If you haven’t installed a mobile and iPad plugin for WordPress yet, it is really high time to consider it. The future is all about mobility, just look at the young people in your surroundings: how do they use internet? Yes, mainly by their mobile devices.

For a long time now, we have been thinking about getting a mobile plugin for our WordPress Blog software for Lifecruiser.com, but not really found someone that live up to our criteria for such an important plugin. Until now – WPtouch Pro impressed us from the first second we had installed it!

Earlier we have seen other solutions, to create and add customized themes to be able to read the blog properly in the mobile. WPtouch Pro does it all automatically for Android, iOS or iPad, without you have to do anything other than some settings – if you want too.

I found it so super easy to install – and to configure settings, icons to use etc. Almost anyone can do it, it is such a breeze!

My earlier researches did show a lack of customization, while WPtouch offers so many highly useful configuration options. I highly recommend the Pro version, it’s worth the money if you’re serious about your blogging and want your blog to stay alive ahead.

For us travelers it is even more useful, to be able to make a fast & easy check up on our blog during a trip is essential to us.

I will write a more detailed review of the WPtouch Pro mobile plugin for WP later, but the plugin impressed me so much, that I instantly had to tell you all about it!

This is a must plugin to have! It will only take you a few minutes to have it up and working!

Why not try it out by visiting Lifecruiser.com in your mobile phone and add us like a WebApp on your homescreen to easier find us again? (I just LOVE that feature!)

Disclosure: I purchased the WPtouch Pro plugin with my own money. This is NOT a sponsored review, it is my honest opinion. You can show me some appreciation for the tip by clicking my linked image below to purchase this plugin, so I get an affiliate commission. I would love you for that!

©Lifecruiser Love WPtouch Pro

Pssst! If you do: please tell us in the comments, so we can go ahead and visit your blog in our mobiles and see how awesome your blog is!

Even if you are on Blogger or other services, you should at least check this out, especially if you’re serious about your blogging. New WordPress blogs are installed with a click and you can get help with the transfer of old blogs.

Do NOT miss this chance to get up to 80% off of up to 3 years worth of web hosting! Example: $35.64 for 3 Years!!!

We’ve got to know this (before EVERYBODY ELSE!) because our own blog here are hosted with them.

It’s now or never! I hope you don’t miss this extra price worthy offer!

IMPORTANT: Start at 12:00 AM Friday November 26th CST (-6 GMT) and runs until 11:59PM CST (-6 GMT) 11/26/2010.

The Black Friday 2010 Offer details:
(Applies to all accounts or term lengths)

• 50% OFF EVERYTHING From 12:00AM CST – 5AM CST
• 80% OFF EVERYTHING From 5AM – 9AM CST WHILE SUPPLIES LAST (first come, first receive; so don’t miss!)
• From 9AM – 11:59PM CST OR after 80% OFF accounts have sold out, the 50% OFF EVERYTHING will continue

NOTE: The discounts will apply to your first invoice – first term length you sign up for whether that is 1 month or 3 years. Meaning: you’re smart if you sign up for 3 years since that gives you the biggest discount.

Do I wish we had this opportunity ourselves when we signed up? Hell yes! I almost wish we needed more accounts…

Example of what this extremely cheap sales offer:

• Shared Hosting ($4.95/month) LOW $0.99/month
• Reseller hosting ($24.95/month) LOW $4.99/month
• VPS Hosting ($19.95/month) LOW $3.99 First month
• Dedicated Servers ($174/month) LOW $34.80 First Month

This is the best deals, the best discounts, I’ve ever seen before on a web hosting account and that is why we want to share it with you!

Click here to get to the webhost sign up page! Don’t forget to Enter: LCBlackFriday10b at sign up!

Still in doubt? Read here how we changed host very easily without any problems – they even helped us with the transfer of our old blog FOR FREE.

Lifecruiser ♥ Huge Discounts
 

Disclaimer: We would NOT recommend this if we didn’t think that they’re awesome – we even host our own blog there. Yes, it’s true that we do get a commission if you buy with this coupon code, helping us pay for our own account, but you DO get an extremely big discount. It’s a win – win situation for us both.
 

The easiest way to change webhost

We did it the easiest way there is: our new webhost have a fabulous offer to help you transfer your blog to them without charging you extra for this great service!

They did the complete free blog transfer for us including the transfer of the domain name since we wanted that too. All we had to do was to fill in the two DNS addresses they gave us plus our blog and contact details.

Can it be any easier…? Or faster?

We laid the order in the evening and in the next mid day, they had completed the blog transfer!

After changing webhost

Within the hours when the changing of the Domain Name Servers around in the internet were to take place, we had about 4 comments on our old webhost, which we did enter in ourselves afterward at our new webhost.

We haven’t encountered any problems so far, but IF you should stumble upon something strange or not working, please do tell us – in case we don’t now.

We did have some email conversation back- and forward since we had some moments of confusion, but their support were awesome to deal with every time. Very serviceminded.

Choosing a cheaper green webhost with more diskspace

An important fact is that this will be green webhosting. We’ll also save money since HostGator is cheaper than our old webhost, plus we got more diskspace & bandwidth traffic for the money too, so why not?

If we had wanted to have only 1 blog or website, the price right now starts at $4.95/month (Hatchling), but we did choose to go with their Baby plan which will allow us to have unlimited blogs or websites starting at $7.95/month.

We’re thinking of having a separate photoblog.

For a while there we were tempted to go for an even better option with GPU Cloud, to get the advantages of private cloud computing which deliver (affordable) High Performance Cloud Computing, but in our case that might be a bit overkill. Maybe later on.

Whois Privacy Protection

We also requested to continue to have whois privacy protection (cost $10/year as usual) which means that people can’t do a whois lookup and see our name, address or phone number.

We don’t have anything to hide, but for several reasons a bit privacy still can be a good thing.

Awardwinning serviceminded webhost

HostGator has such a good reputation, that’s why we did choose them, they’ve got many awards for their great service. We like them so much that we even decided to become affiliates.

We would not recommend them if we didn’t think they’re really excellent – and believe me: we’ve really done some heavy research before signing up.

Update: Also be sure to read our post about 3 ways of moving from Blogger and issues involved where you get more webhost’s alternatives and advices.

Pssst. Why not bookmark this page to come back later…?

Lifecruiser ♥ Our Webhost
 

The new blog name

The new blog’s name is Cyber Cruisers, simply because the Cyber Cruise is what we have called it right from the beginning and that also tells what it’s all about.

We’re cruising the cyber space, but experiencing travel through other bloggers real travel written in blog posts.

Free host place for the blog

I went through a lot of different details whith each blog hosting site, to be sure to choose the right one to host the Cyber Cruisers. I did choose WordPress.com. Mostly because it’s so reliable and safe and isn’t having quite as much “annoying habits” as Blogger has. I’m not going to list all the reasons here…

How to announce a cyber cruise post

There are now several different alternatives for you to announce your cyber cruise post. The first alternative is of course the one I recommend for you to gain most publicity.

Alt. 1) You get an WordPress user account, which means I can add your user account to our group blog, so that you can write an asskicking announcement yourself, about your cyber cruise post over at your regular blog.

Alt. 2) You rely on me or other Cyber Cruisers to post your link for you in a post. The linking may be delayed – and certainly if I’m out traveling…

Alt. 3) You leave the link in the comment section of the Cyber Cruisers blog, with a high risk of being not seen – and this will not be stored in the Archives to easily be found later either.

It’s entirely up to you to choose which alternative that suits you the best

NOTE: There will be no more linking to Cyber Cruise posts on this blog, Lifecruiser, from now on, other than sporadic if I happen to have something to say about some specific post content, maybe.

How to get a Cyber Cruisers account

All you need to get access and start announcing your posts yourself, is a WordPress.com account.

If you already have a WordPress user account, all you have to do is to tell me the emailaddress you have in that blog’s settings – and I’ll send you an invite to the Cyber Cruise group blog.

If not: You signup at wordpress.com for an account: takes only a minute (!) and you don’t have to create a blog there if you don’t want to, just an user account.

Don’t forget to email me the email address you have there, so I can invite you to the Cyber Cruisers blog too.

Though I recommend you to create a blog with the same blog name as you have in your Blogger blog name. If you’re fond of your regular blog name, why not “secure” that no one else takes it in WordPress.com?

The last words about the move

Remember, it’s all up to you now. I’ll hop around telling you all about this post, but, I’ll not remind you again.

If you’re not leaving me that email address tied to a WordPress account, I’ll assume that you just want to leave your link in the comments of the new blog – or don’t want to participate in the Cyber Cruise any more at all.

Either way: I thank you all with all my heart for all the smashing fun times we’ve had on all the cruises so far!

Welcome over to the new Cyber Cruisers

I just realized the other day that not all bloggers know what a RSS reader is, despite the fact that it’s really simple to use. You don’t even need to know what RSS is, just to use the reader.

No learning of code. Nothing. It’s as simple as reading the newspaper, only more fun since it’s your blog friends that’s writing the news!

For me, it’s also an excellent way of staying up to date what you’re are all up to, while I’m out traveling.

RSS explained short version

Thanks to Blog on travel for leading me to commoncraft that made this video.

So do you wanna be an “Easy Reader”?

1. Sign up/Log in to www.google.com/reader/.
2. Click on Lifecruiser’s RSS Feed subscribe button:

That’s all you have to do. And you lived happily ever after. You’ll be grateful for this time saver!

RSS explained long version

If you’re like me, you wanna know more about it, then you can read the whole post

More information about RSS in this post:

• What is RSS?
• What use do you have of RSS Feeds?
• How to get a free RSS Reader
• How to subscribe to RSS Feeds
• How to subscribe to a blog step by step
• Check your own blogs RSS Feed
• Problems with the RSS Feed

What is RSS?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a kind of XML format (a set of tags similar to HTML) created to share headlines and all kind of blog content. It’s like a kind of news announcement for your blog. It’s also called feed or channels.

Your Blogger-blog’s RSS default feed is located by the link: http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Atom is a format similar to RSS, located by the link: http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml

You also can see what your RSS address should be according to your used template, by looking in the template code. Locate these lines at the top somewhere:

For a WordPress blog it’s very similar, example:

If you have redirected your Blogger feed to FeedBurner (now acquired by Google) it might look like this too:

(If it’s a WordPress blog, just cut out the word blogspot from above)

What use do you have of RSS Feeds?

RSS feeds is a way for you to subscribe to and get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite blogs in one place.

It’s a must when you know a lot of bloggers you want to keep track of. Making it much easier for you to scan through a lot of blogs fast when you’re behind in your blogging schedule!

There is also other ways of using your feed, for marketing of your blog/site or even to advertise within, but I’m not covering that in this post – it would be too long.

How to get a free RSS Reader

You need a RSS reader first, even called news reader or RSS aggregator, to read the blogs RSS feed in a comfortable way.

I use Google’s free reader to read peoples RSS feed, mostly because I can reach it easily with my Gmail/Google-account. Direct link to Google Reader: www.google.com/reader/.

There are many others RSS Readers out there and if you want to read RSS in my.yahoo.com they have it too.

How to subscribe to RSS Feeds

To subscribe to a website or blog’s RSS, all you have to do is click on an RSS symbol somewhere, either at their blog or in your browser and choose how you want to subscribe to the feed.

Firefox also gives you an alternative way to subscribe to RSS feeds through the browser, called Live Bookmarks, however this procedure is only a good choice if you only want to reach them from your own computer and no where else.

So: choose the online RSS Reader application you like to use instead, for example Google or Yahoo.

I tested how Internet Explorer is handling this, since I use Firefox normally (+Windows Vista). When clicking on the RSS symbols in Internet Explorer 7, an option were given to save it to the Favorite Center in a Feed folder of my choice.

I suppose this means that you only can reach it on your own computer, which is a pity. This way though you’ll be able to use the RSS Desktop Gadget for Vista showing feeds right on your desktop.

I’ve tried to use that one, but didn’t really get used to look at it, so for me it didn’t work well. I wish that they had kept the other opportunity available too, to subscribe via another RSS Reader application.

How to subscribe to a blog step by step

Example to subscribe via a RSS Reader to Lifecruiser feed (in Firefox 2.x):

1. Log into already registrered Google account, if you aren’t logged in already.

2. Click on the this button:

(Or the same orange button in my sidebar saying something like: xx readers by Feedburner, right under the Follow The Ship subject line).

3. Choose your application (RSS Reader) you like to use, like Google.

4. Start your new blog reader life made simple

TIP: Go to Manage subscriptions -> Add to a Folder -> New folder, to organize them, because you’ll fill it up quickly!

Another blog might have another RSS button (often an orange button) in it’s sidebar or top/bottom of the blog or just some text link saying something about RSS which you can click on to get a similar result.

Be aware of though that your RSS Reader is very quickly filling up with blogs, so try to organize them in categories already from the beginning, if you decide to read them this way instead of at their blogs

Check your own blogs RSS Feed

Make it a regular habit to check out that your feed is working. Either subscribe to your own blog through your RSS Reader or by following the direct link to your feed. (See in the top of this post how the RSS feed links look like).

Problems with the RSS Feed

If you’re having some kind of problem with your feed in your Blogger-blog:

1) Check the template code that it says the right feed address (the blogger default RSS if that’s what you use)

2) Go to Settings -> Site Feed tab -> Post Feed Redirection URL field

3) See if any other redirection URL of your blog is written in that field. (You shouldn’t have anything written there if you’re not redirecting your normal Blogger feed).

4) Is it the right one you want there?

Example, one of my Blogger friends had her default feed URL in that field without knowing it, which made the RSS feed to break. Blogger obviously couldn’t handle a redirection of the default feed to the default feed URL. Kind of doubled up.

The RSS feed worked again when she deleted that text in the redirection field.

Another dear blogging friend of mine had the wrong RSS Feed URL in the Blogger template code, so it’s worth checking.

That goes if you’re having a WordPress blog too. Also check if you have some plugin installed that may cause the problem and don’t forget to scan WordPress.org for some answer.

So have you subscribed to my feed yet? I’m sure that I have to yours, since my Reader is full….

Gil Elvgren, 1949.
© BROWN & BIGELOW INC, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA

Yesterday some bloggers that tried to comment here (including me), were getting an Error 403 “Your Internet Protocol address is listed on a blacklist of addresses involved in malicious or illegal activity…..”.

Oooops! Had I been a bad girl without even knowing it? *giggles*

One of the great things with WordPress is that there always are a lot of helpful people with good WP knowledge out there to get help from!

First thing I did was to go to WordPress.org Support Forums and did a search on Error 403. There I could get on the track at once, pointing to my spam Plugin Bad Behavior.

So my Bad Behavior had a very bad behavior

Me? I’m just nice as a chilled glass of Dom Perignon sparkling down your throat…. *giggles*

In there I found a comment leading me to one blog that had a link to the creator of the Bad Behavior plugin which had already made a new version of the plugin when he had noticed the problem.

Normally I always go directly to the creator of the plugin, because they very often have the solution written down already. This time though I went to the WP Forum since I thought it were a more isolated case of Error.

All I had to do was to download the new version to my computer and upload the files to my webhost space, writing over the old Bad Behavior plugin folder and violá – it worked.

Don’t know what Bad Behavior is?

It’s an excellent spam plugin together with Akismet spam plugin (that comes bundled with the WordPress installation). I hardly get any spam any more since I installed those two. That’s also why you don’t need to fill in that annoying word verification when you’re submitting comments here.

Read my old post from February when I had installed it: I Love Bad Behavior (or go to the creator in the link above).

I haven’t got the time to move my Mom’s Blogger blog to WordPress yet as I wrote in the post below, but it will come a report of it soon, promise!

Cheers my dears

You do have a lot of options if you want to move from Blogger.com. I’ll only mention some of them here, the ones that I’ve found being the most common ones.

I’ll start to mention that the first issue seem to be when bloggers want to export over their old blog posts to a new blog platform and keep their ranking.

The second issue seem to be that we bloggers love to edit our blog templates (WP themes), giving them a more personal touch. Even though there are a lot of free templates for all the different blog platforms, it doesn’t seem to be enough. We always want to customize after our own style, don’t we?

The third issue seem to be that we always want everything for free. Totally free. We want ALL the features and flashy things we can get, that truly takes a lot of time and effort to develop, but we still want it for free, right? Aren’t we a greedy bunch? *giggles*

3 Examples of places to move your blog

I’ll only suggest three of the most popular other blog alternatives, simply because there are so many. These ones are the alternatives that I would choose between if I were you.

• WordPress.org (free software, costs for webserver / host / domain)
• WordPress.com or Blogsome.com (both free)
• Typepad.com (not free)

My recommendation is the first alternative since it always gives you total control over your blog (including own template designs) and what’s happening to it. You do not longer have to deal with limitations or annoying changes from a free hosted blog.

NOTE: WordPress.com is not quite the same as an own WordPress installation on your own Webhotel account and domain. Even though you can have an own domain when you’re using WordPress.com too.

Read about the differences here:
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

Don’t be afraid – it really isn’t that complicated! There are many Blogger-bloggers that have made the move and are THRILLED over it and all the opportunities it opens up.

To move from Blogger.com to WordPress

For the blogger not interested in the “technical” stuff:

Ask the webhost you choose if they can help move your blog, since many of them actually do and often for free.

You really don’t need to have any more skills than you have when you’re handling Blogger.

Can it be any easier?

For the blogger eager to learn:

The WordPress blog software is totally free, but it demands that you get a Webhost account and an own domain name. Several of the Webhost’s offer domain name included in the fee for the webspace.

WordPress.org has excellent information pages of how to install WordPress manually. After that you can set up your system for using the InstantUpgrade Plugin, making it even more easy with the upgrades to come. (Update: in the new WordPress version this is included and no need of the plugin any longer).

Or choose a webhost where you can do the upgrades through their ControlPanel and the Fantastico Scripts install help (just some clicks), but then you may have to wait for every upgrade, since it’s not prepared in the speed WordPress spits out useful upgrades with new lovely features.

From the WordPress version 2.0.2 there is a nifty import tool in the administration panel to import your Blogger posts and comments. I’m not sure about the status with Haloscan comments. Importing Haloscan comments into WordPress 2.3 from Blogger.

It can’t handle the images uploaded to Blogger, it might show them at first, but Blogger won’t allow that you’re “hotlinking” to them, so you need to change the path to the images in your imported posts in WordPress. You’ll find the path to them if you login to picasaweb.google.com.

Main reason for choosing your own domain & WordPress installation is that you get total freedom with your blog to do whatever you want. When writing this, WordPress has 1261 free plugins giving you all kind of extra features for your blog and more is being added every day!

Not to mention the ready made WP Themes (templates) that is being made all the time, at least as many as for Blogger. There are many sites out there offering WP Themes free or paid, but be sure it’s a trusted site. (That goes for Blogger templates too!)

Be sure to choose a WP Theme ready for Widgets, which means that you can switch between those themes with just one click! No more editing to move your sidebar changes to the new theme or templates like in Blogger, it follows within the widgets which you can move easily by drag-and-drop.

Cost: Webhost (with free domain for ever).

I highly recommend those webhosts:

OR BlueHost (referral link) for $6.95/month, because they cover every need. 300 GB space, unlimited domains, unlimited addons, unlimited subdomains, 3000 GB transfer/month, 50 MSQL databases, 2500 email, Fantastico Scripts and a lot more!

Don’t forget to tick the box: “Add BlueHost Domain Privacy FREE.” – or order it from support. It means that you’re name and address details are kept private.

They’re both well known and even WordPress.org is recommending them. I’ve even been thinking of moving Lifecruiser over to them.

Disclosure: We are a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review. We test each product thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own.

There really are much information about WordPress to get, Lorelle is one of them where I recommend to start.

Some technical help in the move:

Maintain permalinks moving from Blogger to WordPress (Plugin).

Or do it manually yourself before the import:
Login to your WordPress. Select Options -> Permalinks.
Select Custom and type this line in the box:
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html. (This is to imitate your old Blogger posts look).

My personal recommendations is to not keep the Blogger permalink structure if you don’t care about some missing intern links. Start over with a better one, like this one I have here at Lifecruiser (/archive/%postname%/), which is more easily read both by humans and the search engines.

To move a Blogger.com blog to WordPress.com or Blogsome.com

First I want to say that you really can’t compare those two, even though both of them are relaying on WordPress blog software. WordPress.com feels a lot more professional and reliable in my opinion.

I don’t like when I see in the Blogsome forum that forum posts is being unanswered and that one of them asks why the blog is deleted – and there is no answer.

Only reasons for me to mention Blogsome.com is that:

1. They allow you to edit the themes HTML, which WordPress.com doesn’t – for the moment. I shouldn’t be surprised if they change that. They have already opened up and giving you access to the CSS for a low fee of $15/year. You can do a lot of theme changes with CSS.
2. You’re allowed to place ads in the themes at Blogsome which you aren’t in WordPress.com – yet. They mention something about allowing it later.

Don’t know how to transfer your old posts from Blogger to WordPress.com?

Don’t worry, there is a nifty Import tool in WordPress.com blogs too that let’s you import posts, comments, categories from Blogger (and other). Just go to your Admin panel and choose Manage -> Import and follow the instructions.

It can’t handle the images uploaded to Blogger, it might show them at first, but Blogger won’t allow that you’re “hotlinking” to them, so you need to change the path to the images in your imported posts in WordPress. You’ll find the path to them if you login to picasaweb.google.com.

Read some of the WordPress.com nice features here.

I really love WordPress.com’s answer on this question in the FAQ:

“Is everything being backed up?

Absolutely. If a very large meteor were to hit all of the WordPress.com servers and destroy them beyond repair, all of your data would still be safe and we could have your blog online within a couple of days. (After the meteor situation dies down.)

You can also download a backup/export of your blog, posts, comments, etc by going to your dashboard and clicking Manage then Export.”

Blogger backup routine is very strange and I’d even call it risky. It also have happened that Blogger blogs have been deleted without any warning. Are you doing regular backups of your Blogger blog and feel comfortable with the routine?

Recommendation: Even if you don’t intend to move from Blogger to WordPress.com, do this import to WordPress.com as a backup of your posts and comments of your Blogger blog. Besides that, you’ll never know, maybe you change your mind later?

NOTE: If you have a very big blog, with very much content you might need to have a paid upgrade. A 1 Gigabyte upgrade costs $20 for 12 months.

It’s not expensive, you probably buy candy for a lot more than that a year, so why not blog space?

To move to Typepad.com

They say that this option is for the really serious blogger, not only because it isn’t free, but that it’s not so easy to handle. I haven’t tested it myself for a very long time, the only thing I know is that I didn’t like it when I started this blog.

Maybe you think different, so check it out, they have a free trial for 14 days.

Cost: From $4.95 per month.

To keep your Google rank

Don’t delete your Blogger blog, to keep your Google rank you need to do a redirection from it to the corresponding place in your new blog. Google will remember your blog (keeping it in the cache) and continue to visit it even if you’ve deleted it. It might still think that you have duplicated content.

To just take your Blogger blog site out of Google’s index and then allow Google to index your new site isn’t enough to keep your well earned ranking, but then again what is the rank really worth?

There have been so many discussions about the Google rank and what it really is worth. Not much, but in some cases yes. It’s all up to you to decide how important you think it is for you and your intentions with your blog.

For a personal blog without ads or other intentions to earn money with your blog, you don’t have to bother. You can become popular or even famous without a high Google rank

Sources: Hundreds (?) of blogs plus my own thoughts mixed.

UPDATE WITH TIPS FROM LEANNE:

Don’t forget about WordPress for Dummies, for newbies who want to really learn the in’s and out’s of WordPress.

Also, when you do move, grab up Google Sitemap Generator plugin and run it – this will cause Google to reindex the URL’s of pages already cached, and within just a few weeks you carry your rank with you!

I’ll personally try to move my Mom’s Blogger blog to WordPress, so stay tuned and I’ll tell you how it all went!

UPDATE:
Chris over at Zero Commute have done a video of when he started to Migrate Classic Blogger To WordPress. He’s in the middle of a move.

NEW: Wolfbernz is now offering you a free WordPress blog over at Blogdumps.net with even more space than the free version of WordPress.com and he also is allowing ads. Head over and check it out!

I also recommend you to read Blog Heralds excellent and fully covering article: Blogger sucks. Wanna move to WordPress?.

Wanna get that extern linking feature back in the comments?

Click here to Send them a request! (Even if you’re not a Blogger.com blogger!)

I urge every one to scroll down on that page and choose “suggest a new feature” and ask to get back the feature!

Not sure what I’m talking about here? Well, read on!

We have blogs to socialize with each other and Blogger have just built up a wall between us bloggers by implementing these new rules for commenting cross different blog platforms, they don’t any longer allow links to extern blogs outside Blogger.com.

Instead of earlier when you could click the “other” option, you can now only give in a nickname option – no link to your blog. Even if you write http://www.lifecruiser.org it won’t turn it into a link, not even if you place the a href code there.

This also means that YOU as a blogger.com blog owner can’t easily follow up your commentors either – as long as we don’t leave you a link in the comment body or is on your blogroll already. I’m only waiting for the day when they try to stop you from linking to us at all…

It’s totally UNFAIR. They’re kicking us below the belt in a very ugly way. It’s like cheating or too much big brother watching your steps, it’s not an acceptable behavior in the friendly blogosphere.

Haven’t thought about it? Well, imagine it would be the opposite. Think if all the WordPress or Typepad blogs would stop to link to all Blogger blogs?

Would you think that was a good thing? No, I didn’t think so….

What on earth made Google-Blogger to take this bad, bad decision? Maybe it’s so many bloggers that have left Blogger already that they got a panic attack and was not thinking clearly? One could almost think so.

I don’t believe that it was done to prevent spam – if so they would have gone out with information about it. No, this is clearly a step into the war of blog platforms. And what do we bloggers think about wars? Exactly, we don’t like wars, we want peace and more features to ease the way between us bloggers.

This way, if I leave a comment with my Blogger account, it will only go to my Blogger profile and there you can find a link to my real WordPress blog, but that means too many clicks, right? Not many will do that. We all know how lazy we are when it comes to clicks….

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your comments on your Blogger blog will drop a bit now, at least from new commenters other than Blogger.com bloggers.

For me this was the last drop I can take from Blogger. I’ll still visit you, my visitors, but no searching for new Blogger blogs. I’ll concentrate more on the WP blogs from now on and my guess is that I’m not alone.

A big part of the blogging pleasure is to get responses on your blog posts and visit each others blogs and this is hindering us to do that easily. I’m not saying this only because of the link backs, but because I want the process to go SMOOTHLY. I’m not sure that Blogger know what that word is though…

I’m thinking of the uploading of images fuss that has been going on for quite a while now to, where bloggers with Blogger-blogs have had to wait for hours and hours (sometimes days!) to upload them! I can understand that there can be certain problems with things for a while, especially since it’s a free blogging platform, but not when they’re continuing for this long.

I’m very surprised that people are staying so patiently with Blogger as they do. I would never do that after all the problems they have had. I can understand your anxiety over a move from Blogger though, after all, you may have had that blog for long and really worked hard with it and maybe not even have the skills to do the move or for hosting an own domain and blog.

If you’re sure you’re NOT ever will be moving and your Blogger.com blog is new, I recommend you to at least install the add-on Haloscan for your comments, which still have the extern linking feature. It also has the trackback option that Blogger blogs normally is missing.

CAUTION: If you’re having an old blog, be careful implementing Haloscan, I’ve heard of bloggers missing all the old comments after installing Haloscan. There may also be some problems if you later decide to move, to export your Haloscan comments.

I think this is a way to try to keep bloggers at Blogger, but that’s just to bite themselves in the tail. It can have the opposite effect if they don’t are careful. This can be another reason for bloggers to actually leave Blogger.

As Sara at Suburban Oblivion answers in a comment:

“Finally, I think readers *should* be rewarded for commenting. It all goes back to that two-way relationship thing. Anyone can read anything I put up, but I truly appreciate those who take the time and effort to stop and let me know what they think of my posts. I could just as easily adjust my settings to where nothing is required but a name, but I think commenters should be rewarded not only with the linkbacks (and google juice since I am dofollow), but the chance for new readers to discover them here”.

I think that sums it up, it’s simply good manners to keep the linking feature.

Update: Blogger has now after all the protests, apologized and put back the feature, even if it’s a bit hidden since you have to start to write in the nickname field before the URI field shows up.

Still wanna know more of what you’re options are and how to move a blog from Blogger? Read my next post!

Lifecruiser Referral Best Webhost:

1) Brians threaded comments which gives YOU the option of replying to somebody elses comment on my blog!

This also means that my reply on your comments will be more properly done with timestamps and not within your comment as earlier. Though I must mention that I don’t have the same amount of time to answer ALL of your comments as earlier…

Just click on the “Reply to this Ship ahoy”-link in the right corner of the comment and fill out the commment box in the end as usual.

I’m looking forward to se your conversations! Have fun

2) The Email Responder. I got the tip about it from Tricia. Now when I answer one of your comments, I also can decide to email you the answer too. Very nice option!

(It does not quite work together with the threaded comments plugin, so if I decide to make a email responded comment, that comment is not threaded, but I can live with that

3) Now you can Subscribe to Comments if you want to keep track of a special posts comments. Could be very useful when we’re having “hot” cruises!

Just Tick the little box “Subscribe to ahip ahoys via Email” between the http-line and the textbox where you write your comment. You’re even allowed to manage your subscription too (requires cookies).

Let me know if you bonce into any problem with them!

Enjoy

Captain Lifecruiser

Last port: Tuesday+Wednesday – A peaceful Savannah, US. Debbie is guiding us

Do you want to hop aboard at next event?
Read about Cruiser Grades.

Read more about Lifecruiser cyber cruise.

So what is it with this Bad Behavior that makes me love it?

It’s working by target the spam methods rather than the the spam itself, which stops the spam efficiently even before it has reached my blog. It’s like having a chastity belt on you stopping them to molesting you, instead of catching the molesters afterwards!

I’m going out of this untouched – they won’t even get a chance to have a look at me! Oh boy, do I love that long nose they will have. Or wasn’t it the nose that was long…. *LMAO*

They’re not given the chance to attack my site with their crap, scrape my pages for addresses or use Web site cracking tools. My WP wont run, which will save CPU time, database activities and bandwidth! Woot!

It works best together with traditional anti-spam tools, like Akismet or Spam Karma 2 for WordPress, though it’s platform-independent which means you can run it on others too – even personalized custom scripts.

In WP it’s just as simple as install any other WP Plugin – just drop it in the Plugin folder and activate it in the Admin tool and that’s it.

Now, I’ve finally – as so many others before me – secured Lifecruiser from being shutdown by my webhost because my dedicated bandwidth is used by spammers. Phew.

Already after a short while BB told me that: “Bad Behavior has blocked 38 access attempts in the last 7 days”.

Ah, what a nice new almost spam free life