Two Quick Blogger/Blogspot Hacks Every Marketer Should Know

[Mark Hess]

Recently, I've been working a lot with blogger blogs. I would like to share two quick blogger hacks that I feel every Internet marketer should know. (Please feel free to post others)

1) Removing the standard "blogger bar" (This will cut down on people flagging your blog):



From your Blogger dashboard go to "layout"-->"Edit HTML"

Add this piece of code:

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

Right BEFORE the "variable definitions" at the top of the template:



The top bar will now be removed from the template.

2) Making Your Blogger Blog DoFollow (to pass on link juice to your other sites)

From your Blogger dashboard go to "layout"-->"Edit HTML"

Place a check mark in the box next to "Expand Widget Templates"

On your keyboard hold down CTRL+f this will bring up a search box.

Conduct a search for the keyword: nofollow

(This will bring up 2-3 results depending on what template you are using.)

Change all "nofollow" to "follow".

[Christophe Young]

Ouch! Tried #1 and it messed up all my margins. Wonder what happened?

[Glenn Leader]

Originally Posted by Christophe Young

Ouch! Tried #1 and it messed up all my margins. Wonder what happened?

You need to have the code in exactly the right spot.

HTH

Glenn

[Christophe Young]

Ah, the other } is missing in the above code... but I guess I should have known that. Now it works.

[Mark Hess]

Originally Posted by Christophe Young

Ah, the other } is missing in the above code... but I guess I should have known that. Now it works.

This is the code:

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

[katiec]

Always helpful. Thanks!

[Stefan Vee]

Hi Mark,
I logged in just to say "thank you".
Those are some great tips indeed.
Well, I am out of here again (too busy)
Cheers,
Stefan

[Big JP]

Great stuff!

Just edited the code, and worked like a charm.

Would all links be nofollow, including comment links? And I would have to change evey new link to make it a followed link manually?

[Mark Hess]

Originally Posted by Big JP

Great stuff!

Just edited the code, and worked like a charm.

Would all links be nofollow, including comment links? And I would have to change evey new link to make it a followed link manually?

The dofollow hack is a hack to the actual template. Once you hack the actual template in makes all the links dofollow. There is no need to do this manually.

[pjlyons1uk]

Thanks for those bits of code that'll help alot.

Best wishes

Pete

[dreamtab]

@MarkH45 great tip. I am saving the codes and instructions for future reference lol

[zachary0611]

Can you change the categories on the right from dates to blog post titles?

[Mark Hess]

Originally Posted by zachary0611

Can you change the categories on the right from dates to blog post titles?

I'm not sure of the question. Do you mean from the blog archive? There should already be titles under each month/year you post.

The only other way I can think to do this is by adding the "labels" gadget to the side bar and when you make a post place the title of the post in the label field.

[Zeus66]

This isn't a hack, but it's something a lot of blogger.com users don't know about. You can schedule your posts for future publishing dates/times. This is great if you have a lot of content ahead of time. You can schedule it to post when you want in the future without having to remember to do it manually. At the bottom of the post editor, look for the link to 'Post Options' and click it. Then do what I show in this image:

[Mark Hess]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

This isn't a hack, but it's something a lot of blogger.com users don't know about.

You're right about that, I love that feature of blogger.

[Sam101]

Superb Mark! However, I found only one nofollow in my blog (All about Gas Monitors, Gas Detectors and Gas Detection systems) and I changed it to follow.
Lets see what happens.
The hack about removing the header was great!
Thank You for your tips.

[Big JP]

Originally Posted by MarkH45

The dofollow hack is a hack to the actual template. Once you hack the actual template in makes all the links dofollow. There is no need to do this manually.

Very Nice, Will come in handy I'm Sure.

Does anyone know or have any problems when using Ping-o-matic for a blog?
I used it once for my blogger blog, it sent pings fine, but now I cannot get back to the forms for pinging, whenever I go to "home" or even to their site from the search engine, I get this page Ping-o-Matic!
Which only shows the filed "blog name" so I cannot ping anything???

Any suggestions?

[Zeus66]

Ping-o-matic does that when you ping too often. Try Blog pinger - Blog ping service

John

[Crafty Blogger]

Oh, this is great! I always wished I could get rid of that annoying bar, but didn't know how. Thank you!

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by MarkH45

1) Removing the standard "blogger bar" (This will cut down on people flagging your blog):

Please excuse me for this comment in such an informative thread, but there is one potential problem/risk here: doing so is against Blogspot's terms of service. If anyone takes the trouble to report the fact that you've done so (and I accept entirely that having done so makes it harder for them to do this), Blogspot will remove your blog for it. It's actually happened to someone I know.

The way to get rid of the "blogger bar" without needing to worry about this is to have your Blogger blog self-hosted rather than using Blogspot's free hosting. (Just mentioning it in case anyone imagines that you can do this only with Wordpress - the reality is that every time you start off a new Blogger blog, it asks you whether you want to use Blogspot's free hosting or to self-host it instead. Just thought I'd mention it - hope you don't mind, Mark ).

[scrofford]

Worked like a charm! Thank you!

[Mark Hess]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Please excuse me for this comment in such an informative thread, but there is one potential problem/risk here: doing so is against Blogspot's terms of service. If anyone takes the trouble to report the fact that you've done so (and I accept entirely that having done so makes it harder for them to do this), Blogspot will remove your blog for it. It's actually happened to someone I know.

The way to get rid of the "blogger bar" without needing to worry about this is to have your Blogger blog self-hosted rather than using Blogspot's free hosting. (Just mentioning it in case anyone imagines that you can do this only with Wordpress - the reality is that every time you start off a new Blogger blog, it asks you whether you want to use Blogspot's free hosting or to self-host it instead. Just thought I'd mention it - hope you don't mind, Mark ).

Most Internet marketer's (atleast the majority of the one's I know) use blogger as just another way to get search engine rankings and place content that leads to their money pages and get link juice.

I would not recommend to anyone they set up some type of long term blog on blogspot and I would hope that most people would know that. (Look at all the people who tried to set up their business sites on Squidoo)

And yes, removing the bar will cut down on people flagging you... You will notice that many of the non standard blogger templates already have this code to remove the bar embedded....

http://btemplates.com

[siteflip]

Stupid question as I am not using blogger for now:

Is this legal ? I mean are we sure there is no place anywhere on their TOS that prevents us from doing it?
If not, then I think this is a great point and I'll definitely use it!

[XRay]

Originally Posted by MarkH45

Recently, I've been working a lot with blogger blogs. I would like to share two quick blogger hacks that I feel every Internet marketer should know. (Please feel free to post others)

1) Removing the standard "blogger bar" (This will cut down on people flagging your blog):



From your Blogger dashboard go to "layout"-->"Edit HTML"

Add this piece of code:

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

Right BEFORE the "variable definitions" at the top of the template:



The top bar will now be removed from the template.

2) Making Your Blogger Blog DoFollow (to pass on link juice to your other sites)

From your Blogger dashboard go to "layout"-->"Edit HTML"

Place a check mark in the box next to "Expand Widget Templates"

On your keyboard hold down CTRL+f this will bring up a search box.

Conduct a search for the keyword: nofollow

(This will bring up 2-3 results depending on what template you are using.)

Change all "nofollow" to "follow".

Thanks Mark, I'll definitely use the nofollow to follow hack.

For removing the NAV bar I've been using the following:

<!-- Show/Hide navbar begins -->
<script type='text/javascript'>
var showHeader=false;
function ShowHideNav()
{
showHeader=!showHeader;
var nav=document.getElementById(&quot;navbar-iframe&quot;);
if (showHeader)
{
nav.style.visibility=&quot;visible&quot;;
nav.style.display=&quot;block&quot;;
}
else
{
nav.style.visibility=&quot;hidden&quot;;
nav.style.display=&quot;none&quot;;
}
}
</script>
<style type='text/css'>
#navbar-iframe {
visibility: hidden;
display: none;
}
</style>
<!-- Show/Hide navbar ends -->

I place it just before the first <head> tag.

[XRay]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

This isn't a hack, but it's something a lot of blogger.com users don't know about. You can schedule your posts for future publishing dates/times. This is great if you have a lot of content ahead of time. You can schedule it to post when you want in the future without having to remember to do it manually. At the bottom of the post editor, look for the link to 'Post Options' and click it. Then do what I show in this image:

If any of you have Squidoo lenses caught in the banned topics/banned links filter (aka the "spam" filter) & have a lot of content, just set up a Blogger, mod the template to remove the NAV bar and set your content modules as individual posts with staggered publishing dates/times. And make sure you switch to the Updated editor under Global Settings under the Basic Settings tab - much easier to work with images vs. the old editor and it has a read more button that's very easy to use/place for those longish posts .

[Troubletwin]

nice info here

[Variable]

Great tips, thanks so much! I've been wanting to remove that bar from my blogspot blog but figured there was no way.

[mekadon009]

thanks man,great tip.

[Online Bliss]

I have ignored updating my blogspot blogs because of the standard bar
and other issues.
Becuase of your Great tips I am encouraged to update them.

Thanx

[Andy W]

Awesome! Thanks for the Hot Tip!!
-Andy

[Jack Blankenship,RN]

You learn something new every day!

Great tips for both the new and experienced IM'ers.

Thanks again,

Jack

[XRay]

Here's another hack to make your blog post titles more SEO friendly:

1. from the Layout tab, click on Edit HTML
2. search for

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

3. replace it with

 <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
</b:if>

4. be sure to click Save template

[James Campbell]

Maybe an all in one Blogger/Blogspot thread is in order?

I know I would benefit from it as would many other warriors.

Best Regards,
James

[Amenda Jessera]

ya, In the same forum I have learned this from the same person
But the second point, I did not get on time, now I have got it. But Offering DOFOLLOW links will make more spammers to visit my site.. So, I won't do it

[PAP]

Great info.

Making a blogspot blog dofollow might help when you are creating a linkwheel

[David Chung]

Regarding the legality of removing the Blogger navbar:

While we don't recommend or support the removal of the Blogger navbar,
there is nothing in our Terms of Service that explicitly mandate its
use.

Source:
Navbar and Blogger buttons - Please answer only by Blogger employees - Layouts & Templates | Google Groups

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by siteflip

I mean are we sure there is no place anywhere on their TOS that prevents us from doing it?

On the contrary. In fact, if you look a couple of posts above your own question, you'll see that it is contrary to their TOS and that they will remove your blog if they catch you doing this.

The way to do it safely is to use self-hosted Blogger instead of using the free hosting at Blogspot.

[elonblock]

Thanks for the tips! I still have a blogger blog that sends me pretty good traffic. Those tweaks should make it even better! Thanks again!

[bluefoot]

The "nofollow" to "follow" isn't working for me. The first two instances will change to "follow" just fine, but the third instance reverts back to "nofollow" after I save. As a result my blog links remain NoDoFollow.

This is the code that will not save the "follow":

<a expr:href='data:follower.profileUrl' expr:title='data:follower.displayName' rel='nofollow'>

Wondering if anyone else had this problem? By the way, I'm using the Rounders 3 template.

[XRay]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

On the contrary. In fact, if you look a couple of posts above your own question, you'll see that it is contrary to their TOS and that they will remove your blog if they catch you doing this.

The way to do it safely is to use self-hosted Blogger instead of using the free hosting at Blogspot.

You're right, Alexa. But anyone worried about violating the TOS is probably using Blogger the wrong way. Like Mark said ... most IM'rs use blogspots for SEO purposes. My primary use is for backlinks and 'experiments' to get niche content ranked. BTW, I've been using the 'hide the NAV bar' hack for 3 years and I haven't had any of my blogs deleted. Self hosting a Blogger? WP is the way to go.

[Paxton]

Interesting tidbits.

Thanks

[clint48]

Most of my blogs started out on the first page of Google when I built them, but now you can't find any of them. I thought maybe the no follow was the problem, but I just checked my links with the firefox add on and all my links at blogger are showing follow even though I have never done anything to the templates.

Are you sure that bloggers default is no follow? I found 2 nofollows and changed them to follow, but they must be for comments, because all the links that I had added were ok.

Clint

[Big JP]

Originally Posted by david2885

Regarding the legality of removing the Blogger navbar:



Source:
Navbar and Blogger buttons - Please answer only by Blogger employees - Layouts & Templates | Google Groups

Its says on that page (by the person asking the question) that blogger takes a cut of the adsense earnings, is this true? I didn't think they earned anything from my revenue of adsense on my blogger blog ???

[Mark Hess]

Originally Posted by Big JP

Its says on that page (by the person asking the question) that blogger takes a cut of the adsense earnings, is this true? I didn't think they earned anything from my revenue of adsense on my blogger blog ???

I never heard of Google taking a cut of your adsense earnings. I know that you only receive a portion of the total amount paid by the person advertising but I've never heard of them taking anything additional.

[Big JP]

Originally Posted by MarkH45

I never heard of Google taking a cut of your adsense earnings. I know that you only receive a portion of the total amount paid by the person advertising but I've never heard of them taking anything additional.

Google does take a cut, the earnings are between the site publisher and goolgle, but as far as I know they don't take more from blogger blogs do they? Is that what you meant too ?

[Mark Hess]

Originally Posted by Big JP

Google does take a cut, the earnings are between the site publisher and goolgle, but as far as I know they don't take more from blogger blogs do they? Is that what you meant too ?

Yes, I've never heard of them taking a larger cut from Blogger blogs...

[Jenb]

Thanks for this great info. I knew about removing the blogger bar, but nofollow....it's all making sense now!

[woodgate]

thank for this information, it will help me alot