Does the way you comment on Blogger affect your SEO?
Today we have a question about commenting on Blogger blogs and how the method you use affects your SEO.
Hi Ashley! I was just wondering whether how you sign into a Blogger blog’s comment box affects your own blog’s SEO or anything else important. I’ve gotten into the habit of using the Name/URL option when offered, because I feel like it looks prettier and friendlier to have “Miranda @ Tempest Books” show up instead of just the generic “tempestbooks” that shows up when I sign in through WordPress.com. But is there a difference behind-the-scenes?
Miranda Mowbray
I assume you’re talking about this in the context of building back links to your blog? If so, then the way you comment on Blogger will not affect your SEO positively or negatively. All comments on Blogger are given rel="nofollow" links. That bit of code tells Google to NOT follow the commenter’s URL. If Google doesn’t follow your URL, then it’s not building a backlink to your site. So Google will not visit your site, it will not up your SEO, and it will not help increase your Page Rank.
Do you have any other SEO questions? Leave a comment!
Breadcrumb plugins
Hi Ashley!
Do you recommend any breadcrumb plugins? I used to have them with my old theme and really miss the functionality!
Thanks!
Jennifer
I suggest you check out Breadcrumb NavXT. It’s a very powerful plugin and it’s the one I use on my own blog!
Changing images but keeping the URL
Years ago, I had fansites where I would keep headers and link buttons uploaded into a folder so that I could replace the images at any time without the link changing. As long as the image had the same name and extension, it would change everywhere. It allowed my link buttons to be updated at a whim and that way anyone who grabbed the link code wouldn’t need to get a new one later. WordPress seems to be completely different with how they do things. Is there a way that I can upload images (such as my link button and my feature banners) so that if I decide I want to change them later, they can be changed in the same fashion without having to go back and put in a new image URL?
Ariel
Hi Ariel!
When you upload an image into WordPress, it gets stored on your hosting account. Images are divided into different folders according to the year and month they were uploaded. You can see that in the image URL. Here’s an example:
https://www.nosegraze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/nose-graze-button.jpg
This means my blog button is inside the wp-content folder, then inside the uploads folder, then inside the 2013 folder, then inside the 04 folder (April). So if you visit this folder on your web hosting account, you can delete the image, and then manually (outside of WordPress) upload a new image with the same name. This will change the image, but the URL will remain exactly the same.
If you’re familiar with FTP, that’s the easiest way to do this. Connect to your site through FTP, then navigate through the folders I mentioned before (starting with wp-content).
If you’re not familiar with FTP, then most web hosts come with a “file manager” tool inside the control panel. You can use that tool to navigate through the folders, delete files, and upload new ones.
Note: Just uploading an image from the same name in the WordPress admin panel will not work. If you do it this way (rather than through FTP/file manager), the image will be given a different URL with the new (current) month/year.
What’s a breadcrumb plugin? XD What does that do?
See the links above my post title? With the home icon, Bitchin’ Book Blog, BBB Questions, and then the post title? Those are breadcrumbs. They leave behind a trail of how you got to the current post. So they show the category(s) and the homepage, and they’re all links. 🙂
Oh cool! 🙂 Didn’t know that! 🙂
So I have to place an HTML code in the header.php file where I want that thing to appear, but everything I see in that file is chinese to me… XD Where do I put that?
You’d actually probably want to place the code in single.php somewhere after this line:
<article id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class('clearfix'); ?> role="article">Thanks!
Just be careful, because if you mess up the PHP tags you could crash your blog. 😛
What is a breadcrumb plugin? I looked at the plugin but am still confused. Though it being 2am could have something to do with that. O_o
See the links above my post title? With the home icon, Bitchin’ Book Blog, BBB Questions, and then the post title? Those are breadcrumbs. They leave behind a trail of how you got to the current post. So they show the category(s) and the homepage, and they’re all links. 🙂
What’s SEO? Thanks 🙂
SEO stands for search engine optimization. 🙂 In short: it is how highly your blog ranks in search engines.
Oh, ok. Thanks!
Do you think breadcumbs are important? I’ve read lots of people saying that they’re useless. Not sure what to do D:
I don’t think they’re particularly important for blogs. Blogs usually only have this setup for breadcrumbs:
Home » Category Name » Post Name (where you are now)
So the only benefit there is a quick link back to home, but that should be in your navigation bar anyway.
And a link to the category. But that’s usually below the post title anyway.
So for blogs, which are pretty shallow in terms of website architecture, I don’t think they’re hugely beneficial. I mostly have them on my blog because I liked how they’d fit in with my design—so for aesthetic reasons.
But I think on massive sites with tons of “layers” they can be helpful. Like if you’re on Tesco.com and you see breadcrumbs for:
Home » Groceries » Bakery » Bread » Brown Bread » Current product name
There are SO many different layers that it can be useful to quickly see where you are and jump back if you want to.
With breadcrumbs, would you add some CSS in order to modify how they look? Or in the single.php file, would you add some design coding there in between the div tags?
If you download the breadcrumb plugin and look at the options panel, you’ll see there are some good HTML inserts there. You can specify a “separator” to appear in between each crumb (so some HTML or a symbol). You can also set up a template for each breadcrumb and add HTML in there.
But yes, I would add a lot of CSS to modify how they look. It’s basically just plain text otherwise. But if you look at the breadcrumbs on my site I added a background image (like an arrow) in the CSS and changed the styling.
I don’t really think breadcrumbs are worth it on blogs unless you take the effort to style them really well. 🙂 Because as I said in response to an earlier comment, I don’t think breadcrumbs are overly useful on blogs in terms of functionality, but I do think that when used well they can add to the aesthetic.
The functionality of breadcrumbs is only really useful on sites with TONS of layers/hierarchies.
Haha these posts always remind me how much more I have to learn! But at least today I learned what a breadcrumb is after reading through all the comments lol 😀 Thanks for sharing, Ashley! <33
Thanks for the post! I’ve been blogging for four years now and it seems like I’m still learning something new all the time. I didn’t even know what breadcrumbs were! 😉
That is so super easy… why didn’t I think of that? Thanks Ashley!
Thanks for answering my question, Ashley! 🙂 I wasn’t really sure exactly what I was asking, haha, but you definitely answered it. I guess I just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t any important difference between logging in under “WordPress” vs. “Name/URL” when you comment on Blogger blogs.