Saturday, January 20, 2007

Advantages of migrating from old (classic) Blogger account to New (formerly beta) Blogger Account even if you retain classic templates

Background

I occasionally check the statcounter statistics to check how people are finding my blogs, and found that this post Digi D'House: An almost paperless Office Part II were being found by surfers searching for D'House (the correct name for the building), but the original post Digi D'House: An almost paperless office were not being found because the name of the building was given wrongly as D'Block to me and the original title of the first post was "D'Block: An almost paperless building". The URL was then

http://enviromansays.blogspot.com/2006/11/digi-d-block
-almost-paperless-office.html

Now that blog is still using the old (classic) Blogger template although I have migrated the Blogger account to the New Blogger (formerly beta) account. I have already noticed that with the new account and new Blogger template, the individual post page URL (permalink) remains the same even if we changed the post title and/or date, but do not know if blogs still using the old (classic) template will have the same advantage (it is an advantage to me because if the permalink changed, then existing inbound links and links in search engine result pages will become dead links). I was sorely tempted to change the post title, but was afraid the permalink may changed. So I decided to test it on an unimportant post in an unimportant blog to see if changing the title will change the permalink. I found that it did not, so I had the courage to change the title of the above post from "Digi D'Block...." to "Digi D'House...." and confirmed that the permalink (URL) did not change.

Advantages of migrating your old (classic) Blogger account to the New Blogger (formerly beta) account even if you keep the classic template

So now, I have discovered the following advantages of migrating your account even if you keep the original classic template of some or all your blogs:

  • Individual post page URL (permalink) remains the same even when you change the post title and/or date

  • You can label (categorise or tag) your posts even if you retain the classic template. The labels will appear at the bottom of the post, although you will not be able to put a list of labels in the sidebar (unless you are prepared to do it manually yourself)

  • When you change the settings, you no longer have to republish

  • Posts get published faster
  • .

Anyone knows of anymore advantages, please put them in the Comments section.

I know of one person (20 sticky posts) who claimed himself to be a technophobe (a person who dislikes or avoids new technology) whom I expected to be the last person to migrate did migrate before the so called "mandatory migration" (don't know if it is going to take place) and even before I did, found the migration to be smooth as fast and problemless(as was my experience). There were no horror stories of not being able to see the blogs in the Dashboard, unable to publish, upload pictures or edit, etc that were frequently "heard" on the Google Blogger Help group.

Disclaimer: This post is not meant to encourage you to migrate if you have any misgivings. There may be unexpected changes (pleasant or unpleasant). For example, in my blog Enviroman Says, the sticky post "Environmental cartoon" used to be a small image which fitted into the main column of my template then, but the text were unreadable, and I am forced to put a notice asking readers to click on the cartoon to enlarge it. After migration, the cartoon was displayed in its enlarged format, which is a bonus because the text then become readable without having to click on the cartoon. However, I am forced to change template to accomodate the larger cartoon. Instead of the Ramani's 3 column Minima template which fits readers with 800x600 screen resolutions, I am forced to change to the Denim fixed 3 column template modified by Stavanger, and even then, I have to change the main and sidebars width to accomodate the width of the cartoon. See post New Blogger (formerly beta) templates modified to 3 column by Stavanger, at the bottom of the post.


You migrate at your own risk.

8 comments:

Kevin the Collie said...

Hi Peter
I have stayed with the classic template although I migrated to a new blogger account, and for the moment I prefer this.
I like using labels, e.g. for my adsense posts but I am not sure whether I can now abandon my 'technorati tags' which I was using before. Also do you know where I can find out how to display the labels on the public pages of my blog?
Best Wishes
Flora

Manature said...

I have to be honest and say that I have not much knowledge of the technorati tags as I haven't been using them. I should, but haven't had time to go learn about that. When I have the time, I will. I understand it can be very useful in bringing in traffic.

Regardings labels in the New Blogger but using classic template. The tags will only appear at the bottom of the post. To the best of my knowledge, it can't be posted to the sidebar without the Layout. Haven't come across any hack for that yet.

Peter a.k.a. enviroman
Enviroman Says

HELP said...

Not for publishing
Really sorry for the trouble, I just dont know who else to ask, I established my blog site help-helpandsupport.blogspot.com early in 2006, I bought my domain name soon after www.stresskills.net all has been going really well until about friday when I found my site would not open, I have gone into my blog dashboard and nothing has been changed but yet the blog wont open even when logged in.

Is there anything you can sugesst I really know very little about the whole process and feel lucky to have gotten this far but I now realise that I am missing traffic and those in need when directed to my site cannot access the information they need.

Any advice or support would be so welcomed at this time. My Email is stresskills@gmail.com

Thank you in advance for any support you can give

Kind Regards

Mark

Manature said...

Hi Mark,

I check your 2 sites and viewed page source. Both were empty. There is a great possibility that the template of your blog is empty. Hopefully, you have learned how to
Backup template PLUS Page Elements and change template and

Backup template PLUS Page Element and edit template.

I suggest you sign into blogger.com (Dashboard), click LAYOUT (if you are using New Blogger template) or TEMPLATE (if you are using old classic template), click EDIT HTML and check to see if the template is OK. I suspect it will be empty. Is you have a backup template, upload that. If not, change to a fresh (either new or the previous original template you used). I have experienced my blog template being altered (truncated) without me doing anything.

Peter (Blog*Star)
How you can help Blogger Tips and Tricks
(no one should feel obligated. Everthing completely voluntary. However, by doing so, you may also help your visitors find helpful information and help. You may even pick up various ways of linking sites there too)

MindRich said...

I found your post great and informative to me because I've been used blogger for so long, that I couldn't afford to migrate to other blog provider aside from blogger. Thank you and have a nice day!

Jarold said...

thanks for the information. you answered exactly just what i'm looking for. just a clarification so if what shows in my navigation bar is : Follow Share ReportAbuse Next Blog instead of the one i see in your screenshot, then i'm on the classic blogger, right? i'm just making sure i understand it right.

Manature said...

I would not use the navbar to try to figure that out. I would suggest you refer to classic or new blogger xml template

Jarold said...

Ok, thanks for the link Patriot. It really helped. :)