How to Fix Blogger Errors while Uploading New Templates

When you start your blogging adventure, you are so many things to learn, so at the first steps of your blogging career you just use basic templates available on the Blogger website. As time goes, you realize the limitations of the basic offerings and disadvantage that your site interface looks like thousand other basic blogs. There are some limited opportunities to tweak the HTML code of your template, but do you really want to mess with it? If you are not sure, just search online for “Blogger Free Templates” and you get many offerings to choose from. New template loading is easy and does not require any coding experience. If… everything goes smoothly. But if not, you are trapped. In this post, I will present the approach to resolve the typical templates loading errors to the Blogger interface.

Sample of these BX error codes are:

• bx-bliced
  
• bX-ev85ll
  
• bX-39cc9q
  
• bX-y6cz0v
  
• bX-982020

There are the following steps recommended for the problem resolution:

1. First of all, try to upload your new template in the Layout>Edit HTML section of your dashboard. Not all templates have been affected by this issue, so it is advisable to check before attempting to edit your template manually. If you do receive a bX-error code when trying to upload your template, you should proceed to step 2.
   
2. If your new template is an XML file (with the .xml intension), browse to where this is located on your computer and right click the file. Choose to open with Notepad (or your favorite basic text editor). If your template is contained within a text file (for you to copy and paste into the template editor), simply open this with your text editor.
   
3. Search for every instance of b:widget id= in your template, for example:
   
4. • b:widget id=’Header1’
     
   • b:widget id=’Blog1’
     
   • b:widget id=’Label1’
     
   • b:widget id=’HTML1’

Replace each of these IDs with the next number up. For example, Header1 should become Header2; Blog1 should become Blog2, HTML3 should become HTML4 and so on.

4. Once you have changed each and every instance of widget id to a different number, you should save the template under a slightly different file name (to be aware of your altered file). If this is an XML file, be sure to save with the XML extension.
   
5. Now you have made these changes, attempt to upload your file again in the Layout>Edit HTML section of your Blogger dashboard. Now you should not receive the error code and will be able to upload your template.

Note. If after following these steps you are still unable to upload your revised template, it is worthwhile to close your browser and delete all temporary internet files and cookies. Then restart your browser and try to upload again. Clearing all of these temporary files from your browser will ensure you receive a fresh page when editing your template. The reason why the bx-XXXX error occurs when you upload a template is because the Blogger developers changed the way template editor accepts certain third party code. They have seen a lot of data corruption due to ’bad templates’.

Now, with these advices, I know exactly what to do, when error pops-up. Before, if that happened, I just switched back, choosing the basic template from Blogger database, ensured that the basic template works, and than tried again to load a new template. In most cases, that worked, but sometimes I needed to repeat the procedure twice. Now I can understand, why the problem could be resolved by these actions.

How to Add Element under Header in Blogger Blog

Usually, when you are new to the World of Blogging, you start from scratch. You use on of the default templates offered by Blogger on their site. Little-by-little, you realize that there are so many blogs in blogospere that look like yours, and you want to distinguish you blog from others. You can choose one of the free or paid templates available online to change the blog interface. Later on, you can experiment even more, tweaking the GUI to your particular needs. The following simple tweak will show you how to add an extra element under your blog Header in 9 steps. The credit goes to BlogSpotTutorial:

1. Login to Blogger with your ID.
2. Click Layout.
3. Click tab Edit HTML.
4. Click sentence Download Full Template, it is very important for you to backup this!
5. Copy the code below, then paste it before code ]]></b:skin>

#under_header{ margin:10px 0; padding:1%; width:98%; }
6. Find out code which look exactly like this :
<div id=’header-wrapper’> <b:section class=’header’ id=’header’ maxwidget="1" showaddelement="no"> <b:widget id=’Header1’ locked=’true’ title=’test (Header)’ type=’Header’/> </b:section> </div>

7. Copy the code below, and paste it exactly after that code :
<div id="under_header"> <b:section class=’header’ id=’underheader’ preferred=’yes’/> </div>

8. Click SAVE TEMPLATE buttons, and wait until your template saved.
9. Now you already have an element which placed exactly below your header. Feel free to add any elements do you wanted to. Want some Google Advertise, or maybe some photos, it’s all up to you!

How to Put a Widget on a Specific Page of your Blogger Blog

Widgets are short and handy small computer programs that can add more functionality to any Blog platform. In Blogger, where standard set of features and embedded plugins is rather limited, adding extended capabilities with third-party widget might help to spice up your blog and increase its attractiveness. It can be added as an extra code behind the new Page Elements through the Page Elements subtab of the Template tab.

In brief, to add widget or page elements to your blog login at Blogger.com and click on Layout link on Dashboard. Then click the Add Page Element link in the sidebar.

After adding a Page Element to your blog it can be seen on all your blog pages by default, unless you wrap the widget in conditional tags. In this publication, we will present you the way on how to put selectively widgets on particular blog pages. You really can decide on which pages or a single pagethe widget should appear.

WIDGET ON POST PAGES ONLY

If you want to put the widget only on the post (item) pages then paste this line :

<b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType == "item"’>

immediately after the main includable line of code in the widget :

<b:includable id=’main’ var=’top’>

For this login at Blogger.com and click on Layout link on Dashboard. Then click Edit Html subtab of Template tab. Put a check in the Expand Wdgets Template checkbox at the top of the Template code box and scroll down to the widget code. Lastly in the widget code add a </b:if> before the immediate next </b:includable>. This is how the whole widget code will look like after the change :

<b:widget id=’HTML1’ locked=’false’ title=’’ type=’HTML’>
<b:includable id=’main’>
<b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType == "item"’>

WIDGET CODE

</b:if>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

This widget will only appear on the Post Pages.

WIDGET ON MAIN PAGE ONLY

If you want the widget to appear only on the Main Page of the blog use the code below :

<b:widget id=’HTML1’ locked=’false’ title=’’ type=’HTML’>
<b:includable id=’main’>
<b:if cond=’data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl’>

WIDGET CODE

</b:if>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

This widget will appear only on the Main Page.

WIDGET ON SPECIFIC BLOG PAGE

There are some cases in which you may want the widget to appear only on a specific page of your blog. For example, there might be some pages on your blog with heavy traffic where you plan to put some special ads or particular content. Create the widget by pasting the HTML in the new widget. Then modify the code as shown below :

<b:widget id=’HTML1’ locked=’false’ title=’’ type=’HTML’>
<b:includable id=’main’>
<b:if cond=’data:blog.url == "BLOG_PAGE_URL"’>

WIDGET CODE

</b:if>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

Replace the CAPS : BLOG_PAGE_URL with the permalink of your post.

WIDGET ON SPECIFIC LABEL PAGE

You can specify a widget to appear only on specific label pages. This is useful when you want to represent your labels with icons. For example, you may have posts on books and when the label books are clicked in your blog the sidebar will show a book icon. For such widgets, you can use the following code:

<b:widget id=’HTML1’ locked=’false’ title=’’ type=’HTML’>
<b:includable id=’main’>
<b:if cond=’data:blog.url == "http://BLOG_NAME.blogspot.com/search/label/LABEL_NAME"’>

WIDGET CODE

</b:if>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

Replace BLOG_NAME and LABEL_NAME with actual.
Source: http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/2007/12/put-widget-on-specific-page-or-url.html

How to Delete ‘nofollow’ Attribute from Blogger Blog

Blogger by default, and other blogging software such as WordPress, automatically adds the "nofollow" microformat extension to all links from user generated content. User generated content is defined as comments or external sources such as linkbacks and trackbacks.

Difference Between NoFollow and Follow Links?

Follow Back Links

These links pass on all “link juice” to the site being linked to, which means search engines follow this link to your site and take note of it. This is why the link is called a follow link, and this is also why these links are the best for your SEO.


Pros

* Link Juice - The most obvious and lucrative benefit of follow back links is the link juice they send to your site. This will help boost your rankings in search engines because most search engines (Google being the main one) calculate your rankings based largely on the amount of links you have coming into your site.

* Increased Interaction - Every visitor of your site had something they were looking for. If you own a webmaster or make money blog or site like mine, follow back links can increase your interaction because these readers are often looking for ways to get a free back link when they visit your site.

* Higher Value - If you sell links on your site, they will no doubt sell for more if they are follow back links rather than if they are no follow back links.

Cons

* Search Engine Backlash - Search engines, Google in particular, are really cracking down on follow back links. They are not only penalizing the site that sells the links or distributes them, but if they have proof of a paid link they will go even further and penalize the buyer. This could backfire on you, so you have to make sure your links look and seem organic, all while not overdoing the whole process.

* Decreased Value - Too many follow links on your page and Google will label you as a link farm and discount the value of each individual link and may even reduce your rankings. Generally speaking, the fewer follow links on a page, the more juice to pass on to each one of those links.

NoFollow Back Links


No follow back links are just like any other link, except they have a small “rel=nofollow” added to the end of them, which means that a search engine crawler will not follow the link to the next site and therefore will not index your page and mark the link as a backlink. These links will still bring you traffic though, which means they are just as useful for normal visitors.


Pros

* Make Genuine Ones Count - By keeping the majority of your links as no follow, you will be making sure your actual in-post or on site links are worth more. So if you’re selling paid reviews and paid links, it may be in your best interests to keep the paid links nofollow to increase the sales of your paid reviews and to make the actual links in your post count more.

* Search Engine Favour - Google has repeatedly been quoted as saying that sites with more nofollow links will fare better in the future, and many are pointing this out as a clue on their part that if you use nofollow links for all your irrelevant or link sales, you will rank higher in the search engines.

* Made for Users - Even though a nofollow backlink may not be helpful to search engine or a webmaster, it is made for users. There is no visible difference in the link, first of all. Secondly, you are helping keep the web clean and to maintain its high quality. Finally, since you are not changing the appearance of a nofollow link, you are still sending traffic or allowing users to visit a site of a commentator or a friend.


Cons

* Link Juice - Once again, the primary and most important factor in the entire nofollow vs follow debate is the “juice” you get from high pagerank or high quality pages linking to yours. This juice is not passed on in a nofollow link and therefore you get minimal SEO benefit.

* Reduced Interaction - Some of your visitors might be “turned-off” by a nofollow link on blog comments, and many times they will not comment if the links the blog is providing are nofollow. This can be a big hit if your blog is fairly small and in a webmaster related niche as commenting and interaction on your site and blog will dip.

* Lost Revenue - If you sell text-links on your site and you mark them as nofollow, be ready to take a hit in your revenue. Like I’ve pointed out above, nofollow text links do not bring nearly as much money or sales as a follow text link will. The reason behind this is because people who are looking for text-links are primarily looking for SEO benefit.

As you see, the advantages of removing no follow attributes in your Blogger blog are not straightforward, and you might decide not to do that removal after all. But if you want to experiment with that modification, or you are positive that potential advantages are overwhelming, you will find below the Blogger hack on how to remove “no follow” attribute from you account.

How to Delete ‘nofollow’ Attribute on Blogger

1. Login into your blogger. Usually you will bring to Dashboard after login.
2. Choose your blog and click “Layout”.
3. Click “Edit Html” subtab on the “Template” tab.
4. Before removing ‘nofollow‘ attribute (as with any other template modification), it is recommended to backup you template by clicking Download Full Template and saving in the safe location on your Hard Drive. You can re-enable it if your template modification producing the errors.
5. Check “Expand Widgets” checkbox at at the top of the Edit Template text box. This expands the Blog Posts Widget Code within which is the comments code.
6. Scroll down the template and find below code

<dl id=’comments-block’>
<b:loop values=’data:post.comments’ var=’comment’>
<dt class=’comment-author’expr:id=’"comment-" + data:comment.id’>
<a expr:name=’"comment-" +data:comment.id’/>
<b:if cond=’data:comment.authorUrl’>
<a expr:href=’data:comment.authorUrl’ rel=’nofollow’><data:comment.author/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:comment.author/>
</b:if>
<data:commentPostedByMsg/>
</dt>

7. Detele the code rel=’nofollow’ (or you can remove only no, making it rel=’follow‘) and save the template.

You are done!