visit the "Layout" tab of the Blogger dashboard, and select "Add a Gadget." You can also read a bit more about today's update in our Help Center.

Happy blogging!

p.s. Those of you with the Google Friend Connect followers gadget can keep using it, if you like. We retired most of Friend Connect earlier this year, but we'll keep it running on Blogger for the foreseeable future.

New and improved Blogger mobile apps

Emily Wood — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:56:00 +0000

Inspiration for a new post can happen at any place and time: on the couch, while shopping, at a game, or in the kitchen. Fortunately, mobile devices enable you to stay connected wherever you are.

With that in mind, we just launched updated apps for both Android and iOS. The updated apps include a visual facelift and other features which make it easier for you to create and share -- wherever your imagination runs wild. Some of the more notable improvements include:

Landscape support for composing posts
Sharing to Google+
Ability to view a scheduled post time
International support in 30+ languages
iPad support

We hope you enjoy these improvements, and keep writing great blog content on the go.

Get Blogger in the Play store to get the latest on your Android phone or the App Store for iOS devices.

Getting Help on Blogger

Emily Wood — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:17:00 +0000

As a Blogger user you’re likely aware of the nearly infinite number of ways to express yourself online. Whether you’re a photographer showing off your portfolio, a foodie sharing your newest tasty creation, or a business promoting your latest deals, Blogger has the tools to help your content shine and reach readers from all over the world. All of us on the Blogger team are passionate about our users’ success, and have a global team dedicated to making sure you are getting the most out of the product.

So if you’ve been thinking about making the upgrade to a custom domain, want to give your blog a fresh new look but aren’t sure where to start, or are having trouble building readership on your blog, we want to let you know that our Support team is here to help! We’ve developed a handful of helpful resources where you can learn more about the latest features, report a problem with Blogger, and even post your questions where our Blogger Support Team and Top Contributors can help you track down answers. Here’s the quick run-down of how and where to find help:

Blogger Help Center: For reading up on the latest features, understanding all the bells and whistles of your dashboard, getting quick troubleshooting tips for common problems, and much more. You can also get to the Help Center by clicking the gear icon on the Blogger dashboard.

Google Feedback: If you’d like to report a problem, new feature idea, or have other general suggestions and comments, we’ve got an easy way to do that right from the Blogger dashboard. Click the gear icon in the dashboard and then the Send us feedback link which will open up the feedback form.

Blogger Product Forum: Our active community of users, Blogger Support staff, and Top Contributors (our expert Blogger users and forum helpers) are here to answer your questions and listen to your feedback. Drop us a line and we’ll do our best to make sure it gets addressed promptly.

Abuse Reporting Form: If you need to report abusive content we have a special form to help you do so. You may also want to check out Google’s Terms of Service and/or Content Policy.

Finally, while the above channels are the quickest way to get help, we’ve also put together a list of our Support team’s pages on Google+ should you want to get in touch with us, connect, or just share a funny cat video.

Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger now in the UK!

Emily Wood — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 05:16:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Affiliate Network blog)

Earlier this year, we launched Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger in the US and added new enhancements in June. The positive results and feedback we’ve received are very promising, and we’re excited to announce that this gadget is now available to Blogger users in the UK!

To refresh your memory, Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger is a gadget that makes it easy for Blogger users to insert an affiliate ad into a blog post and earn a commission when someone clicks the link and makes a purchase on the advertiser’s site.

Watch the video below for a quick refresher:

Here’s how to get started:

If you’re a Blogger user in the UK (or the US), go to the Earnings tab in Blogger and sign up for AdSense if you don’t already have an account.
Once you have an AdSense account, you may see the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger gadget when you write a new blog post.*
Write a new post and select a relevant affiliate ad from the 'Advertise Products' gadget.
Publish your post, and voilà! You may earn a commission when someone clicks your affiliate ad and makes a purchase.

Participating UK advertisers:
Advertisers including Bestbathrooms.com, Cheapsuites.co.uk, Crooked Tongues, Diamond Manufacturers, eFlorist, Hudsonreed.com, Perfume Click and The Snugg have already come on board, and more are joining every day.

If you’re an advertiser interested in participating in Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger, please reach out to your Google Affiliate Network account team or contact us if you’re not already working with us.

A more dynamic mobile reading experience

Emily Wood — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:48:00 +0000

Last year we introduced mobile templates on Blogger, and Dynamic Views for the desktop. Since then, over 2 million blogs have started using Dynamic Views on desktop, and users have asked us for more mobile features. So today, we’re bringing the speed and advanced reading experience of Dynamic Views to mobile. Configuring your blog to use a Dynamic View on mobile will result in a reading experience that mirrors the desktop, but is optimized for mobile.

To configure a Dynamic View for mobile on your blog, select the "Template" tab, and then click on the settings cog under the “Mobile” preview.

If you’re currently using Dynamic Views on the desktop and have the “Default” mobile template selected, you don’t need to do anything -- your blog will automatically start using the mobile optimized view when viewed from a compatible mobile browser. For more information, see Blogger Help.

Currently, only the “Classic” view, which is best suited for small screens, will be shown on mobile. Tablets with large screens will get the full desktop experience. As with the older mobile templates, supported browsers are WebKit-based browsers (such as Android Browser, Chrome for Android and iOS, and Mobile Safari).

We hope your readers enjoy the modern, compelling experience that this mobile update provides.

Socialize and grow your blog with Google+

Emily Wood — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 01:01:00 +0000

Blogger lets you share your thoughts, grow your readership, and engage with your audience. But we want to make Blogger even better by letting you tap into the growing Google+ community. Today, we’re adding a new “Google+” tab in the Blogger dashboard, so you now have a central place to start growing your blog with Google+. This means you can now:

Connect your blog to a Google+ profile or page
If you blog under your own name, you’ve already been able to associate your blog with your personal Google+ profile. Starting today, you can now connect your blog to a Google+ page for your brand, business or organization.

Notify followers when you publish, and let them recommend your content
Each time you post on your blog, we'll show you a Google+ share box to let you notify followers that you have new blog content. If they like what you share, followers can +1 or reshare your post to their own friends on Google+. This ripple effect exposes links to your content to a wider audience.

Build enduring connections with your audience
Adding the Google+ gadget to your blog makes it easy for people to add your profile or page to their circles when they like something you’ve published. Forming connections with readers that last after they've left your blog is essential.

To get started, click the “Google+” tab in the Blogger dashboard and then the “Upgrade” button. If you’ve already upgraded to Google+, we’ll help you associate your blog with your profile or page.

We'll be introducing more settings on this tab in the future, so stay tuned for additional ways to get more out of Blogger with Google+. If you have questions, you can learn more in our Help Center.

Customize your posts with permalinks

Emily Wood — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Earlier this year we introduced a suite of new SEO features that help ensure your blog, posts, and images are accurately indexed so they appear correctly in search results. Today we’re happy to introduce another feature that enables you to more effectively customize your search preferences - custom permalinks.

When you write a post, Blogger automatically generates a permalink based on the title of the post. Until now, blog authors have had no control of the permalink. Custom permalinks give you more control of your blog and posts. These new custom links also provide readers with more information about your post when scanning search results.

If you prefer to use a custom permalink, you can do so via the “Permalink” option in the Post Settings box.

To create your own URL for a specific post, simply select “Custom URL”, and enter your new URL in the field below. If you wrote the post in June of 2012, your new URL will look like this:

www.nameofblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/customURL.html

The bolded area is the portion of the URL that is customizable.

If the custom permalink you entered already exists, Blogger will attempt find a free one for you.

At present, the characters allowed in a custom URL are limited to: a-z, A-Z, 0-1. The only special characters available are underscore, dash, and period.

Click here to read more about custom permalinks in the Blogger Help Center.

Happy blogging!

New enhancements to Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger

Emily Wood — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:50:00 +0000

Back in April, we introduced Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger, a gadget that can help you earn money by adding an ad for a relevant product to a blog post and earning a commission when someone clicks on your ad and makes a purchase. We’ve received positive feedback from Blogger users and the advertisers who have made their products available through the gadget, and wanted to let you know about a couple of recent enhancements we’ve made to this gadget:

Increased availability: When this gadget first launched, you may not have been able to see the gadget even though you have an AdSense account. We’ve changed this so that all Blogger users located in the U.S. with an AdSense account have the ability to see that gadget in their post editor and can sign up to use Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger. If you tried to find the “Advertise Products” gadget and didn’t see it before, try again!

More advertisers and products: The types of advertisers and products available when the gadget became available were in categories such as Department Stores, Sport and Fitness, Office Supplies, Home & Garden, and Apparel & Accessories. We’ve now added 40 more advertisers and expanded our offering to include products in the Health & Beauty, Jewelry, Flowers Edibles & Gifts, Education, and other categories.

Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger is easy to use, and is a great solution for those users interested in choosing the products and brands they want to promote in their blog posts.

Here are two examples of a Blogger user finding a relevant affiliate ad:

Get started today.

The Blogger In Draft Blog Is Being Retired

Emily Wood — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:09:00 +0000

Cross-posted from the Blogger in Draft blog

In 2007, we introduced Blogger In Draft, a special version of Blogger where new features could reach users early and let people try new things. We also introduced the Blogger In Draft blog, and for the past five years, we’ve introduced new updates and options here, often before we told the rest of the world on our official blog, Buzz.

With the recent launch of our Google+ page, we have another great way to keep you updated on new features, both for everyone and those of you who love seeing things early. To simplify the many places you can get updates, we will be retiring the Blogger in Draft blog, with this being the final post. Going forward, we’d like to invite you to follow our official blog and our Google+ page to find out what’s new with Blogger.

This doesn’t mean the Blogger In Draft service is going anywhere, so don’t fret! You’ll still get all the shiny goodness as fast as we can bring it to you. But we’ll be talking about it somewhere else.

Translate, and two more new gadgets for your dynamic blogs

Emily Wood — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:45:00 +0000

If you’re like many Blogger users, you write in one language, but may have readers from around the world. Not all of them speak your language. Today, we’ve made it easier to bring content from your blog to everyone, with the release of a new Google Translate gadget.

With the Google Translate gadget, visitors to your blog can select their preferred language from the drop-down menu, and using Google’s free translation service, it will display your posts in any of the 50+ languages Google Translate supports.

In addition to the new Translate gadget, we are also introducing a pair of gadgets that allow you to highlight things around the web you care about. For example, with the Blog List gadget, you can highlight blogs you enjoy. With the Text List gadget, you can display a list of your favorite books, movies, or whatever you like - helping your readers get to know you better.

To add these gadgets to your blog, click "Add a Gadget" from the "Layout" tab, and select them from the list of gadgets under "Basics". You’ll see three new gadgets for your dynamic blog, including “Blog List”, “Text List” and “Google Translate”.

Monetize your blog with Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger

Emily Wood — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

When you share your words, thoughts and photos on Blogger, you are sharing your passions with the world. Sometimes, you’re passionate about brands or products. Starting today, you can make money by promoting relevant products in your posts, gaining income for each new customer you introduce to your favorite brands.

This is a new way for you to monetize your blog, giving you control over the advertisers and products you promote, and better connecting your readers with the things you love.

To get started, go to the Earnings tab on Blogger, and click “Get Started”. If you have an existing AdSense account and the content of your blog matches available ad categories, you're already set. Select an affiliate ad from the “Advertiser Products” widget that appears in the Post Settings panel in the post editor. If you don’t already have an AdSense account, sign up.

When you post about a brand or product from a featured advertiser, the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogged widget will help you to display an affiliate ad in your blog, which can be a text link, a product image, or a banner. You may earn commissions when someone clicks on your ads and makes a purchase on the advertiser’s site, going beyond “payment per click” to “payment per action” and extending the influential relationship you have with your audience.

Get started with Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger today to monetize your blog and bring your readers to the products you love.

Two new gadgets to make your blog better with Google+

Emily Wood — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 05:40:00 +0000

Imagine being able to share your blog with like-minded people across the web. Today we’ve made doing that easier with the introduction of two Google+ gadgets, the +1 button and Google+ Badge.

Unlike the +1 button that can appear below a post, this gadget is specific to your blog. Displaying it on your blog will allow visitors to endorse your blog and share it with their friends.

+1 button for blog

If you’re wondering what a +1 means, think of it as a public stamp of approval from your readers. As soon as someone clicks on the +1 button next to your blog, they’ll also have the option to share it with their friends, contacts, or the rest of the web.

+1s from your readers will appear to people in their circles whenever your blog shows up in Google search results. Here’s an example:

We’re also introducing the Google+ badge gadget, which allows you to connect your blog to your personal profile or your Google+ page on Google+. Adding the badge to your blog helps you connect with friends, fans, and customers. It enables your readers to add you, or your blog to their circles and follow your blog posts on Google+.

If you are happy to blog under your real name, people can follow your stream on Google+. If you prefer to blog under a nickname or an established pseudonym, you can create a Google+ Page to represent your blog. Bloggers who wish to remain anonymous should continue to blog as usual.

To add these gadgets to your blog, select "Add a Gadget" from the "Layout" tab of Blogger, and select them from the list of gadgets under "Basics". You'll need to copy your Google+ ID (personal or Page) to configure the brand badge gadget for your blog.

Add the +1 and Google+ brand badge gadgets to your blog today to grow and engage your audience.

Bora Toska, Product Marketing Manager

Moving to the New Blogger Interface

Emily Wood — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 02:11:00 +0000

Last September, we introduced a new user interface that makes it easier to find what you need and focus on writing great blog posts. Since then, we’ve implemented a number of updates and improvements based on your feedback.

In the coming weeks, we will change the default interface for those of you still using the old version, and bring the advantages of Blogger’s improved interface to everyone. If you are already on the new interface, there will be no change.

If you have been using the old interface, give the new look a try today by clicking “Upgrade Now” at the top of the page. This is, of course, a free upgrade and all major features are present in the new interface. You can still temporarily switch back to the old interface by clicking the “Old Blogger interface” link located in settings, but not for much longer.

We recommend that anyone currently using the old interface switch to the new one, as all accounts will be permanently upgraded very soon.

When you switch to the new interface, you'll find a number of new features that we've released recently, including:

To help you get a better sense of what’s changed and how to navigate the new interface, check out the short video below or read the friendly guide “Using our upgraded interface”.

We hope you enjoy the new interface and welcome your thoughts about the new look. If you have suggestions or feedback, sign in to Blogger and click “Send Feedback” at the bottom right of the screen.

Customize your search preferences

Emily Wood — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:27:00 +0000

Hi Bloggers.

Ensuring that your blog, posts, and images are accurately indexed so they appear correctly in search results is valuable. Today we introduced a suite of new features that enable you to more effectively customize your search preferences. Managing how your blog is viewed by search engines is an important aspect of maintaining a healthy blog, regardless of whether you’re new to blogging, or a seasoned veteran.

Here’s an overview of what we added:

The first thing you’ll notice is a new “Search preferences” option under the “Settings” tab.

Clicking it will display three sub-sections: Meta Tags, Errors and Redirections, and Crawlers and Indexing. When enabled, some of these features, such as Search Description and Custom robots header tags will also appear in the “Post settings” area of Blogger's post editor as well. For example, if you elect to create a Search Description, you may do so for your blog, and/or individual posts.

Also available is the ability to add a custom “Page Not Found” (eg. a “404”) message, and Custom Redirects for pages on your blog.

While most of the new features are located in the Settings tab, a few others can be found in the post editor. For example, we’ve introduced the ability to incorporate “alt” and “title” tags to images in your post.

Last but not least, you’ll also find a “rel=nofollow” link attribute in the link tool. Checking this box means that you don’t want this link to be considered when web crawlers are searching for information they’ll use to index your page.

While most of these features are easy to understand and use, others, such as custom robots header tags are geared toward advanced users only, hence the warning message:

Before diving in, I would encourage a quick read through the Help Center articles. They’re comprehensive, and do a great job translating some technical concepts to the layperson.

We hope you enjoy the new features. It’s all part of our effort to bring you a much improved and modernized Blogger. Next week, we’ll be holding a Hangout on our Google+ page to talk with you about your experience with these features and answer your questions. Follow us on +Blogger for details.

Happy blogging!

Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Dynamic Views: Update #3 – Gadgets!

Emily Wood — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:57:00 +0000

Hi Bloggers.

Have you been contemplating a new design for your blog? Are you ready to spruce up your pages with a fresh, modern, and new look? Then you may want to check out Dynamic Views - which now include gadget support.

Dynamic Views are a set of templates that make it easy and fun to explore a blog. As you might expect, we’ve made the gadgets interactive too. Instead of appearing in a panel that consumes valuable real estate on your blog, gadgets now appear in a dock that slides in and out as you move your cursor over them.

Gadgets supported in Dynamic Views currently include: Blog Archive, Followers, Labels, Profile, Subscribe (a new gadget - automatically present if either Follow By Email or Subscription installed), and Link List. These gadgets make it easier for your readers to navigate your blog (archive, labels), and to follow it (followers and RSS).

If you are currently using a traditional template and change to Dynamic Views, supported gadgets will automatically appear on your blog. Gadgets can be added, removed, or customized from the Layouts tab the same as with any other template.

If you’re one of the millions of people who have adopted Dynamic Views since we launched them in September 2011, we encourage you to head on over to our Google+ page and tell us what you like about them!

Happy blogging.

Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Blogger Buzz 2012-02-05 22:50:06

Sabine Borsay — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:50:06 +0000

Get a pulse for the posts your readers like most with the +1 counter

Emily Wood — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:29:00 +0000

As we mentioned in our Connect to Google+ post a few weeks ago, we’ve been hard at work to bring you new ways to grow your blog and engage with your readers using Google+.

Today we’re happy to introduce the +1 counter, which allows you to quickly scan your dashboard to see which posts are most popular on your blog. Each time a reader clicks the +1 button on a post, a +1 gets added to that post's counter and their profile photo and name will appear.

The +1 button is available on all Dynamic Views posts by default, and can be enabled on most other template types by clicking on the Layout tab in your dashboard, clicking Edit in the Blog posts section, and checking the Show Share Buttons box.

If you don't have a Google+ account yet, don't fret. It's easy to join Google+ here.

Happy blogging!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Engage with your readers through threaded commenting

Emily Wood — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:31:00 +0000

You may have noticed that we’ve rolled out a number of improvements to Blogger recently. The folks over at Technorati referred to it as a “rampage”. Call it what you like, we’re definitely having fun giving Blogger the makeover it’s long deserved, and we appreciate all the positive feedback we received at the recent BlogWorld expo.

If you follow us on our Buzz blog, you’re aware that we publish surveys from time to time. They are one of several methods that we use to collect your feedback about what we can do to make your blogging experience better. A top request on the wishlist is improving Blogger’s commenting system, so we’re happy to announce that we’ve done just that.

Blogger now supports threaded commenting, which means that it is now much easier to differentiate between whether someone is making a general comment on the thread, or responding to another comment on the thread.

What do you have to do to enable this on your blog? Nothing! If you have Blogger’s commenting feature enabled, “Blog Feed” set to “Full”, and are using “Embedded” comments, then you’re ready to start a discussion with your readers. To check, or change your feed settings, select: “Settings > Other >, and then “Full” from the “Allow Blog Feed” dropdown:

To check your current form setting, select: “Settings > Posts and Comments, and select “Embedded” from the “Comment Location” dropdown:

Visit the Blogger Help Center for additional information.

Happy blogging!

Posted by Pat Coleman, Software Engineer

Connect to Google+

A Googler — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:45:00 +0000

Back in October we made it possible for Blogger in Draft users to use their Google+ profile on their blog. This option is now available to all Blogger users, and as a result, we're starting to roll out the first of many Google+ features.

Starting today, if you have linked your blog to your Google+ account you will be presented with a prefilled Google+ share box immediately after publishing a post. The share box will contain a +snippet of your post that you can share with your circles on Google+.

Of course, you can disable this sharing prompt at any time on the "Settings - Posts and Comments" page. And you can always share individual posts on Google+ by selecting "share" underneath the entry in your post list.

You can start using the new Share to Google+ immediately if you’ve already chosen to use your Google+ profile on your blog. If you haven’t yet made the switch, click here to get started.

If you don’t have a Google+ account you can create one here, and then log in to Blogger and follow the above instructions.

To learn more, check out our FAQs or visit our Help Forum.

Want to chat about sharing to Google+ and other Blogger features with someone from the team? Join me on the Blogger +page for a live video Hangout at 3PM PST.

Happy blogging!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Google AdSense & Blogger: An introduction

A Googler — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:10:00 +0000

Hi, my name is Andy Chung. I work on the Google AdSense team helping online publishers, specifically Blogger users like you, ensure your blogs are optimized to generate as much income for you as possible.

A few weeks ago we met with many of you at the 2011 BlogWorld & New Media Expo. One of the consistent themes we heard was: "please provide me with more tips on how to make money with my blog.”

At your request, we’re happy to bring you a series of posts with some helpful tips on how to configure AdSense to give you the highest possible return from your blog.

If you've been thinking about monetizing your blog and are unfamiliar with how Google AdSense works, here are the three things you need to know:

1. AdSense is built into Blogger:
You can easily sign up and start showing ads on your blog, without having to leave Blogger, by clicking on the "Earnings" tab in your dashboard. After completing the AdSense application, the next step is to designate where you want the ads to appear on your blog. Once your application is approved, we’ll start serving ads and you’ll start making money. And unlike many other blogging platforms, Blogger doesn’t take a cut of your revenue.

2. AdSense serves relevant ads on your blogs:
AdSense works by matching text and image ads to your blog based on your content and the types of users that visit your site. For example, if you write about running, your readers may see ads next to your post about running shoes and equipment. Ads are created and paid for by advertisers who want to promote their products.

3. Great content is key:
Posting high quality content is the best way to maximize your returns with AdSense. It’s important to take a little extra time defining your topic, creating a post that is engaging and matters to your readers. The more interesting and appealing your content is, the more likely your readers will be to click on the ads on your blog.

This short video will also give you a quick overview of AdSense and how it works with Blogger:

Stay tuned to the Blogger Buzz blog for more tips and tricks about monetization in the coming weeks.

Posted by Andy Chung, AdSense

Custom domains simplified

A Googler — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:39:00 +0000

(Cross posted on the Blogger +page)

Adding a custom domain to your blog is a great way to increase your brand identity. Setting one up, however, can sometimes be a frustrating experience, especially if you aren’t quite sure of the difference between an A-NAME and C-NAME record or where to find them.

The good news is that the folks at Go Daddy created a handy tool that simplifies the process and makes it possible to redirect your blogspot domain to a custom Go Daddy domain with the click of a button.

If you already own a Go Daddy domain and would like to connect it with your Blogger blog, head to the Go Daddy tool, log in to your Go Daddy account, enter your preferred domain or subdomain (for instance www.example.com or blog.example.com), click Confirm, and voila, your DNS records are updated.

Once your DNS records are set correctly, log in to Blogger, click “Add a custom domain” in the Publishing section of the Settings page, follow the short instructions, and your custom domain will be set up and redirecting in 24 hours or less.

If you purchased a domain from another provider, don’t worry, we’ve got a step-by-step guide that will walk you through the setup process. And finally, if you would like your blog to redirect to a custom domain, you can purchase one and get it set up without complicated configuration right from the Blogger dashboard in the Publishing section of the Settings page.

Posted by Brett Wiltshire, Product Operations

BlogWorld 2011 Recap

A Googler — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:58:00 +0000

As we mentioned last week, some members of the Blogger team from Google HQ in Mountain View, Tokyo, Dublin, and Sydney (see group photo below) headed to Los Angeles to attend the 2011 BlogWorld & New Media Expo.

One of the primary reasons we attended the expo was to meet Blogger users 1:1, and to gain a better understanding of what we can do to improve the product to better meet your needs.

In addition to these discussions, we conducted surveys with many conference attendees to collect more in-depth feedback. Thank you! We really appreciate the valuable and candid responses.

In the survey results and our 1:1 discussions with you we heard a few common themes:

You’re hoping to widen your audience with Google+
You’d like more opportunities to customize and use gadgets with Dynamic Views
You’re looking for tips and best practices for how to make more money from your blog with AdSense

Your requests have been shared with the broader team and we’re hard at work making them happen for you. Stay tuned to the Buzz Blog in the coming weeks for follow ups, and in the meantime, check out some other photos from the expo below.

Bruce and Mara of MlovesM

Sabrina and Michael in the Blogger photo booth

Sabine and Lisa host a Google+ Hangout with bloggers from around the world

Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager

Blogger’s Brand New Google+ Page

A Googler — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:54:00 +0000

Earlier this week, the Google+ team launched Pages, a new way for you to keep up-to-date with your interests and build relationships with the people who share them. Today, the Blogger team is launching our own Google+ Page, and we’d like to invite you to add us to one of your circles.

By adding Blogger's Page in one of your circles, you'll start seeing updates from the Blogger team in your Google+ stream. You’ll also have the opportunity to engage with other bloggers by writing comments on the posts.

Here's a quick list of what to expect:

Product news and announcements
Video Hangouts with the Blogger team
Spotlights on Blogger users and their blogs
Pro tips from the Blogger team and other users

Lastly, be sure to mention +Blogger when you share your own tips -- if we come across something particularly helpful, we may reshare it.

See you on Google+!

Posted by Lisa Ding, Community Manager

Introducing custom mobile templates

A Googler — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:28:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Blogger Developers Network Blog)

Many Bloggers put a lot of time and effort into creating a unique look for their blog, so today we’re excited to announce that custom templates are now available for mobile devices.

Side by side comparison of web and mobile experience.

If you have a custom template for your blog and want it to appear on mobile browsers as well, visit the “Template” tab of your dashboard, click on the gear icon beneath the mobile template preview, and select “Custom” from the “Choose mobile template” pulldown.

For more technical details and sample code, head over to the Blogger Developers Network blog.

We hope you enjoy creating your own custom mobile templates and sharing them with your readers.

Posted by Brett Morgan, Developer Relations Engineer

BlogWorld 2011: We’ll see you in LA!

A Googler — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:02:00 +0000

Update: For those of you who can’t attend the conference, we’ve added a schedule of Google+ Hangouts below.

It’s not often that we get to meet up with Bloggers in person, so we’re very excited to invite you to join us next Thursday, November 3rd, when a bunch of Blogger team members head to Los Angeles to attend the 2011 BlogWorld Expo.

To kick things off on Thursday, Jennifer Bahk from the Google Adsense team will be hosting a session called “Get More Bang and Make More Bucks with Blogger” at 3:45PM, where she’ll share expert advice on how to optimize your blog to make money with AdSense.

On Friday and Saturday, the team will be hanging out at booth 314 on the exhibition floor, where we’ll be giving live demos, answering questions, and giving away Blogger swag, including photo printouts from our very own Google Photobooth. And for those of you who are traveling from abroad, Sabine Borsay, our Consumer Experience Specialist from Europe, will also be in attendance to chat with international bloggers about your blogging experience and needs.

From 1-3PM on Saturday we’re hosting a meet-and-greet at our booth with Ari Seth Cohen, a fashion blogger from New York City whose blog, Advanced Style, has inspired a book that will be debuting in 2012. Come by to say hello to Ari and hear the story of how he took blogging from a hobby to a successful, sustainable business.

It’ll be an action-packed few days, so if you’re interested in attending, as a member of the Blogger community you can use this special code for 20% off of any registration package at BlogWorld 2011: BLOGGER20.

If you can’t attend the event, our Community Manager, Lisa Ding, will be hosting a series of video chats with Google+ Hangouts on her Google+ profile, covering a wide range of topics on Friday and Saturday, at the following times:

Friday, Nov 4:

11AM - Hangout: New UI
1PM - Hangout: Hangout: Dynamic Views
3PM - Hangout: Monetization on Blogger

Saturday, Nov. 5:

11AM - Hangout: Google+ & Blogging

If you want to participate but don’t yet have a Google+ account, visit plus.google.com to create one.

We hope to see you there--or at least in a Hangout!

Posted by: Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager

Dynamic Views: Update #2

A Googler — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:59:00 +0000

Hi Bloggers!

Thanks again for all the terrific feedback on Dynamic Views. Over half a million blogs have selected Dynamic Views as their default template since they were introduced less than a month ago, which is solid evidence that you’re as excited about this new technology as we are!

As I mentioned in my last update, we’ve been working hard to respond to your feedback and quickly introduce enhancements. The ability to customize Dynamic Views has been a top request, so I’m pleased to announce that as of today, this is now possible.

Using the Template Designer, you can now modify your background, fonts, or colors, and add a custom header image like we did on Blogger Buzz (just make sure it’s 65 pixels high). If you don’t fancy yourself a web designer, simply choose from one of the “suggested themes” that we provide.

To begin personalizing your blog, log in to the Blogger dashboard, select “Template”, choose from one of the seven Dynamic Views, and then click “Customize” to access the Template Designer.

Finally, if you’re waiting for gadget support in Dynamic Views, stay tuned...

Happy blogging!

Posted by: Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Use your Google+ profile with your Blogger blogs

A Googler — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:37:00 +0000

In fewer than 4 months since its launch, more than 40 million people have joined Google+, making it a living, breathing space for social connections and sharing to thrive.

Today we’re excited to announce the first way you will be able to leverage Google+ -- by making it possible to replace your Blogger profile with your Google+ profile.

In addition to giving your readers a more robust and familiar sense of who you are, your social connections will see your posts in their Google search results with an annotation that you've shared the post.

Plus, bloggers who switch will automatically get access to the Google+ integrations we’ll be rolling out in the future.

If you blog under a pseudonym and you don’t want to connect your common name with your blog, this integration may not work for you. That’s why we’ve made it completely optional to switch.

This option is available for all users today in our testing ground, Blogger in Draft, and will be accessible from www.blogger.com in the coming weeks.

If you have a Google+ account and would like to replace your Blogger profile with your Google+ profile, log in to draft.blogger.com and click “Get started” on the promotion message, pictured below, or click here to get started right away.

If you don’t have a Google+ account, you can create one here first, and then head back to draft.blogger.com and look for the promotion message.

To learn more, check out our FAQs or visit our Help Forum. Happy blogging!

Posted by Vardhman Jain, Software Engineer

Update: Blogger’s new look

A Googler — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:04:00 +0000

Back in August, we announced a completely new, streamlined blogging experience that makes it easier for you to find what you need and focus on writing great blog posts.

Since then, millions of you have opted to try it out, and we’ve received tens of thousands of feedback submissions. Based on that feedback we’ve fixed a number of bugs, including design updates, Safari compatibility for the iPad, and tweaks to scheduling posts.

In about two weeks from today, all Blogger accounts that haven’t yet made the switch will be upgraded to the new user interface. You will be able to opt-out at any time by clicking the “Switch back” link; however, all accounts will eventually be permanently upgraded.

To help you get a better sense of what’s changed and how to navigate the new interface, check out the short video below.

If you’d like to switch to the new look at any time, you can easily do so by clicking the “Try the updated Blogger interface” link at the top of your dashboard.

We hope you enjoy the updates we continue to make to Blogger and welcome your thoughts about the new look. If you have suggestions or feedback, click the gear icon in the top right of the navigation bar and select “Send Feedback.”

Posted by Chang Kim, Product Manager

Google Analytics support in Blogger

A Googler — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:49:00 +0000

Having a solid understanding of the traffic and visitor engagement statistics of your blog is one of the best ways to help it grow, and that’s why today we’re excited to announce that you can now easily connect your Google Analytics account with your blog.

Adding Google Analytics to your blog will give you more insight into where your visitors are coming from and help you determine which content they engage with the most. It's an easy to use, powerful, free product that is used internationally by businesses large & small.

If you already have a Google Analytics account, simply navigate to your blog’s Settings > Other tab and enter your blog's Google Analytics Web Property ID. Blogger will then insert Google Analytics code into your blog automatically, regardless of which template you're using, including mobile.

For more details and troubleshooting tips, check out this post on the Blogger Developers Network blog.

A few notes:

Google Analytics is supported on blogs using Dynamic Views, Layouts templates, and mobile templates, but not Classic templates.
Because of the technical differences in how Blogger’s stats and Google Analytics collect data, you are likely to see some minor discrepancies between the two.

Posted by Muthu Kannan, Software Engineer

Lightbox update

A Googler — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:00:00 +0000

When we enabled a brand new photo viewing experience, called Lightbox, by default a few weeks ago, we heard from a number of Bloggers who preferred to use their own, previously installed Lightbox solution, or who simply wanted to continue blogging without the new feature.

Thanks to your feedback, we turned Lightbox off temporarily, and we’re re-launching it today with the option to disable it, along with a handful of fixes to bugs that you reported.

To learn more about Lightbox and how it works, check out the original blog post.

If you’d like to disable Lightbox on your blog, log in to Blogger and select “No” next to Lightbox in the Settings | Posts and Comments section (new interface) or the Settings | Formatting section (old interface).

Thanks again for your detailed suggestions, and please continue to share your feedback in our help forum.

Posted by Marcos Almeida, Software Engineer

Dynamic Views: Update #1

A Googler — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:43:00 +0000

Hi Bloggers!

Last week, we launched Dynamic Views in an effort to make it easier for readers to enjoy and discover your posts. You responded. As of today, hundreds of thousands of blogs have changed their blog template to Dynamic Views. The clear favorite appears to be Magazine, with Classic running a close second.

I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to provide their feedback, and let you know that in the last week we’ve made the following improvements:

Added more emphasis to search results with Magazine & Timeslide
Improved the preservation of image position within the full post
Enabled JavaScript support within posts
Fixed the issue that sometimes resulted in continuously spinning gears after clicking a link
Turned on support for Archive pages

The other big pieces of feedback we’ve heard have been around gadget support and customization. The good news is...both are on the way! Since Dynamic Views uses HTML5, Javascript and CSS3, our existing library of gadgets is being rewritten to function in this new environment. We’ll be introducing the first set of gadgets very soon, so stay tuned!

With respect to customization, we realize that many bloggers have invested lots of time and effort to personalize their blog with custom background, fonts, etc. We plan to enable similar customization of Dynamic View templates via the Template Designer in the very near future.

Our plan is to continue to introduce updates and improvements as quickly as we can. Thanks again for your feedback, and we’re happy to hear that you’re enjoying Dynamic Views!

Happy blogging.

Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Dynamic Views: seven new ways to share your blog with the world

A Googler — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:04:00 +0000

As we said a few weeks ago when we launched a completely rebuilt, streamlined authoring and editing experience, we’re in the process of bringing you a much improved and modernized Blogger. The next phase of these updates starts today with seven new ways to display your blog, called Dynamic Views.

Built with the latest in web technology (AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3), Dynamic Views is a unique browsing experience that will inspire your readers to explore your blog in new ways. The interactive layouts make it easier for readers to enjoy and discover your posts, loading 40 percent faster than traditional templates and bringing older entries to the surface so they seem fresh again.

Dynamic Views is much more than just new templates. With just a couple clicks, you’ll get infinite scrolling (say goodbye to the “Older posts” link), images that load as you browse, integrated search, sorting by date, label and author, lightbox-style posts for easy viewing, keyboard shortcuts for quickly flipping through posts, and one-click sharing to Google+ and other social sites on every post.

No two blogs are the same, so you can choose from seven different views that display text and photos differently. For example, if you have lots of photos on your blog, you may prefer Flipcard or Snapshot. If your blog is more text-heavy, then Classic, Sidebar (what you’re seeing now on Blogger Buzz) or Timeslide may be preferable. Here’s a quick description of each of the new views, along with links to some of our favorite blogs where you can check each of them out in action.

Classic (Gmail): A modern twist on a traditional template, with infinite scrolling and images that load as you go
Flipcard (M loves M) - Your photos are tiled across the page and flip to reveal the post title
Magazine (Advanced Style) - A clean, elegant editorial style layout
Mosaic (Crosby’s Kitchen) - A mosaic mix of different sized images and text
Sidebar (Blogger Buzz Blog) - An email inbox-like view with a reading page for quick scrolling and browsing
Snapshot (Canelle et Vanille) - An interactive pinboard of your posts
Timeslide (The Bleary-Eyed Father) - A horizontal view of your posts by time period

Enter the name of your favorite Blogger blog below and click Preview to check it out with Dynamic Views.
.blogspot.com

Adding a Dynamic View to your blog is as easy as changing your template. Log in to Blogger, click on the Template tab on your dashboard, and select whichever view you want to set as your default. Note that readers can still choose to navigate your blog in a different view by selecting from the pulldown in the upper left of the screen.

If you want to add your own touch to any of these new views, you can upload a header image and customize the background colors. We’ll be adding more ways to customize Dynamic Views in the coming weeks.

We hope you enjoy the latest update to Blogger, and that, as always, you tell us what you think by completing this short survey.

Note: In addition to Blogger Buzz, several other official Google blogs will be featuring Dynamic Views through the weeks and months ahead, including the Gmail Blog, Google Voice Blog, and Docs Blog. We’re excited to bring Dynamic Views into the fold and we'll be looking at how to incorporate this new technology across Google’s blog network in the long term.

Update: Dynamic Views are now customizable! Add a custom header, change the background, colors, fonts, and more.

Posted by Antin Harasymiv, Software Engineer

Tips for New Bloggers

A Googler — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:15:00 +0000

Editor’s Note: Rebecca is one of the bloggers we’ve featured on Blogs of Note. After she was Noted, Rebecca received many new followers and emails asking her about her tips for blogging, so she’s graciously written up this blog post for anyone looking for tips on how to get started.

Hi everyone! I'm Rebecca Brown, a blogger and personal stylist in the Seattle area. When I started my blog nearly 2 years ago, it was to document my attempt to wear a different dress for every day of December (sounds super interesting, right? It proves you can write a blog about anything).

I had no idea that a blog about my clothing choices would grow and become such a fun hobby! And even though I’ve been blogging for a little while, I still feel like I have so much to learn, which is what keeps blogging interesting! So, while I'm definitely far from being an expert, here are a few things that have worked for me:

1) Find a community of bloggers with similar interests. Do you like to write about video games, fashion, cooking? There are lots of great blogs on those topics already. A quick Google search for “fashion blogs” helped me round out my reading list. I always check out the blog rolls of people whose blogs I enjoy, and I also visit the blogs of folks who comment on my blog. Bottom line: interact with bloggers whose blogs you enjoy. You'll learn so much, I promise. This leads me to my next point...

2) Leave insightful comments on blogs that you enjoy - especially blogs that are in the same niche as you. Instead of just saying, "hey, nice blog, follow me please”, call out something specific that you liked about the post. Pure "followback" requests don’t really make people want to follow you.

3) Don't underestimate the importance of good pictures on your posts. The basics: Use a tripod or get a friend to photograph you if the pictures are of you. Take pictures outdoors if possible because natural light always makes pictures look better. Use post-processing (I use Picnik) to adjust the exposure, add effects, and crop to keep the focus on what you want. You don’t need a fancy camera - I use my cell phone most of the time! I wrote about this in more depth here.

4) Think about quality, rather than quantity of posts. Readers would rather see an insightful (and spell-checked!) post with original content and good pictures 2-4 times a week than hastily-written thoughts on a daily basis. Most avid blog readers follow so many blogs that if you post too often, and especially if your posts aren't high quality, you'll get passed over in favor of the other blogs on their blogroll. Plus, a great, high-quality post can continue to get you traffic for a few days - don't truncate its effectiveness by posting again the very next day.

5) Schedule your posts. I typically have a chunk of time on the weekend where I can plan out and write my 2-4 posts for the week, or at least get a rough draft in place. Blogger allows you to schedule your posts and they will automatically publish at the date/time you specify. I typically set my posts to publish around 2am to capture folks in other time zones.

6) Lastly, don't apologize for not posting more often. A blog is a fun hobby - but once you start feeling beholden to it, it stops being fun! Plus, your readers will likely not notice if you don't post for a week unless you write a post about how sorry you are for not posting!

There are so many great resources out there for bloggers looking to hone their craft. Here are a few of my favorites: - 10 Things About Your Blog That Drive Me Crazy (via B at Beautifully Invisible) - Don't Be A Savage Blogger (Jamillah via Beautifully Invisible): - Build a Better Blog (via Vahni at Grit and Glamour).

I hope these tips are helpful! Blogging has been such a great part of my life - allowing me to express myself, build a community and make lifelong friends. And the great thing about it is that nearly anyone can do it. So have fun with it, don’t take yourself too seriously, and you’ll be a great blogger in no time!

Your images never looked so good

Brett Wiltshire — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:10:00 +0000

Posted by Marcos Almeida, Software Engineer

Updated 09/21/11: After listening to your feedback we've decided to roll back and make improvements to the Lightbox feature. We will update this blog as soon as the feature relaunches.

Introducing Lightbox, the latest in a series of Blogger updates aimed at giving you an improved and modernized blogging experience. Lightbox is a whole new way to interact with photos. When clicked, images now expand into a shiny new overlay that displays them at their full size for optimal viewing.

Once an image is opened in the lightbox view, any other images from the same post will now appear as thumbnails along the bottom, which can be easily browsed by clicking the arrow keys on the left or right side of the lightbox.

If you’ve custom-coded your image HTML so that images function as hyperlinks, then the lightbox view will not display and your original image hyperlink will work as expected.

Your images never looked so good!

Announcing the Blogger app for iOS

A Googler — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:22:00 +0000

Today we’re excited to announce the new Blogger app for iOS. With the Blogger app, you can write a new blog post and publish it immediately or save it as a draft right from your iOS device. You can also open a blog post you've been working on from your computer and continue editing it while you're on-the-go. Your blog posts are automatically synced across devices, so you’ll always have access to the latest version.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, and the Blogger app makes it easy to add photos either by choosing from the gallery or taking a new photo right within the app. You can also add labels and location to provide more details about the post.

Download the Blogger app today for iOS versions 3.2 and above in the App Store. Although the user interface is only available in English at this time, the app supports blog posts written in all languages. If you’re using an Android-powered device, you can download the Blogger app for Android from the Android Market.

Posted by Chang Kim, Product Manager

Blogger’s fresh new look

A Googler — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Posted by: Chang Kim, Product Manager

As you may have heard, things are starting to look a little different across many Google products—and today, Blogger is the next product to get a makeover.

It’s been a few years since we made major updates to Blogger’s look and feel, and there’s a lot more to these changes than just shiny new graphics. We’ve rewritten the entire editing and management experience from scratch so it’s faster and more efficient for you—and easier for us to update and improve over time.

Throughout the design process, we conducted user interviews to help identify how to make Blogger even easier and more enjoyable to use. We also watched users try our new interface and made many refinements based on their feedback.

A streamlined blogging experience
Whether you’re on a dashboard or settings page of blogger.com, you can always create or edit posts with just one click at the top of the screen. Additionally, the post editor has been expanded and simplified to give you a larger canvas for drafting and previewing your work.

Monitor and grow your audience at a glance
In the new “Overview” section of your dashboard, you’ll be able to quickly get a pulse for how people are reacting to your blog with a graph of your most recent traffic numbers, comment activity and follower counts. For extra guidance and inspiration, you’ll also find a list of helpful links, a feed of Blogger updates and a showcase of other blogs you may find interesting.

Opt in now
Starting today, we’ll gradually let all bloggers choose to turn on the new UI, so your Blogger experience won’t be updated until you enable it. Over the next few days, keep an eye out for a pop-up announcement on your dashboard with instructions on how to get started, and check out this Blogger Help Center page to learn more about what’s changed.

If you have suggestions or feedback about the new look, click the gear icon in the top right of the navigation bar and select “Send Feedback.”

We’re working hard to fundamentally revamp and improve the Blogger experience from the ground up, and we hope you enjoy the first in a series of major updates that are on their way in the coming months.

Latest updates, August 1st

Brett Wiltshire — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:58:00 +0000

Posted by Brett Wiltshire, Product Operations

Hello Bloggers!

Over the last few days we’ve rolled out a handful of updates, all of which are available to everyone right now. Here’s the rundown:

Favicon graduates from Draft

As we announced on the Blogger in Draft blog earlier this month, we now offer an easy tool for creating custom favicons on your Blogger blog. We’re happy to announce today that this feature is now available to all Blogger users.

Since the initial release to Draft, we’ve added support for all image types (JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc) and will now automatically resize the image to the correct favicon specifications. You can add a custom favicon to your blog right now on the Design | Page Elements tab, via the new favicon element shown below:

Swipe navigation for Mobile views

Adding to the featureset of our new mobile templates, you can now navigate through your mobile view with swipe navigation. This new navigation option lets you swipe through individual blog posts in a way that should feel very familiar for mobile and tablet users.

If you are viewing this post from a mobile device, you can give this a try right now!

Support for +1 on Pages
A few weeks ago we announced the +1 button on Blogger, and now we’re happy to expand coverage to individual pages as well as blog posts. The +1 button will now appear on Pages as an option on the sharing widget just as it has appeared for individual blog posts.

That’s it for now, more to come soon! Happy Blogging.

You can do some amazing things with Blogger

Brett Wiltshire — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:48:00 +0000

Guest post by David Kutcher

Editor’s note: We invited David Kutcher, an innovative web developer from Northampton MA, to write a guest blog post to share how he uses Blogger to create robust, beautiful and easy to use websites for his clients.

Hi, my name is David Kutcher. I own Confluent Forms LLC, a graphic design and custom web-based software development firm in Northampton, MA. We specialize in creating gorgeous and engaging websites with custom content management systems. As curious as it made sound, we’ve found that Blogger can be a great platform for web development when a custom CMS isn’t needed. Blogger provides a ton of functionality and design freedom for our clients, and not just for blogs!

You’re probably thinking: “what? using blog software for a website?”. I know - it sounds a bit unconventional, but it’s true.

I think that most users do not realize the value and flexibility that Blogger offers, including free hosting, complete customization, personalized domain options, WYSIWYG editor and more. Because Blogger is a Google product, you can also easily integrate with other Google services such as: Google Analytics, Google Docs, AdSense, Picasa and more. All of this is available free of charge while providing a simple, easy authoring environment for the small business owner.

As a web development firm, Blogger provides us with a different value proposition. When we pitch a Blogger-based solution to a client we can provide services at a lower price point while still maintaining full creative freedom. I don’t need to set up a paid hosting account for my client, worry about security patches or upgrades, or be concerned about system uptime and availability. Finally, I can easily transfer ownership and management of the site to my client, or, continue to keep us both as co-administrators.

It can be hard to envision a platform’s potential from a list of features so here are a few examples of what we’ve achieved with Blogger.

I hope the examples above have opened your eyes to some of the possibilities of what you can do with your Blogger site, or maybe encourage you to give Blogger a try for your website solution. A longer, more in-depth version of this post is available on our blog. My company is lucky to have an exceptionally talented designer that isn’t afraid to push us, but even if you don’t have the ability to create an entirely new site template, perhaps this will encourage you to explore the underlying code of your site and to customize some of the small details to match your vision for your site.

Happy designing and coding!

David

New tools for handling copyright on Blogger

Brett Wiltshire — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:45:00 +0000

Posted by Brett Wiltshire, Product Operations

In keeping with Google’s public commitment to make copyright work better online, our team has been working on improving the copyright environment for bloggers and copyright owners alike. As access to the web grows, bringing new content and services online, it becomes even more important to ensure the rights of everyone involved are protected and understood. To that end, we’re happy today to announce the release of two significant improvements to Blogger’s copyright handling toolkit:

1.) Streamlined submission tools for rightsholders.

Working alongside industry representatives, we’ve built a better submission and handling system for our high-volume DMCA takedown submitters that simplifies the reporting process and reduces our average response time to less than 24 hours.

2.) Streamlined counter-notice tools for users.

Built right into the dashboard, Blogger now offers a simple way to counter-notify incoming DMCA takedown notices to blog authors who believe their content was improperly targeted for removal. This will initially be available for users receiving notices from our high-volume submitters, though we have plans to expand this to other notices down the road.

In addition, to ensure transparency around the entire system, we’ll continue to forward all DMCA notices (as well as counter-notices) to the Chilling Effects cease & desist clearinghouse where they’ll be available for public searching.

As a refresher, here is a recap of how our DMCA removals procedure works today, factoring in these two updates we’ve just announced:

A blogger (let’s call him Joe Blogger) decides to post a link on his blog to a downloadable copy of Album X.
The rightsholder believes the link leads to an unauthorized, infringing copy of Album X and submits a takedown notice for that specific post.
The DMCA takedown notice is processed by the Blogger Team, and if determined to be a valid complaint, the post in question is reverted to draft, Joe Blogger is notified, and a copy of the complaint is sent to Chilling Effects.
At this point, Joe Blogger has the right to file a counter-notice and request the post be restored if he believes the takedown was improper. He may also edit the post to remove the allegedly infringing content himself.
If Joe Blogger files a counter-notice, notification will be sent to the rightsholder as well as to Chilling Effects, and after ten business days the post will be restored if the rightsholder decides not to pursue further action.
Rightsholders may pursue further legal action if they deem the counter-notice sent by the user to be invalid or erroneous.

These updates are the most recent among the copyright-related improvements our team has implemented over the last two years, all intended to strike a responsible balance between the needs of copyright owners and bloggers.

Creator vs. Curator

Lisa Ding — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:22:00 +0000

Post by Lisa Ding, Community Manager

Of the blogs that I read every day, more than half are blogs that link me to news articles, websites, or other blog posts on the web. It used to be that bloggers were expected to write original content. While original content remains highly valued by many readers, it's no longer taboo to simply share things that you find elsewhere on the Internet. Followers will read your blog to see the great content that you surface. Essentially, every blog can be a small gallery of a blogger’s interests and taste.

One of my go-to blogs for Internet trends is Brandflakes for Breakfast, which states its mission is to “read the internet, so you don’t have to.” The posts are short and quippy, and the contributors work for a digital creative agency, so I trust the content that they’re surfacing will be relevant to the Internet, marketing, and branding -- some topics that interest me.

While I’m a fervent reader of blogs, I’ve struggled to post original content on a regular basis. Fortunately, I’ve discovered a couple of sharing tools on Blogger that will help me post more often. As long as I keep finding interesting things on the web, I’ll be able to use these two shortcuts to help me generate quick blog posts:

Blog This! tool for Chrome: If you're using Chrome as your browser, simply install this extension and you'll be ready to write a blog post with a prepopulated link.
If you want to share a post from another Blogger blog, select the ‘B’ sharing button at the end of the post. A link and blurb of the post will pre-populate, so simply type an intro, and voila! you have a new post. (Note: If you don't see the sharing buttons on your own blog, you can enable them by going into the Design tab and editing the Blog Post page element.)

A question for our bloggers: do you consider yourself primarily a creator or a curator?

Why do you blog?

Lisa Ding — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:32:00 +0000

Posted by Inci Atrek, User Education Specialist

Hi Bloggers,

At the beginning, life can seem a bit lonely in the blogosphere, so kudos to you for taking that first step and starting a blog. Whether your purpose has evolved over the years or you’ve stuck around for the same reasons that got you started, we truly enjoyed reading your responses to our #bloggerasks tweet on why you blog.

@CprincessUK broke it down in list form, music blogger @LinerNotes crafted a mission statement, and @fortnow blogged about blogging for Blogger’s 10th anniversary. Others of you kept your raison d’être under 140 characters. Here are a few of them, short and sweet:

“I started blogging because I loved my wedding and talking about weddings and my fiancé didn't - I needed a community” (@CMatlick)

“Main reason: creative writing outlet. Aux reasons: counteract stereotypes/preconceived ideas abt Pakistan, Pakistanis, & Islam :)” (@desigurrl)

“I started blogging after a near death experience to create a legacy for my three young children” (@FrillyHills)

“Started blogging to write about food and Flavor of Italy's culinary tourism business” (@FlavorofItaly)

Whether it’s your love of magic, to share tips on shaving, to chronicle life with the kids, or for reasons you still haven’t figured out, we want to know -- why do you blog?

Cheers,

Inci

Update on Browser Support

Brett Wiltshire — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:40:00 +0000

Posted by Brett Wiltshire, Product Operations

Our team has been thinking a lot recently about browser support, and wanted to make you aware of our new plan moving forward. For web applications like Blogger to continue to evolve at a rapid pace, our engineering team needs to make use of new capabilities available in modern browsers. For example, Dynamic Views, which we previewed in March, and Web Fonts both require advanced browsers that support HTML5. Older browsers just aren’t able to provide you with the same high-quality experience.

For this reason, starting next month Blogger.com will only support modern browsers. Beginning August 1st, we’ll support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version is released, we’ll begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version.

As of August 1st, we will discontinue support for the following browsers and their predecessors: Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3. In these older browsers you may have trouble using certain features in Blogger as well as many other Google Apps such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites.

So if it’s been a while since your last update, we encourage you to take advantage of the improved performance and security these modern browsers have to offer by installing the latest version of your preferred browser. There are many to choose from:

As the world moves more to the web, these new browsers are more than just a modern convenience, they are a necessity for what the future holds.

Fashion blogs on Blogger

Lisa Ding — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 01:50:00 +0000

Posted by Lisa Ding, Community Manager

I wouldn’t consider myself a “fashionista,” but I do follow a good fashion blog or two.

Aside from The Sartorialist, which is one of the most frequently-viewed blogs on Blogger, I’m an avid follower of The Man Repeller. The blog is filled with photos of beautiful clothes, and I love the sassy attitude of Miss Man Repeller herself. This lady really seems to embrace the phrase “dressing for other girls.” Men, don’t worry about it.

There are quite a few popular fashion blogs on Blogger, but one thing that I’ve noticed many have in common is the use of a simple template with a customized header image. The simple template allows you to highlight the most important part of a fashion blog -- the images. And instead of have just text for a title header, you can draw readers in with a splashy colorful image that leaves a strong impression.

What are some of your favorite fashion blogs on Blogger? I’ll take some of your suggestions via comments and feature them in a future post.

Note: Please only submit fashion blogs -- other types will be featured later. I'll be crediting the nominator, so please leave your Twitter name or blog URL. Looking forward to your suggestions!