Testing Blogger custom permalink.

Blogger has now finally introduced the much awaited custom permalink (post URL) to replace the default automatically generated permalink.

This test post title is "Testing Blogger custom permalink" and its automatic URL is

http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2012/07/testing-blogger-custom-permalink.html

Now I put in the Custom URL field [box] the following - testingbloggercustompermalink
and this changed the permalink to

http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2012/07/bloggercustompermalink.html

It would be nice to have the custom URL as
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/bloggercustompermalink.html
instead.

Unfortunately there is no way to remove the year and date of the posting in the URL.

πολιτική φιλοσοφία

Now after publishing this post with the post title "politikí̱ filosofía" which is Romanized Greek (greek word using Roman abc alphabets) I will edit the post title to Greek letters πολιτική φιλοσοφία

OK after publication, the permalink (post URL) of this post is
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2010/06/politiki-filosofia.html
unlike when Greek letters πολιτική φιλοσοφία are used for the post title which caused the post title to be the SEO-unfriendly
Greek letters πολιτική φιλοσοφία

OK now I will edit this post and replace with the post title politikí̱ filosofía with Greek letters πολιτική φιλοσοφία and we will then check to reconfirm that there will be no change to the post title which remained the SEO friendly post title like
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2010/06/politiki-filosofia.html

Conclusion

Well folks, testing completed and successful. By first using Latin (Roman) alphabets like "politikí̱ filosofía, publishing, then edit the post title to using Greek alphabets like πολιτική φιλοσοφία, one can have the Greek alphabets in the post title and still get SEO friendly post title.

Test: Will permalink change on backdating after republishing?

I am going to do this test post. Publish, record the permalink.

Then I am going to change the date and see what happens to the permalink.

OK here is the permalink:
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2013/06/test-will-permalink-change-on.html

Now to backdate it to 1 January 2009.

Now here is the permalink after backdating this test post to 1 January 2009, then republishing:
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2013/06/test-will-permalink-change-on.html

Well, there you are folks. Permalink did not change.

Testing custom domain permalinks before conversion to custom domain

One of the worries that prevented me from using custom domain for my more active blog is that permalinks (individual post URLs) may become dead links. So before I converted my less active blog http://dummies-guide-to-google-blogger.blogspot.com/ custom domain, I saved all the permalinks before conversion to custom domain.

I tested clicking on those permalinks. I was expecting either of 2 results:

1. permalinks become dead links


2. permalinks lead to new custom domain permalinks

What I got was a surprise, neither of the above. Clicking on the permalinks led to the old permalinks (individual post page URL) prior to conversion. The only clue that there is something strange is a little message at the task bar "Done but with errors on page":



I will check them later to see if the situation changes. Update: All pre-custom domain permalinks lead to the new custom domain permalinks seemlessly

Post URL (permalink) remains the same even after changing the title and date

Changing the title of the post after the post is published does not change the Permalink

I posted a photo of Malay traditional kite flying in this post: Traditional kite flying in Kelantan, Malaysia (click "BACK" button to get back to this post) for reasons you can find in that post. That was the original title of the post and its individual post URL (permalink) was
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2006/12/traditional-
kite-flying-in-kelantan.html.

I then had second thought and think the title is not very appropriate for this blog, and decided to change its title to Photo of traditional kite flying in Kelantan, Malaysia, and had expected the individual post page (permalink) to change, as in Blogger classic to something like this:
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2006/12/photo-
traditional-kite-flying-in-kelantan.html.

This would have been a bad thing as existing inbound links may then become dead link, and that post will have to start afresh with search engines. I had a pleasant suprise. Although the title was changed, its URL remained the same, which to me, is a good thing. (you can confirm that by looking at the URL in the address bar in that post or hovering your mouse over the timestamp at the bottom of the post and observing the taskbar or "pop-up" depending on the browser).

Testing to see if changing the date of a published post change the permalink

From this pleasant suprised find, I decided to do another test. Previously, with Blogger classic, if you change the date and/or the post title, the individual post page URL (permalink) will also change (not a good thing). I am posting this at 2:58am, 12/19/06 and will be changing the date the next few days, and again next month (January 2007), to see if this will change the permalink. My expectation is that if I change the date to the another day in the same month, the URL will probably remain the same as it seem to depend on the month (12). When I change the date next month, the individual post page (permalink) will probably change, but in Blogger beta, I hope not. Anyway, we will see in the next few days, and next month.

For the record, after publishing this post, I see that the individual post URL (permalink) is

http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2006/12/post-url-
permalink-remains-same-even.html

UPDATE 25 December 2006: Editing this post, clicked on "Post Options" at bottom of post editor, and changed date to 12/25/06. Now let's see what happen to the permalink. After publishing, I found the individual post page (permalink) of this post to be

http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2006/12/post-url-
permalink-remains-same-even.html

which is the same as the above. In other words, changing the date to a different day in the same month doesn't change the post URL. Next is to try it next month.

UPDATE 2 January 2007: I am now editing this post and have clicked the Post Options in the lower left corner of the posst editor to change the date from 12/25/06 to 1/2/07 to see if that will change the post URL (permalink) which as stated above is
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2006/12/post-url-
permalink-remains-same-even.html. Publishing the post now.

Well, what is the result? Although republishing the post with the date to 1/2/07, the post URL (permalink) remained
http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/2006/12/post-url-
permalink-remains-same-even.html

This is good news, as when we changed our mind regarding the post title and date, the permalink remain the same, and we can do so without worrying about dead links in search engine result pages and other inbound links. I am going to change the title from "Post URL (permalink) remains the same even after changing the title" to "Post URL (permalink) remains the same even after changing the title and date" to reflect this additional test and can be assured that it will not affect the permalink.

UPDATE: 8 January 2007: Still more test. A reader of my blogs commented at my post How to change the order of the posts. This is his comment: "Thanks Peter, that is the method I am using. The issue is that the post editor seems to ignore any date change I make there. It accepts a new date and time on a post but when 'published' the time and date changes are ignored by blogger." He is referring to the new Blogger (formerly beta) and if I understand him correctly, he is saying that if he edit a post today, but using the POST OPTIONS to change the date, say to November 2006, which will mean that this post will still remain at the top of the main page as new Blogger will ignore the change in the date. That is not what I experience, and if I am correct, and change the date of this post to 11/11/06, this post will no longer be the second post in the main page today, the date at the top will change to 11 November 2006 and the post will end up in the archive and no longer visible in the main page, even though the permalink (individual post page URL) remain the same. I am going to do it now and see what happens.

RESULT: As I expected, this post disappeared from the main page, and ended up in the archives for 2006.