How To Import/Index Large Blogs On Blogger?

Sharing some of the experience behind creating the Find-Word blog series.

In order to create those blogs, I first tried to use the Google APIs, but unfortunately, these are not suited for Java standalone applications. The authentication mecanism is way too overkill compared to real needs and it does not seem to have been tested properly with standalone applications. I moved to Google's older Data APIs and they worked like a charm. The only issue was the limitation on the number of authorized posts per day (50, then a captcha is displayed). I finally decided to reverse engineer the import-export blogger functionality.

About importing posts:

• One can split posts into multiple import files, and load them one by one.
• Blogger won't be able to load files bigger than 30 MB (it will crash).
• Once loaded, the posts have the imported status.
• One can publish at most 1800 posts the first day, then about 500 the next day.
• Crossing those limits will flag your blog as potential spam.
• One cannot publish posts anymore and a request for review must be introduced, else the blog will be deleted.

About indexing:

• Of course, it is not possible to force Google to index all blog posts. One can only have Google crawl your pages. Google will then decide what goes into the Index.
• The default Blogger sitemap only sees the last 26 posts. So, unless there are external or internal links to the remaining posts, Google will not be able to access them. They won't be crawled or indexed.
• The solution is to add atom sitemaps (for example: /atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500 for the first 500 posts) using Google Webmaster's Optimization > Sitemaps page. Multiple atom sitemaps must be added if necessary:

• If your blog posts are lengthy and Google can't process your sitemaps, configure your blog to allow short blog feeds in Settings > Other. If your blog does not allow feeds, Google will not be able to process the sitemaps too!
• The Sitemaps page will tells you whether sitemaps have been processed successfully.
• Google Webmaster has a page indicating which links have been indexed in Health > Index Status. It is updated about once per week, which is too slow for useful feedback.
• The solution is to use the site:myblog.blogspot.com command from the Google search page to have an estimation of how many pages Google knows about your blog. It also tells you whether crawling is successful or not.
• Google Webmaster has a Crawled Stats page which tells you (with a 2 days delay) how many pages it has been crawling per day. This is also a good indicator of the reachability of posts.
• Be patient!

That's it !!!

Blogging - Silly Mistakes Hampering Traffic Development

This is a checklist of silly mistakes one can easily correct to improve blog traffic:

• Ugly Layout - A bad looking blog, with a bad or lazy layout, but still readable will only succeed if it has fantastic and valuable content for its readers. But then again, why shoot yourself in the foot by giving a bad first impression? Why make it hard to the eye for the user? On the other side, a very good looking blog without valuable content never takes off (especially on the long term).
• Colors - Never use black as a color. It is not a natural color.
• Spelling & Grammar Mistakes - There is an inverse correlation between page ranking and the number of spelling and grammar mistakes on a blog. The more mistakes, the lower the ranking.
• Broken links - Broken links are an extremely frustrating experience to readers, especially when they are visiting your blog for the first time. It is a big indicator of its quality and people often stick to first impressions. Broken links kill your returning visitors rate. Yet, there is a simple and free tool available online to detect broken links on your blog. Use it.
• Internal links - Make cross references (i.e., links) between your posts if these are relevant to the topic or for the user. It will ease the navigation on your blog, which is good for the reader.
• Same Post Title - I made the silly mistake of using the same title on multiple post: Summary - Part I, Summary - Part II, Summary - Part III... This is not a good idea since post titles are often used by Google to differentiate them. These are also (often) displayed when people make searches. If a title does not inform the user of the content of the post, change it to include words related to the content.
• Keywords in URLs - A little boost in ranking is to use keywords related to the content of your post in the URL. If you did not use that trick for existing posts, never mind. Leave it for new posts only.
• Keywords in Titles - Proper keywords related to the content of posts are important not only for search engines ranking, but also when users make searches and scan results for valuable links. A post title is a front door. Make sure all your posts have relevant keywords in their titles.
• Small Posts Don't Count For Much - Unfortunately, I can't find the reference anymore, but someone mentioned that Google more or less ignores posts containing less than 250-300 words. I could not find any confirmation of this, but somehow, it makes sense. Blogging is not Tweeting. Blogging is about substance.
• No Translation Widget - The moment I added a translation widget on my blog, I started receiving traffic from all over the world.
• No Social Buttons - You need to give means to visitors to share your blog posts. This is so easy to achieve with ShareThis for example. I explain how to achieve this in another post.
• No 'Search This Blog' Widget - Returning visitors may remember one of your posts, but can't find it anymore. This widget will help them find it again. If you don't add this widget, there is a higher probability that they will give up.
• No Subscription Widget - Some of your readers will be interested in your new posts. You have to provide them means to subscribe to your blog by email or with feeds. Install the corresponding widgets.
• No Followers Widget - Build a crowd of followers by allowing them to join your blog. Add the corresponding widget.
• Not Enabling Comments - Let people participate to the dynamics of your blog. Let them put comments on your posts. You always have the possibility to filter these if necessary.
• No Labels On Posts - Labels are a mean to tag your posts (at least on Blogger). For example: vegetarian recipe, chicken recipe, etc... Have them displayed below each post. They will appear as links that users can click. If they do so, they will access all posts having the corresponding tag. This is great for navigating between posts.
• No Navigation Links - On Blogger, use pages (you have maximum 20 per blog) to create menu pages, then install the page widget to let readers access them. It is another mean to organize your blog and make it accessible to users.
• No Feedback Widget - Readers like to read feedback information about your blog (for example, with the statistic widget). I personally love the popular widget, which displays the most popular posts on your blog. Readers are interested in this information.
• Not Listing Your Blog - On Blogger, make sure the visibility of your blog is set to true in the settings. It will be listed on Blogger and accessible by all search engines. Think about Technorati listing to have an idea of how you blog fares compared to other blogs.
• Low Stamina Posting - That is the ultimate traffic killer. Blogging is nothing less than running a marathon. You need to post frequently and have at least 50-100 relevant and valuable posts before raising significant and regular traffic. Don't be obsessed about posting exactly 2 posts per day, and don't wait until you have 30 post before dumping them all. Just post them as they are ready. Don't strategize, it does not help with traffic. Do post often.
• Quality vs Quantity - If you have 20 posts and meet all quality requirements described above, it won't help with traffic. You may see small spikes in traffic as you work on quality, but it will not be sustainable. When it comes to blogging, quantity trumps quality (unless content is mediocre). In other words: quality support quantity, but not the other way round.

More web related posts here.

How to Get Into Google AdSense with a Blog and Turn it Social?

This post offers a guideline to get into the AdSense program with a blog (and to avoid being kicked out). It also explains how to make it social by adding social buttons.

First thing first, Blogger.com may not be the most trendy service on the net to create your own blog, but it has a very interesting feature regarding our objective: it is very well integrated with Google AdSense. So, start by creating an account on Blogger if you don't already have one.

There are other ways to get into the AdSense program, for example, by creating your own website from scratch, and then request to join AdSense. Unfortunately, if you are new at web programming, there is high chance your website will not meet Google's quality requirements. Although you may successfully  enter the AdSense program, you can be kicked out very quickly too.

This is what happened to me. No warning from Google, little details about what was wrong. The whole account was shutdown. It had three URL which are now considered suspicious. Two were actually not infringing Google's quality requirements, according to the content of the notification I received. I solved those issues as well as possible. I tried to use the appeal process, and got an automatic rejection email rejection within less than 5 minutes. I tried to find help and answers on the official forums. Nada, no answer from Google other than not addressing the issues I raised. How responsible, accountable and adult is that? No dialogue... Fortunately, I managed to get into AdSense with this blog.

Once you have a Blogger account, create your first blog. It is pointless to apply to AdSense program right away. You will be rejected. You need content first. How much? I failed with 13 posts and asked for estimation on forums. It was told at least 30. I got accepted with 21. But, I knew something that many people don't know. Someone found out that Google does not consider posts with less than 200-250 words valuable, though I could never official confirmation of this. All my post were above that limit.

Write posts about something you are passionate about, and knowledgeable (for example: impressionist paintings). Make sure this is something interesting for your audience, because you will need traffic to stay within the Google AdSense program. If it is not interesting or relevant, people won't stick, people won't come back. You can create links between your posts if it is relevant and meaningful from a reader perspective only. Create traction will appealing content.

In order to improve navigation in your blog, you can creates pages (not post) per topic (for example: Renoir, Matisse...) and make sure these contain links to each relevant page. You can make your blog searchable by adding the proper gadget from the template configuration page (see the bottom left of this page). I have also added the translation and rss gadgets.

In order to turn your blog social, the best solution is to make it sharable using, for example, a service creating proper buttons for you. I have used ShareThis for the social buttons displayed automatically on the right of all my pages. To create such buttons, go to ShareThis. Click on more options. On step 1, select www. On step 2, select the Bar style (for example). On step 3, selects the buttons you would like to display on you blog.

Next, click on 'Get the code'. ShareThis will tell you to add code in your HTML header and at the end of your document. Ignore, this. Open your blog's template configuration page. Create a HTML/Javascript gadget and put ShareThis' header code followed by the end-of-document code in it. The buttons will appear on your page.

You are ready to go. When your blog contains 20-30 substantial posts, apply to the Google Adsense for the Earnings section. You may be not be accepted the first time. Just add more relevant content. Once accepted, don't forget to add AdSense gadgets to your blog's template.

More web related posts here.