Now Reading
New On Google’s Blogger: Import-Export Blogs, Ratings And Embeded Comment Forms?

New On Google’s Blogger: Import-Export Blogs, Ratings And Embeded Comment Forms?

Blogger in Draft

Users of Google’s Blogger (aka BlogSpot) platform will be excited to see three new features being tested on Google’s eternal beta site for Blogger (which can be accessed over at draft.blogger.com).

The first is the ability for BlogSpot users to Import/Export their blogs to/from another server, computer or another blog platform.

(Blogger in Draft) Today’s release brings another long-desired feature to Blogger: Import and Export of blogs. Now you can export all of your posts and comments into a single, Atom-formatted XML file for easy backup. You can then import the posts back into Blogger, either into an existing blog or into a new one. […]

When you import a blog, all of the posts will get saved in an “imported” state. From there you can publish just a few, or all of them at once.

The interesting thing about this feature is that once a blog is imported, users will be able to select which posts (along with the comments) to publish to their new blog. Also users can import more than one blog to a single blogger weblog, allowing users publishing from different sites to merge all of their articles together.

While blog importation may satisfy the geeks (and semi geeks) online, the rest of the human race (who is into blogging) will be pleased to hear that they can now insert a comment rating system within their blog site, allowing readers to “star” their favorite posts.

(Blogger in Draft) With our new Star Ratings feature, your readers can easily rate your posts — or the things you post about — from one star to five stars with a single click, right from the post footer.

Think of Star Ratings as a mini-poll for each of your posts. If you blog about fashion, food, crafts, quotes, or art we think this will be particularly useful to you. […]

You can customize the location of the stars within the post by dragging the preview around in the “Arrange Items” box.

If this feature sounds familiar, its probably because Google previously released this feature upon Blogger, before removing it due to technical difficulties.

While blogspot users may rejoice at the return of the star rating system, other companies like OutBrain and Spotback may wince at Google moving over into “their territory” (not to mention inspiring other blog platforms to adopt something similar upon their own blogs).

See Also
aged domain blogging

Last but not least Google is releasing another feature upon blogger, which should make leaving comments a little bit easier upon BlogSpot sites.

(Blogger in Draft) One of the most common complaints about Blogger’s comment form is that it’s on a separate page from the post, styled in a way that doesn’t match the blog. Our new embedded comment form addresses that by putting the comment form where your readers expect it: at the bottom of the post.

Unfortunately there is an unexpected trade off towards implementing this feature, as readers will be unable to subscribe to followup comments via email (at least for now), although that feature was only available for those commenting with a default Blogger account.

These features are all currently in beta so regular bloggers logging in over at Blogger.com will not see any of these live (as they have to log in at draft.blogger.com). Hopefully Google continues to improve Blogger, as it not only helps set the standard for all blog platforms, but push its rivals to develop better platforms benefiting users everywhere.

View Comments (4)
Scroll To Top