Blogger.com, Google’s free blogging platform, is a great tool for personal blogs. It’s free, easy to set up and it comes with dozens of templates that are easy to install. It is great for personal blogs for family and friends.
But Blogger looks a little amateur – there’s a strange little toolbar that with links to a (random) “Next Blog” and your blog address is “yourblog.blogspot.com. There are quick ways to change these limitations: one is free, and one costs as little as $10 a year.
How to remove the “Next Blog” bar at the top of Blogger
The “Next Blog” bar in Blogger not only looks amateurish, it can lead to some interesting visitor experiences when that link leads to a blog with peripherally related content. If you’re lucky, it will be cute cat pictures. It could be something worse. I have clicked on environmental groups “Next Blog” link, only to be taken to climate change denier sites.
Here’s a way to get rid of the ‘next blog’ bar on you Blogger.com site.
Log in to your administration panel and go to the “Layout” tab, then the “Edit HTML” tab.
Look for a line of code near the top that says
“Updated by: Blogger Team”
Paste the following code directly below that line. You need to put it anywhere in your template between the opening <style> and closing </style> tags.
#navbar-iframe {display: none !important;}
It will look like this:
Click ‘Save Template’ at the bottom of the page and refresh your page. The unpredictable bar should be gone from your blog.
Note that you will also have hidden the search bar – this can be replaced by adding a “Search Box” gadget by going to “Layout > Page Elements” and adding a gadget.
Get your own domain name for your Blogger blog
For ten dollars a year, you can get your own domain name through Google, instead of having to use yourblogname.blogspot.com.
Why should you pay for a custom URL?
It’s usually a lot easier to remember than those long blogspot.com addresses.
You also have more flexibility when you host your blog under your own URL, because you can change platforms – ie. to Wordpress or TypePad – without changing your blog address. Links and bookmarks from external sites will still be valid. If you move hosts, you are going to want to take your readers with you.
The easiest route is to register your name through Google at $10 (US) a year, and let Blogger handle the technical details. Google – the owner of Blogger.com – has good (if mildly techie) instructions for how to get your own domain name here
http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373
If you already have a domain registered, this is a bit more involved, best described by Google lower down in the same help article.
You will need access to the entity that manages your Domain Name Settings, often (but not always) the company that hosts your website. You may require the help of a techie to do some of this work.
If you are already hosting a website at www.yoursite.com and want to add your Blogger.com blog to your URL, you choose a subdomain (blog.yoursite.com)and point to your existing blog – again covered in this help article.
Blogger.com still hosts the site, but you use the same service that points visitors to your website to point them to your blog.
These are two improvements to your Blogspot blog you can do quite easily – they will make a big difference in how your blog is perceived.
I would not recommend using Blogger.com for anything beyond personal blogs. If you are trying to do anything remotely professional, like create a blog for your organization or promote a book, I would choose another service, like Wordpress or TypePad. I will be posting in the future about choosing the right platform for your needs (hint: Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org cover most needs, unless you don’t want to spend a dime…)
