Dangers in changing blog URL

Changing your blog's URL may be the stupidest thing you can do, especially when you have gained some readerships (that is, visitors). Ok, in today's tip let me shortly outline the dangers of changing your blog address. I urge myself to write this article when I realized that many of our fellow bloggers have unconsciously made this mistake.

First thing first, why would someone change their blog address? One main reason is that they did not plan their blog properly from the beginning. For example, they made their blog in 2008 and use the URL 'blablabla2008.blogspot.com' (only example!) and suddenly they found out that today is already 2009! So will do they do? In order to keep their blog 'up-to-date', they'll change the URL to 'blablabla2009.blogspot.com'.

Now imagine that the owner have worked very hard to get visitors, and let's say that the blog gets 200-300 visits a day. Many people are following and have bookmarked the blog. They like to visit the blog daily because it is always up-to-date (remember, it's only an example). Suddenly, the blog is no longer accessible! And when they try to open 'blablabla2008.blogspot.com', Blogger will only return the Blog not Found page!

After a few days, the unknowing owner of the blog did not see any more comments nor followers appearing in the blog. And guess what? He has just lost all his visitors! It's pretty terrifiying and I'm quite sure that you won't like it if that happens to you.

Another danger lies within search engines' result page. As you already know, when you click on one of the search results, you'll be taken to that specific page. And say that someone click on the URL 'blablabla2008.blogspot.com/2008/01/article' because they found it is related to what they are searching for. Without the need to think, you'll spontaneously know that the page no longer exist! That means that the owner of the blog has just lost some potential visitors from search engines. This may not be much, but imagine if it is 3 visitors a day, it will result in 1095 visitors lost at the end of the year!

All in all, changing your blog URL is a risky thing to do. My suggestion to you is the usual phrase 'think before you act'.

Create a Quiz for visitors

Are you tired of the default polls that doesn't do any good? Or is it better to make something like this?

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Interested? Just follow the steps given below:

1. Firstly, you must have a Quibblo account, as this quiz uses their service. If you do not have an account yet, go to www.quibblo.com and click on the 'Become a member' link at the top right of the page. After you register, you'll need to confirm your email address.
   
2. Login with your email and password to access your personal Quibblo page. Then put your cursor on the top of the 'Create a Quiz' tab, but don't click it yet. A list of option should appear, and for now just select 'Scored Survey' (you can try the different types later).
3. In this page you can create your questions and answers. It'll look similar to the screenshot below:
   Fill in the Quiz title with the title of your quiz, and fill in a short description of it in the Introduction box. For now just ignore the "Upload an Image for Your Quiz Title". In the Quiz Question section, fill in your questions and answers. Use the 'Add an Answer' button to add more answers to one question, and thus making it tougher. If you want more questions, use the 'Add Another Question' button. After you're done, hit Continue.
   
4. The next page will require you to fill in the details about your new quiz. Fill in all the blanks, and if you do not want this quiz to appear in the Quibblo's list of quiz, don't forget to click on the 'Advance Option' and ticking the 'Don't list this quiz on Quibblo.com' checkbox. Click on 'Preview my quiz' to continue.
5. After you are satisfied with your new quiz, hit the 'Create my quiz' button. In the next page find the HTML code for the quiz and copy it. Now go to your Blogger Dashboard > Layout > Add a Gadget and choose html/javascript. Paste the copied code there and hit Save. You are done, and just go back to step 2 if you would like to create another quiz. Have fun!
   

Remove unwanted blogs titles from your profile

In this short tutorial, we'll try to customize our blog titles that appear in our profile. What's the point of this? Well, if you own several blogs would like to keep some of them private, you can hide it. Imagine if your private blog that is only shared to your best friends was found by the public because of that link that appears in your profile page. How embarrassing is that? One more reason, it is better to hide the 'under construction' blogs until they are ready to be viewed by others. This will invoke a professional image of you, as nobody will caught you with an unfinished blog.

Ok, let's get down to the steps. First of all login to your Dashboard. Then click on the 'Edit Profile' on the right of your photo, and you should be presented by a page to edit your public profile. It'll look similar to the screenshot below:

Click on the 'Select blogs to display' in the Privacy section. Another page will load and you should be able to un-tick whichever blog titles you would like to hide. Don't worry, the blog will still be there, but it will no longer appear in your public profile page. You can change your mind anytime by going back to this page and re-selecting the hidden blogs.

N0te: to really protect your private blogs from unwanted visitors, see my other tutorial here.