Blogger

I think I have finally learned my lesson in regards to commenting on Blogger / Blogspot / Google blogs – always, *always* copy the comment I have written before clicking on Publish! That way, if Blogger loses my comment, I can at least paste it back in again.

In the course of learning this lesson, I think I have unearthed a couple of clues that might tell you when you will lose your comment for certain. And here they are.

1. Missing Notify Me Box

If you are leaving a comment on a blog you are familiar with and you have used the notify me tickbox before.. when you find the notify me box is missing, that is a sign that Blogger does not know who you are, and therefore does not know where it should email any future comments.

If the notify me box is missing, this is a sign that when you hit publish, your comment will disappear into the ether never to be seen again.

Another way to double check if the notify me box is present is to make sure when you tick the box, the correct email address appears, as you see above.

2. Missing Account Name

If your Google account name is missing from the Comment as: area, this is another sign that blogger does not know who you are, and therefore cannot leave a comment for you, unless you pick one of the other options. It should look like this –

If it doesn’t look like this, you may not be signed in properly. If you hit publish, your comment will probably disappear into the ether never to be seen again.

However, it is important to note, you can be signed in properly but Blogger can still not know who you and lose your comment. Which leads me back to my number one tip –

3. Regardless, COPY!

Google/Blogger/Blogspot can lose your comment but if you have copied it, you can paste it back in! Always do this, but especially if you have spent significant time writing your comment. This is your number one way of giving a huge middle finger to Google! You can lose my comments Google, but you cannot take my SANITY! :) or, my ability to hit right click, copy.

This is a good habit to get into wherever you are commenting, because sometimes things go wrong and your comment may vanish. With that said, Blogger loses my comments way more often than any other blogging platform.

Do you have a blogger blog, but you do not have a notify me box? Check out this post – How To – Add Tickbox For Blogger Comment Emails.

Over to you –

Do your comments get lost very often? What steps do you take to prevent this? :) Do you have any hints or tips for fellow blog commentators? Leave them in the comments! ;)

It has been a while since I did a how to schedule posts in WordPress post, so long in fact, that the old post is pretty much useless now. WordPress looks nothing like it did back then. I thought it is high time for an updated post on this topic, but I thought I would make sure to include Blogger as well. :)

If you use Typepad, this post is for you – How To Change Post Date & Time.

Why Schedule?

There are a lot of reasons why bloggers might want to schedule posts ahead of time. Going on holidays is probably the number one reason people would use this feature.

I work on a Mon-Wed-Fri posting schedule here on the blog. The main reason I schedule posts is because when I am inspired to write, I am REALLY inspired to write, and I might write 5-10 posts in the space of an afternoon. Obviously I do not want to *post* 5-10 posts all at once. It would be overwhelming to my readers, and it would mean I have no posts available the next time I am not inspired to write.

Timing Is Important

It also means you can set your posts to publish at the time of day people will be around to see them. For example here on my blog, I presently post things at 7am AEST. I am fast asleep in bed at that time, guaranteed. But posting my posts early here in Australia means I also catch the evening web surfers in the USA and the late night web surfers in the UK.

If I bumped it up to 5am, I might get the evening web surfers in the UK and super early morning surfers in Australia.. hmm, that is worth considering.

What Time Is Best?

You might get more eyes on your blog post if you change the time of day that you post it. It could be worth doing some experiments to see what times of day work best for your blog.

If you use a site counter or site stats program many of them will tell you what time of day people are visiting, of course taking into consideration they do not always show you every visit to your blog and can be unreliable. You can also consider what time people leave comments.

You could do a blog post and ask your regular readers to comment about what time of day they read your blog and whether they would prefer a different timing. Consider where your commentators live in the world and what time it is there when you post. Seasonal timing matters too – when we switch to daylight savings here, I will likely post at 6am AEST.

If you want to check what time it is in other places when you post, you can use the world clock meeting planner here.

Are you ready?

For the how to guides? :) It is quite a few screenshots, so I am using the read more feature today. Click through to see the how to guide! Continue reading →

Snoskred – Life in the Country

Blogger, Don’t You Lose My Comment!