Atom Vs RSS - Choose One, Using FeedBurner

Occasionally, we see a blog owner in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, asking about newsfeed formats.

Which is better, for my readers - Atom or RSS? How do I choose, what to provide, in my blog?

The competing newsfeed formats - Atom and RSS - have been a part of Internet life, for many years. Both formats have their devotees - and this is why there are two formats.

Both formats have their own advantages - and disadvantages.

You can change the URL of a FeedBurner source feed, to select Atom or RSS feed formats, from your blog.

You can use FeedBurner, or edit the blog template, to select a feed format.

Use the FeedBurner "Edit Feed Details" wizard, if you redirect your blog feed to FeedBurner.

If you don't use FeedBurner, you can edit the blog template, and manually change feed URLs. Note this will involve editing the post template, to change some links in the blog. This is not a recommended solution.

You may choose from 5 blog posts feed URLs, provided by this blog. You can do the same, with your blog.

• Atom (classic): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/atom.xml
• RSS (classic): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/rss.xml
• Atom (autodiscovery default, new): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default
• Atom (new): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=atom
• RSS (new): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Do you really want to select Atom or RSS this way?

FeedBurner has two services, that let you mix and match Atom vs RSS.

• SmartFeed dynamically serves the right choice - Atom vs RSS.
• Convert Format Burner lets you statically select one format, or another.

Using either service, FeedBurner selects the desired feed format for you - regardless which Original Feed URL you provide, in "Edit Feed Details". Just give FeedBurner the default feed URL for your blog " ... /feeds/posts/default" - and let FeedBurner do the work, depending upon the service that you select.

You activate either service from the FeedBurner dashboard "Optimize" tab. Note that you should choose only one service, for each FeedBurner feed provided.

Important: We recommend not using this service if you use SmartFeed. SmartFeed will override any Convert Format settings in order to make your feed compatible with all feed readers, whether they support Atom, RSS, or both.

"SmartFeed" selects the best format, dynamically.

For the best experience by all readers, SmartFeed will automatically provide the feed format favoured by any feed reader used - as each reader views your feed.

Translates your feed on-the-fly into a format (RSS or Atom) compatible with your visitors' feed reader application.

Enable SmartFeed - and let FeedBurner choose the best format, for each different feed reader being used.



"Convert Format Burner" lets you choose the format - and version.

If the choice of feed format (Atom, RSS) - and even choice of format version (Atom 0.3, Atom 1.0, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0) - matters to you, you can use Convert Format Burner, and select a specific format and version.

Nine flavors of RSS and now two formats of Atom ... who has time to keep track of it all? FeedBurner does! Let us convert your feed to any of the format choices listed below.

Enable Convert Format Burner - and you choose what feed format and version gets served, to all feed readers.



You can have multiple feeds, and multiple FeedBurner outputs.

If you have conflicting requirements, you can always setup multiple different FeedBurner feeds - and use different feed service options, for different feeds. You can then provide each feed in a consistent display, using the "BrowserFriendly" service.

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If you want to serve the right newsfeed format from a #Blogger blog, you can either tweak the code in the blog template - or you can use a #FeedBurner feed, and activate the "SmartFeed" or "Format Burner" service. Using FeedBurner is a simpler choice, than the template editor.

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Private Blogs Limit Other Blog Features

Private blogs affect other Blogger features - and the combination of results are inconsistent.

With dynamic templates, the private blog selection causes an inoperable display. Conversely, with Google+ Comments, enabling Google+ Comments disables the private blog (designated reader) selection - and vice versa, in the various Blogger dashboard pages.

The two interactions - and differing mutual exclusiveness - contribute to some interesting diagnostic sessions, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

Intriguingly enough, when one of the known limitations with private blogs is diagnosed, some blog owners may treat the limitation as a personal insult.

Not all blog owners understand the technical limitations, with private blogs and other Blogger features. The limitations are based on simple technical interactions.

• Dynamic templates, and private blogs.
• Google+ comments, and private blogs.

Dynamic templates, and private blogs.

Private blogs do not publish blog newsfeeds. Dynamic templates require comments and posts newsfeeds, to generate the displays.

You can make a blog private - and you lose the "Dynamic Template" selection, in the dashboard Template page.

Some of the templates offered on the Template page, for a public blog.
Simple.
Dynamic Views.
Picture Window.
Awesome Inc.

Some of the templates offered on the Template page, for a private blog.
Simple.
Picture Window.
Awesome Inc.



If the blog has a dynamic template already, you can change to private access (edit Permissions, and designate readers), with no warning. The next time the blog is accessed, you will see the Spinner of Death.

My Dynamic Template test blog, set to Private.



Google+ comments, and private blogs.

When Google+ is used, no access to the Blogger permissions database is available. Since Google+ Comments are (or can be) Google+ stream posts, Google+ Comments can only support public blogs.

If you enable Google+ Comments, you will see a warning in the Permissions wizard - and you'll have no ability to Edit "Blog Readers".

Google+ Comments enabled. Learn more

If the blog is private already, you'll similarly see a warning on the dashboard Google+ page.

Google+ Comments are unsupported on non-public blogs and blogs marked as containing adult content. Learn more

So Google+ Comments, and private blogs, are mutually exclusive, on the dashboard - though Dynamic Views and private blogs are not, with intriguing result.

Why won't my blog load? It was fine, yesterday!

And when the blog address is provided with the problem report, we can see the problem.

Learn More.

• More information about Dynamic Views blogs.
• Manage Google+ Comments for Blogger.
• Control access to your blog.

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The option to designate permitted readers, for a #Blogger blog, affects other Blogger features. Not all blog owners know about or understand the limitations that exist.

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Avoid Use Of FeedBurner "Password Protector"

Some Google products contain features that have limited usefulness, when applied to Blogger blogs.

FeedBurner has a feature, "Password Protector", which may be useful, to newsfeed readers that support HTTP authentication. Within FeedBurner, we have the "Email Subscriptions" service - which does not support feed authentication.

Your readers will be required to use newsreader or aggregator software that supports authentication to view your feed.

Some Google, and non Google, services will have a problem, with a FeedBurner protected feed.

Newsfeeds, published by Blogger blogs, are supposed to be publicly accessible.

A blog with designated readers will not produce a newsfeed. Blogger does not support authenticated newsfeeds.

To use Password Protector, look on the FeedBurner dashboard, under the Publicize tab, for "Password Protector". Enter a Username and a Password, and hit "Activate". But don't do this, without knowing the downsides.

Password Protector uses a single username / password combination. All blog readers will use the same username.

FeedBurner warns us of possible problems, caused by this service.

Important: This service prevents our Email Subscriptions service from delivering email updates from your feed, and it will also password protect your feed's content when redisplayed using our Headline Animator graphic. This graphic itself becomes password protected, which is undesirable if you wish to use it to promote your site/feed. Therefore, we recommend not using Headline Animator or Email Subscriptions, and this Password Protector service, with the same feed.

From what I can see, Blogger Reading List may ignore the authentication requirement. People may use Reading List, and view the blog feed, redirected through FeedBurner - even if not authorized.

We know, however, that email subscriptions will not work, with a protected feed. Looking at an HTTP trace of the feed from my test blog http://techdict.nitecruzr.net, we see a symptom of the problem, with this option.

http://techdict.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default

http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi?url=http://techdict.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default&uag=Mozilla/5.0+(X11%3B+CrOS+armv7l+7834.70.0)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/49.0.2623.112+Safari/537.36&ref=http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html&aen=&req=GET&ver=1.1&fmt=AUTO

Sending request:

GET /feeds/posts/default HTTP/1.1
Host: techdict.nitecruzr.net
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS armv7l 7834.70.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/49.0.2623.112 Safari/537.36
Referer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
Connection: close
• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 74.125.28.121

• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...
Receiving Header:

HTTP/1.1·302·Found(CR)(LF)
ETag:·W/"32e869db-18a9-4ccf-8ad9-dbded29f2b25"(CR)(LF)
Date:·Wed,·27·Apr·2016·15:04:06·GMT(CR)(LF)
Content-Type:·text/html(CR)(LF)
Server:·blogger-renderd(CR)(LF)
Expires:·Wed,·27·Apr·2016·15:04:07·GMT(CR)(LF)

Cache-Control:·public,·must-revalidate,·proxy-revalidate,·max-age=1(CR)(LF)
X-Content-Type-Options:·nosniff(CR)(LF)
X-XSS-Protection:·1;·mode=block(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChucksTechWorld(CR)(LF)

This appears to be just a redirected blog posts newsfeed, targeting a FeedBurner published feed.

Here, we see a normal redirected blog posts feed.

But what happens, when we try to open the feed?

http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChucksTechWorld&uag=Mozilla/5.0+(X11%3B+CrOS+armv7l+7834.70.0)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/49.0.2623.112+Safari/537.36&ref=http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html&aen=&req=GET&ver=1.1&fmt=TXT

Sending request:

GET /ChucksTechWorld HTTP/1.1 HTTP/1.1

Host: feeds.feedburner.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS armv7l 7834.70.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/49.0.2623.112 Safari/537.36
Referer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
Connection: close
• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 172.217.0.14

• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...
Receiving Header:

HTTP/1.1·401·Unauthorized(CR)(LF)

WWW-Authenticate:·BASIC·realm="FeedBurner·feed·ChucksTechWorld"(CR)(LF)

The "HTTP Viewer" service does not support feed authentication (and only works with "HTTP:" protocol). And, we see the result.

It's possible that this feature will be useful, with feeds that are used outside Blogger (noting the Reading List ability). If you're publishing a Blogger blog, however, you're not likely to get any useful result.

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Owners of #Blogger blogs, which use the FeedBurner "Password Protector" service, may find that the service delivers less protection - and some interference - other than the service name suggests. It would probably be best to avoid use of this service.

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Blogger Magic - Check / Edit FeedBurner Feed Details

Whenever you have a problem with FeedBurner - or need to change details, the "Edit Feed Details" wizard is an essential tool.

It's a very simple display - just 3 data elements - but it's a pretty useful 3 elements, if you use FeedBurner with your blog..

The FeedBurner "Edit Feed Details" wizard is an essential tool, when researching a FeedBurner problem.

Start from the FeedBurner "My feeds" display - and select a feed in the list.

"Edit Feed Details" is at the top of the feed dashboard.

Start from the feed dashboard.

Click on "Edit Feed Details".

And there is the "Edit Feed Details" display.



Here, you can view, and edit:

• Feed Title.
• Original Feed URL.
• FeedBurner Feed URL.

Feed Title.

You can change the feed title here - or in the service settings.

Optimize - Title/Description Burner lets you change to title used in the feed itself. Publicize - Email Subscriptions - Email Branding lets you change the title used in the email based feed service.

You may want to check the blog title, also.

Original Feed URL.

If you change the URL of your blog, or want to use a different blog, you can use the FeedBurner Feed URL ("Original Feed") to make the change transparent, to everybody who Follows your blog using a FeedBurner service. The original feed URL may change - but the FeedBurner Feed URL does not have to change.

FeedBurner Feed URL.

Besides changing the title, you can change the feed URL ("Feed Address"), if you need.

Simple changes / powerful results.

These are simple changes - that can have powerful results.

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Any #Blogger blog owner who uses #FeedBurner to distribute / modify content of a newsfeed, or an email subscription, needs to know and use the "Edit Feed Details" dashboard wizard. The ability to change the feed title, the blog feed URL, and / or the FeedBurner feed URL, at will, makes this a useful wizard.

https://productforums.google.com/d/topic/blogger/oUYseDHCerU/discussion

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BlogLovin Has Problems With Some Blog Feeds

We see occasional reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, from Blogger blog owners who want to share their blogs using BlogLovin.

Why can't I claim my blog?

BlogLovin is somewhat monolithic. They use the blog feed, and a BlogLovin URL with embedded token, to process / validate blog claims - and their diagnostics, when a claim is a problem, are not always effective.

Some blog feeds can be validated, yet not be found by BlogLovin. And other feeds won't validate.

Blog owners have reported several common problems, when trying to claim their blog with BlogLovin.

• Start with the published blog URL.
• Empty / very short feeds.
• Redirected feeds, generally involving FeedBurner.
• Feeds containing GeoRSS datapoints.
• Feeds with content formatted in Microsoft Office.
• Positioning the claim verification link / token.

Start with the published blog URL.

Even though BlogLovin uses the blog posts newsfeed for content source, when you claim your blog, you need to use the published URL. You do not specify the feed URL. BlogLovin finds the feed URL from the blog header - after you give it the published URL of the blog.

Feeds can be validated, using either the W3C Feed Validator, or the FeedValidator.org Feed Validator. You have to use the right W3C validator, though.

If the blog is published to a custom domain, the published URL - and the feed - will be most consistently accessible to BlogLovin when the domain is properly setup. Bogus DNS addressing, or poorly setup domains, will cause feed access issues - and BlogLovin won't process your claim.

Empty / very short feeds.

An empty or very short feed just does not contain enough material, for BlogLovin to reliably claim a blog.

It's best to let your blog mature slightly, before trying to use it with BlogLovin. Half a dozen good posts are better than just one or two, when claiming a blog.

Redirected feeds, generally involving FeedBurner.

A FeedBurner redirected feed looks completely different from a native Blogger feed. If you're going to use a Blogger blog in BlogLovin, it's best to use a non redirected version of the feed for your blog.

Feeds containing GeoRSS datapoints.

A feed from a blog that includes a GeoRSS datapoint will fail validation.

GeoRSS will disrupt BlogLovin, and cause problems with FeedBurner. If you want to use either service, you have to edit any post using GeoRSS, and remove the GeoLocation element.

Feeds with content formatted in Microsoft Office.

A Microsoft Office formatted blog will produce a validated feed - yet BlogLovin and FeedBurner will both have problems, when using the feed.

We've been dealing with Microsoft Office generated problems, in various Blogger features, for years. BlogLovin is one more service where Microsoft Office formatted posts just don't work.

Both the W3C and FeedValidator.org feed validators are generally used, to diagnose non claimable blogs.

But neither is 100% useful, when there's a problem. Some blogs with valid feeds still can't be claimed.





Use the right validator.

You do need to use the right W3C validator, when checking the feed for your blog. Some BlogLovin diagnostic instructions may mention the wrong validator.

W3C provides 2 validator services.

This is for HTML / XML Markup Validation:

http://validator.w3.org/

This is for Feed Validation:

https://validator.w3.org/feed/

If you use the Markup Validator, with a blog feed, you're going to see a lot of irrelevant errors. You have to use the Feed Validator.

Use a properly coded template.

Some blogs cannot be claimed, because BlogLovin cannot detect a feed. If your blog lacks the necessary header records in the template, your blog cannot be claimed.

This problem is not caused by BlogLovin. This is a problem caused by you, using a custom template that lacks the necessary template content.

BlogLovin does have a good Help contact page, though.



Positioning the claim verification link / token.

BlogLovin suggests publishing a new post, with the claim link / token at the top of the post - or alone. I found that the link, added to an HTML gadget, and positioned in the sidebar, works - and makes more sense than cluttering the blog posts newsfeed with a gratuitous post containing a claim link.

Proper positioning of the claim link - whether in a post or the sidebar - is also essential to the success of the claim process.

As last resort, contact BlogLovin Support for help.

If you just can't get your blog claimed, you can contact BlogLovin Support - or you can read the BlogLovin Help database.

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Some #Blogger blog owners use BlogLovin as a social sharing platform. Unfortunately, not every blog owner can successfully claim their blog, in BlogLovin, immediately.

BlogLovin has several possible problems with Blogger blogs - and not all problems are well known.

Read More

Dear Followers Of This Blog ...

If you did not use a Blogger / Google account when you Followed this blog, years ago, you are probably not Following now.

During the past month or so, this blog has gone from 5,300 to 4,800 Followers. Owners of other blogs have reported similar reductions.

Look at the Reading List, in the Blogger dashboard - if you use Blogger. Is this blog listed? If so, you are Following this blog, using a Blogger account. If not, you may want to add this blog to your Reading List.

As part of a project to make Blogger Followers (aka "Google Friend Connect") more reliable and stable, Blogger Engineers are rewriting Followers to only work with Blogger / Google accounts.

Originally, Blogger Followers was part of a web of community building features.

In the past, Blogger Followers was part of a web based community composed of half a dozen account hosts - and another half a dozen profile hosts - and the login and profile hosts complements were not the same.

The Followers gadget, for many years, had well known problems.

"Were sorry ...

This gadget is configured incorrectly."

Everyone who uses Followers, on their blogs, has surely seen this notice.



This blog showed the above message, during most of 2015, for many would be Followers. Other blog owners had similar complaints, during the past several years.

One of the odder peccadilloes of Following started with someone who would, for one reason or another, decide to Follow a blog using an OpenID account or profile, then later login to Blogger and look in their Reading List for the new newsfeed subscription. Surprise! No subscription!!

Unfortunately, people Following using the web were shortchanged. One of the downsides of Following (seldom discussed) was that only Followers using Blogger / Google accounts would have a newsfeed subscription added to their Reading List.

People Following without Google accounts did not get newsfeed subscriptions.

Followers using OpenID only got their photo icon in the Followers facepile. How would OpenID Followers get a Reading List subscription? Reading List subscriptions require Blogger / Google accounts.

Followers is being rewritten - and non Google accounts are not supported.

Starting last month, Blogger Engineers have been eliminating Followers who use OpenID accounts, and / or who use OpenID hosted profiles.

January 27 - 4,860 Followers.

December 18 - 5,343 Followers.



This causes a drop in Follower count, on a lot of blogs - and yes, it's painful to watch the numbers drop. But what they are removing is people who only get their photo icon on the blog (temporarily) - the ones being removed don't read the newsfeed in Reading List, because they don't use Reading List.

Blogger is doing this for a practical reason - Followers code needs to be simplified, so it can be made more reliable. It's similar to support policy for every brand and version of browser. Blogger can't support every version of every browser, nor can they support every type of login to Followers, reliably.

If we are going to use the Followers gadget, it needs to be reliable.

The Followers gadget, on this blog, was broken - for many months, last year. If we're going to use Followers, it needs to be reliable.

If you look in your Reading List and find this blog listed, you are Following this blog using a Blogger account - since the Reading List subscription is one benefit of Following. If you don't find this blog listed, you may subscribe, using Reading List - or Follow, using "Follow Me". Just use a Blogger / Google account, when you Follow.

I welcome you, either way. Now that this blog is The ONLY Blogger Status, I plan to continue bringing you the best discussions of Blogger features and problems.

If you are Following my Google+ stream, this may not affect you.

Keeping all of this in proper perspective, some of you may be Following this blog in your Google+ stream, using Google Followers. You will be using a Google account (you cannot use Google+ without a Google account) - and you will not have a Reading List entry (Google+ does not use Reading List).

Others may be Following my Google+ Collection, RBS. Google+ Collections are more similar to blogs.

Blogger Followers ("Follow Me"), above Google+ Followers ("+Follow Me").



Blogger Followers, and Google+ Followers, are simply two different products - and both are displayed on this blog. And both help different people to find your blog.

And that's why we add the gadgets, to our blogs. And now, why we add notices, to our blogs.

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Dynamic Templates, And Jump Break

We see occasional evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, from blog owners who are using a dynamic template.

Why does the Jump Break not show up, in the blog display?

or

Why can't I see the entire post?

Not all blog owners understand the limited options, in the dynamic templates.

Compare the main page of this blog, to a formatted feed page of this blog.

Do you see the differences? I use Jump Break consistently, on my main page posts. Unfortunately, newsfeeds do not include the Jump Break, because the newsfeed standard was developed before Blogger developed their post summarisation feature, Jump Break.

Blog feeds will not contain Jump Break tokens.

Since dynamic views format the display using the blog posts feed, they have no way to include the Jump Break. The posts feed contains each post, in its entirety. The "Jump Break" token is part of the main page display, not the posts.

This is just one more reason why dynamic templates won't be chosen, on all blogs.

If you want to display your main page as I do, you can't use a dynamic template. Dynamic templates format their posts without using jump break. Some dynamic template "main page" views include text, broken; others include text, unbroken; and still others include only photos. None of the dynamic views include the Jump Break.

Dynamic templates require a full blog feed - comments and posts.

Remember that to use dynamic views, you have to set the blog feed to "Full". If you set the feed to "Until Jump Break", dynamic views won't work. The dynamic views format the post displays to the requirements of each different view (selected by the reader), and require the complete post content in the feed.

To see an example of what happens, using "Until Jump Break" - and with a Jump Break included, you can click here. If you want to display your blog in a dynamic template, you have to let the template determine (or not) where to break the posts.

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What Are The Mysterious Turning Gears?

This is a question, occasionally seen in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

I cannot view some blogs - all that I see are gears, turning endlessly. What is going on, here?

The gears are animation, displayed by Blogger, while a dynamic template and blog content loads on the computer being used. Generally, the gears will play for a few seconds, then the blog will be seen. For an example, check out my Musings blog.

Sometimes, all that you will see are the gears, endlessly turning - waiting for the templates and blog content to download.

The dynamic templates, used by some Blogger blogs, represent an innovative approach to providing web content.

Normal web content, provided in Blogger blogs which use Classic, Designer, and Layout class templates, consists of comments, gadgets, posts, and templates, arranged together in pages (dynamic and static).

Blogs which use Classic (HTML only) templates arranges everything when the blog is maintained. Blogs which use Designer / Layout templates (HTML / XML) arrange the content when the blog is maintained - then build the individual pages when the blog is read by each viewer, dynamically. For all 3 classes of templates, the content is served from Blogger / Google servers, in individual display pages.

The Dynamic class of Blogger templates take the concept of dynamic publishing to another level. Dynamic class templates load a significant amount of script code (the template) directly to each client computer. Instead of reading the pages of blog content from a Blogger / Google blog server, a dynamic template script, running on the client computer, reads the published blog feeds from a newsfeed server - then turns the feed content into a display.

A Dynamic template is a specialised Newsfeed Reader, similar to the dashboard Reading List, or to Google Reader.

By offloading a large amount of the publishing process to the client computer, and by using the blog comments and posts feeds, Blogger provides blogs which can be viewed in a number of different ways - selectable by each individual viewer, and at the convenience of the viewer. This selectability is not without cost, unfortunately.

• The templates require a significant amount of script code.
• The templates require the blog comments and posts newsfeeds.

For most blogs using a dynamic template, and being viewed on most computers, the "turning gears" icon plays briefly, while the template code, and the blog comments and posts newsfeeds, are downloaded. As soon as downloaded, the content is assembled into a display, and the viewer can view the blog. This does not happen, in all cases.

• Some client computers may filter the template code.
• Some client computers may not have a fast Internet connection.
• Some blogs may not publish a full newsfeed.

If the client computer has a slow Internet connection, the viewer may watch the turning gears for more than a few seconds. If the computer filters scripts aggressively, or if the blog does not publish a full newsfeed, the gears play, endlessly, while the computer waits for the scripts and newsfeeds to finish downloading. In the latter case, the viewer can only find another blog to view.

If you encounter one or two Blogger blogs playing the turning gears, endlessly, then you are experiencing the reality of dynamic templates - some blog owners do not realise that they have broken their blogs. If you encounter a large number of Blogger blogs doing this, then you might want to check the filters, on your computer - including, but not only, the browser cookie and script filters.

>> Top

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Blogger Magic - Activating The Blog Feed

One of the neatest - and easiest - techniques, to make your blog available to a larger audience, uses a replica of the blog posts - the blog newsfeed.

Most blogs, when new, have the feed activated by default. Oddly enough, some blogs - even published publicly - do not publish a newsfeed.

Some blog owners, wondering why their blogs are not being indexed by the search engines, are perplexed.

Why isn't my blog publishing a feed?

If you want full visibility, activate the blog newsfeeds.

You activate the various newsfeeds, for the blog, from the dashboard Settings - Other - Site Feed wizard.

Routinely, you'll have one setting - "Allow Blog Feeds" - and this setting will affect all feed options equally. If you select "Custom", you can enable or disable any of the 3 feed options, separately.

• Blog Posts Feed
• Blog Comments Feed
• Per-Post Comment Feeds

Each setting will have 3 possible selections - Full, Until Jump Break, Short, None.

(Note): If you enable a feed, it is available to anybody with a feed reader, either a feed reader that they personally use, or one built in to a blog. There is no option to limit feed access - feeds are available, equally, to all interested parties. This is why feeds are not published by limited access (private) blogs.

If you fear that unknown parties might steal content from your blog by using your feed, don't publish a Full feed, publish a Short feed. This will require anybody wishing to read a complete post to access your blog, rather than reading it in their newsreader.

In most cases, though, a "Full" setting, for all feeds, is best.

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Add A Simple "Recent Comments" / "Recent Posts" Gadget To Your Blog

The recently observed problems with some third party gadgets, previously added by many blog owners to their blogs, leaves these blogs lacking various accessories.

One of the gadgets identified is the "Recent Comments" / "Recent Posts" gadget pair. For many blog owners, this gadget is not impossible to replace.

Blogger provides us with a native accessory, called a "Blog Feed" gadget, which will provide acceptable "Recent Comments" and "Recent Posts" functionality, for many blog owners.

Look at the sidebar of this blog, for "The Real Blogger Status - Comments", and "The Real Blogger Status - Posts". Those are "Recent Comments" and "Recent Posts" gadgets, which are based on the Blogger supplied "Feed" gadget - which is not a third party accessory, and is not subject to future third party peccadilloes.

To make your new gadget, start with the URL of the blog feed desired.

Add a Blogger supplied Feed gadget, using the "Add a gadget" wizard, in the dashboard Layout display.

This is the URL of this blog.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net

This is the URL of the blog comments feed.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/comments/default

This is the URL of the blog posts feed.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default

Setting up a "Blog Feed" gadget is simple enough.

1. Add a "Feed" gadget (Only select the "Feed" gadget, "By Blogger"!!!), using the "Add a gadget" wizard.
2. Plug in the Feed URL (see my examples above), and Continue.
3. Review / change the options offered, and Save.
4. Test your new blog accessory - provided by Blogger - with no future hacking activity anticipated.

Avoid any similarly named gadget not "By Blogger" - distributed from "Add a Gadget", or from a private blog or non Google website.

And, you're done. Wasn't that simple?

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