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Can I tweak my blogger templates to add true permalinks?

Dave, I have noticed on other people's blogs that they have these nice permalinks that lead people to individual pages, one for each entry. But Blogger doesn't always seem to generate these separate weblog entry pages for me. Is there some way to fix this?


Dave's Answer:

As a sometimes user of Blogger, I know what you mean about its limitations and occasional oddities! It turns out that you can tweak the so-called templates on your Blogger account to add just the feature you want, though it's a bit tricky.

To get the exact details, I'm going to turn to Sarah King, who has written up a nice tutorial of exactly what templates changes are required. First, though, you need to know how to get to your template so you can edit it.

Fortunately, it's easy. Log in to your Blogger account and look at the tabs along the top of the screen. They are Posting, Settings, Template, and View Blog. Click on Template. Now, for good luck, select all the text in the box and paste it into a spare Word document or other spot where you can recover it if needed.

Now, near the top is a section that looks like this:

<blogitemtitle>
  <h3 class=”post-title”>
    <$BlogItemTitle$>
  </h3>
</blogitemtitle>

To make the title of the articles clickable through to the permanent URL, add the following (highlighted in bold to make it easier to see):

<blogitemtitle>
  <h3 class=”post-title”>
    <a href="<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>" title="<$BlogItemTitle$>">
    <$BlogItemTitle$></a>
  </h3>
</blogitemtitle>

That fixes the top title to link to the permanent page. While we're at it, let's also add an explicit permalink near the bottom too. This one's a bit more complex, though. Ready?

<p class="post-footer">
  <em>posted by <$BlogItemAuthorNickname$> @
  <a href="<$BlogItemPermalinkUrl$>"
    title="permalink"><$BlogItemDateTime$></a></em> &nbsp;
 <MainOrArchivePage><BlogItemCommentsEnabled>
   <a class="comment-link"
   href="<$BlogItemCommentCreate$>"<$BlogItemCommentFormOnclick$>>
  <$BlogItemCommentCount$> comments</a>
   </BlogItemCommentsEnabled></MainOrArchivePage>
<$BlogItemControl$>
</p>

Let's give that some tweaks to have the title reappear (which is good for search engine findability too) as part of the permalink, and also have an explicitly named permalink entry too:

<p class="post-footer">
  <em>posted by <$BlogItemAuthorNickname$> @
  <a href="<$BlogItemPermalinkUrl$>"
    title="permalink"><$BlogItemTitle$>: <$BlogItemDateTime$></a></em> &nbsp;
 <MainOrArchivePage><BlogItemCommentsEnabled>
   <a class="comment-link"
   href="<$BlogItemCommentCreate$>"<$BlogItemCommentFormOnclick$>>
  <$BlogItemCommentCount$> comments</a>
   </BlogItemCommentsEnabled>
  <a href="<$BlogItemPermalinkUrl$>">permalink</a>
  </MainOrArchivePage><$BlogItemControl$>
</p>

Rather impossibly complex, but if you take your time and step through these tweaks, you'll find that you've just made a couple of very useful and helpful improvements to your Blogger template!

My thanks to Sarah King for allowing me to republish and tweak her Essential change to Blogger templates.

Updated February, 2006 to fix an error with the first use of $BlogItemPermalinkURL$ in the code example.



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Comments

Great info! Thank you Sarah and Dave :)

Posted by: Blog Party at September 9, 2005 12:16 AM

"To make the title of the articles clickable through to the permanent URL…"
This is not true.
<$BlogItemURL$> doesn't resolve to the post's permalink, it resolves to an external link specified by the user when creating the post, presumably as the subject of the blog post.

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=734

Posted by: Ahmad Gharbeia at February 24, 2006 6:53 PM

Ahmed, you're right! I have fixed the spot where Sarah referenced the wrong Blogger template tag. Thanks.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at February 24, 2006 11:36 PM

Thanks for the information.....
But I have one problem with "TITLE TAG"
Its... for home page the TITLE TAG will be that we give, and follows throught the blog with same TITLE TAG for our POSTS also...

But my question is can we get the TITLE as we make new POSTs for blog.. and it should become my TITLE TAG and appear for each page we click for different posts should show related TITLE TAG...

Can any one explain how it can be achieved

Posted by: vraths at September 23, 2006 1:24 AM

Thanks - Been wanting to do this for ages.

Matt

Posted by: MattPage at February 26, 2007 8:52 AM

Thanks! This was just was I was looking for! Works great!

Posted by: Matt at May 16, 2007 3:55 PM

thanks for the INFO. Your script work perfectly (in CLASSIC mode). But, i have a problem. I use a modern template (XML). Could u help me?? Can you convert those HTML script into XML??.
Thank.

I'm waiting your reply (mail me)

Posted by: irwan at October 23, 2007 10:32 AM

Hi, your links to "Essential change to Blogger templates" dont work.

Thanks for this permalink info

Posted by: Steve at December 2, 2007 12:38 AM

I can´t find:

blogitemtitle>

on my blog!!

just:













:(

how can I ad permlinks ?

Posted by: Dav7 at February 13, 2008 5:13 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...
Starbucks coffee cup I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!









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