I've been using blogspot to host Glowing Face Man for a year and a half now, and I've had a lot of fun with it. I chose blogger from the beginning because it's owned by Google and I felt that meant I could expect top quality. Unfortunately, I've been a little disappointed, as there's a very low technological glass ceiling here. Basically, I'd recommend blogspot to people wanting to start private blogs for their friends and family, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone aspiring to build a website that'll be widely read. But this could change, if Google made some of the following improvements, most of which are not even asking all that much. These are listed in no particular order, except that I saved the most starry-eyed one for last.
1. Store pictures directly
When I add a picture via the "Add Image" button, the picture is stored not at glowingfaceman.com or at glowingfaceman.blogspot.com, but at some weird subdomain of blogger.com. Alternately, I can host the image somewhere else and manually add it under "Edit Html", but the two places where I can't host it are glowingfaceman.com and glowingfaceman.blogspot.com.
2. Metatags
In blogspot, there's no convenient way to add unique metatags for individual articles. Particularly, no "keyword" or "description" metatags. Every article uses one main xhtml template, and if I want unique keyword or description metadata for one article, I have to code it into that one template, inside some conditional clauses. Try doing this for hundreds of articles, and the template blows up.
3. Sitemaps
Perhaps one of the most embarrassing shortcomings of blogspot is that it doesn't even play nice with its own sister project, Google Webmaster Tools. Specifically, there's no way to add a real sitemap. You can approximate a sitemap by submitting the blogfeed as a sitemap, and indeed this is what Google recommends, but even then by default you'll only have 25 pages on your sitemap. Glowing Face Man has about ten times that many articles! You can get around this but it requires some rather advanced acrobatics and I never would've figured it out if someone hadn't written about it, since it involves using URL parameters whose very existence is hidden... Considering that blogspot and webmaster tools are both Google properties, blogspot users should be able to log into GWT and see a working, real sitemap already generated and submitted for them.
(Another way that Blogspot and Webmaster Tools could communicate better with each other: why the heck do I need to add a special verification metatag to my template to let GWT know I'm the rightful blog owner, when the blog is accessed through the same exact Google account I'm using to log into Tools?)
4. Let us control our own 404 pages
If someone tries to access a page which doesn't exist on www.glowingfaceman.com, Blogspot serves up a default 404 page, and I have no control over it. It doesn't even use my Blogger template. Why not let me optionally control my own 404 page? Google Webmaster Tools even offers a 404-page enhancement widget, ironically unusable by us loyal bloggers who chose Google's own blog host.
5. Custom URLs
Unlike other blogging platforms, I have no control over the URLs which are generated for my blog. With most of my articles, I endeavor to write timeless material which will be as relevant ten years from now as it is today. Therefore, I wish that my article URLs didn't contain long strings of day-month-year data. Unfortunately I have no way to customize my URLs. Also, once an article's URL is generated, it's fixed in stone. If I change the title later, the URL forever reflects the old title.
6. Static frontpage
Glowing Face Man has a static frontpage-- and I think I'm about the only Blogspot user to have one. It took a lot of XHTML acrobatics. Basically, the entire frontpage is hardcoded directly into my template. The "article" people see at http://www.glowingfaceman.com doesn't really "exist" as an article in my "Edit Posts" list or anywhere else-- it only exists in the template, where it's displayed based on xhtml conditionals.
7. Improved file hosting
Many of the suggestions I'm making could all be met in one swoop if Blogspot allowed arbitrary filehosting. In other words, let me upload files and specify a location to place them under my main domain. For example, if I upload an image "me.jpg" to location "/me.jpg", then it should show up at www.glowingfaceman.com/me.jpg. Currently (although this might change soon), the Glowing Face Man Javascript file, gfm.js, is actually hosted at glowingfaceman.googlepages.com.
8. More control of comments
While blogspot users can control the appearance of already-written comments by editing their template, there's no way to control the actual comment-writing form. The "Post A Comment" form isn't even located on glowingfaceman.com-- when readers click that link, they're transported to blogger.com! Furthermore, I have little control over the options commenters have for signing their comments. I'd prefer not to allow anonymous comments, but I do want to give writers the "Name/Url" option. Impossible: in Blogspot, if I want to enable one of those, I have to enable the other!
9. Better comment moderation
Comment moderation could use a lot of work. At present, when I am moderating comments, there's no way to tell which post they're actually commenting on, until I publish them! And I can't tell which links the commenters are associating with their names. "John Doe" might have "CheapRussianViagra.com" as his URL, and I can't tell until I've actually published the comment!
10. Realistic preview
When a Blogspot author uses "Preview" to preview an article, the preview appears in a default font, default colors, default everything, with no sidebars or header or footer. In short, nothing whatsoever like it'll actually appear when it's published. "Preview" should launch a new window where the post is rendered as it would actually appear with the full template around it.
11. Host the "blogger profile" directly
Whenever I write comments on other Blogspot blogs where they don't have the "Name/URL" signature option enabled, rather than link back to glowingfaceman.com, my signature links to my Blogger profile which is located at blogger.com. I want my Blogger profile to show as an article surrounded by my template and located at www.glowingfaceman.com. Or better yet, allow me to specify a blog URL to replace the blogger profile.
12. WWW addresses and non-WWW addresses should be identical
If you take the address for a Glowing Face Man article but strip the "www.", it'll become a redirect to the homepage, regardless of where the original address pointed (or even if it pointed to a 404). WWW and non-WWW prefixed addresses ought to be identical. This is almost more of a statement about the web in general. Any reasonable website should ignore whether or not the "www" is there.
13. PHP, MySQL...
Ok, this last item is a little less realistic ;) But hey, with the rate at which technology progresses, the resource issues involved here will eventually evaporate... anyway, free webhosts already exist with these features, so it's not all that starry-eyed. I'd love to see blogspot offer PHP/MySQL. This would give talented users almost unlimited capacity to spread their wings.
1. Store pictures directly
When I add a picture via the "Add Image" button, the picture is stored not at glowingfaceman.com or at glowingfaceman.blogspot.com, but at some weird subdomain of blogger.com. Alternately, I can host the image somewhere else and manually add it under "Edit Html", but the two places where I can't host it are glowingfaceman.com and glowingfaceman.blogspot.com.
2. Metatags
In blogspot, there's no convenient way to add unique metatags for individual articles. Particularly, no "keyword" or "description" metatags. Every article uses one main xhtml template, and if I want unique keyword or description metadata for one article, I have to code it into that one template, inside some conditional clauses. Try doing this for hundreds of articles, and the template blows up.
3. Sitemaps
Perhaps one of the most embarrassing shortcomings of blogspot is that it doesn't even play nice with its own sister project, Google Webmaster Tools. Specifically, there's no way to add a real sitemap. You can approximate a sitemap by submitting the blogfeed as a sitemap, and indeed this is what Google recommends, but even then by default you'll only have 25 pages on your sitemap. Glowing Face Man has about ten times that many articles! You can get around this but it requires some rather advanced acrobatics and I never would've figured it out if someone hadn't written about it, since it involves using URL parameters whose very existence is hidden... Considering that blogspot and webmaster tools are both Google properties, blogspot users should be able to log into GWT and see a working, real sitemap already generated and submitted for them.
(Another way that Blogspot and Webmaster Tools could communicate better with each other: why the heck do I need to add a special verification metatag to my template to let GWT know I'm the rightful blog owner, when the blog is accessed through the same exact Google account I'm using to log into Tools?)
4. Let us control our own 404 pages
If someone tries to access a page which doesn't exist on www.glowingfaceman.com, Blogspot serves up a default 404 page, and I have no control over it. It doesn't even use my Blogger template. Why not let me optionally control my own 404 page? Google Webmaster Tools even offers a 404-page enhancement widget, ironically unusable by us loyal bloggers who chose Google's own blog host.
5. Custom URLs
Unlike other blogging platforms, I have no control over the URLs which are generated for my blog. With most of my articles, I endeavor to write timeless material which will be as relevant ten years from now as it is today. Therefore, I wish that my article URLs didn't contain long strings of day-month-year data. Unfortunately I have no way to customize my URLs. Also, once an article's URL is generated, it's fixed in stone. If I change the title later, the URL forever reflects the old title.
6. Static frontpage
Glowing Face Man has a static frontpage-- and I think I'm about the only Blogspot user to have one. It took a lot of XHTML acrobatics. Basically, the entire frontpage is hardcoded directly into my template. The "article" people see at http://www.glowingfaceman.com doesn't really "exist" as an article in my "Edit Posts" list or anywhere else-- it only exists in the template, where it's displayed based on xhtml conditionals.
7. Improved file hosting
Many of the suggestions I'm making could all be met in one swoop if Blogspot allowed arbitrary filehosting. In other words, let me upload files and specify a location to place them under my main domain. For example, if I upload an image "me.jpg" to location "/me.jpg", then it should show up at www.glowingfaceman.com/me.jpg. Currently (although this might change soon), the Glowing Face Man Javascript file, gfm.js, is actually hosted at glowingfaceman.googlepages.com.
8. More control of comments
While blogspot users can control the appearance of already-written comments by editing their template, there's no way to control the actual comment-writing form. The "Post A Comment" form isn't even located on glowingfaceman.com-- when readers click that link, they're transported to blogger.com! Furthermore, I have little control over the options commenters have for signing their comments. I'd prefer not to allow anonymous comments, but I do want to give writers the "Name/Url" option. Impossible: in Blogspot, if I want to enable one of those, I have to enable the other!
9. Better comment moderation
Comment moderation could use a lot of work. At present, when I am moderating comments, there's no way to tell which post they're actually commenting on, until I publish them! And I can't tell which links the commenters are associating with their names. "John Doe" might have "CheapRussianViagra.com" as his URL, and I can't tell until I've actually published the comment!
10. Realistic preview
When a Blogspot author uses "Preview" to preview an article, the preview appears in a default font, default colors, default everything, with no sidebars or header or footer. In short, nothing whatsoever like it'll actually appear when it's published. "Preview" should launch a new window where the post is rendered as it would actually appear with the full template around it.
11. Host the "blogger profile" directly
Whenever I write comments on other Blogspot blogs where they don't have the "Name/URL" signature option enabled, rather than link back to glowingfaceman.com, my signature links to my Blogger profile which is located at blogger.com. I want my Blogger profile to show as an article surrounded by my template and located at www.glowingfaceman.com. Or better yet, allow me to specify a blog URL to replace the blogger profile.
12. WWW addresses and non-WWW addresses should be identical
If you take the address for a Glowing Face Man article but strip the "www.", it'll become a redirect to the homepage, regardless of where the original address pointed (or even if it pointed to a 404). WWW and non-WWW prefixed addresses ought to be identical. This is almost more of a statement about the web in general. Any reasonable website should ignore whether or not the "www" is there.
13. PHP, MySQL...
Ok, this last item is a little less realistic ;) But hey, with the rate at which technology progresses, the resource issues involved here will eventually evaporate... anyway, free webhosts already exist with these features, so it's not all that starry-eyed. I'd love to see blogspot offer PHP/MySQL. This would give talented users almost unlimited capacity to spread their wings.
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2 comments:
Why don't you switch to Wordpress? It really was quite easy to do for me, though I don't know how easy it would be to import your previous articles. It has all of the features you talk about anyway, either by default or with plugins.
I don't know about most of that stuff (partly because I don't use blogger, partly because I'm not that web-savvy), but I have to give a hearty "hell, yes" to everything you said about commenting. The Blogger comment system is the worst I've seen anywhere. For example, I started typing this comment before the page had fully loaded (though I couldn't actually see that that was the case), and as the page finished loading, the part of the comment that I had already typed vanished!
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