The Mysterious Pages Index Gadget

We get occasional reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, about a broken Pages gadget.

I created a new page - but when you click on the link, you get bounced back to the Home page!

When you look at the blog with the problem, it's easy enough to verify the report - just look at the URL behind the link, for the most recent page created. Indeed, it points straight to the Home page (base URL for the blog).

When this happens, there is a very simple workaround. Just create another page, identical to the problem entry.

Thinking of the past 4 years since the Static Pages feature was added to Blogger, I am betting that I have seen this report maybe 2 dozen times. That is, just enough to know that this is a problem - but nowhere enough to detect any pattern.

• BlogSpot vs custom domain.
• Template Name.
• Template type ("designer" / "layout" vs "dynamic").
• Position of Pages gadget ("Tabs" vs "Sidebar").
• Geographical location of owner.
• Dynamic vs Static page entry.
• Number of pages.

I have not yet seen any obvious affinity, with this problem - mainly because it's reported too infrequently.

If your blog is affected by this oddity - and you feel like taking the time, I'd like for you to first try resetting the "Pages1" gadget, similar to resetting the Post Template aka "Blog1". If that does not produce an improvement, then try the workaround - add an additional page, identical to the broken one. See if that solves the problem.

If the additional page works better, then you can delete or hide the previously created (broken) page. My apologies to you, if the problem page is the 19th (or possibly the 20th) static page.

If you're here, looking for help with this problem, and it is now 2016 (or later), my congratulations to you for finding your way here.

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Custom Redirects, And Old FTP Published Blog URLs

Long ago, Blogger blog owners would publish a blog as part of an existing website. With the website published as "www.mydomain.com", they would create a website subdirectory "www.mydomain.com/myblog", and publish the blog there.

The option to publish a blog as "www.mydomain.com/myblog" required an externally maintained domain / website - and the Blogger feature "FTP Publishing". In 2010, Blogger, with many man hours spent fixing a constant stream of problems, retired "FTP Publishing", in favour of "Custom Domain Publishing".

Custom Domain Publishing, like FTP Publishing, lets us publish our Blogger blogs to non BlogSpot URLs. Unlike an FTP published blog, a custom domain published blog requires a separate subdomain for each different blog. If a non Blogger website is hosted as "www.mydomain.com", a Blogger blog can only be published to "blog.mydomain.com" - and "www.mydomain.com/blog" became an impossibility.

Last year, Blogger introduced Custom Redirects, as part of the "Search Preferences" feature. Now, once again, a Blogger blog can be addressed as "www.mydomain.com/myblog", when hosted as "www.mydomain.com" - though a non Blogger website (if one exists) cannot be directly hosted as "www.mydomain.com", simultaneously.

It may be possible, however, to host an externally published website as "site.mydomain.com", and a Blogger blog as "www.mydomain.com" - and use the Blogger "Missing Files Host" feature to locate website pages, dynamically, in "site.mydomain.com". There may be hope, for people who declined to migrate their FTP Published blogs, in 2009 - and who now have static "blogs" as frozen pages in their external websites.

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Custom Redirects Let You Modify Pages Or Posts, And Publish Different URLs

We've been asking for the ability to have post URLs that differ from the post titles, for some time. Now, we have the Custom Permalinks feature, available in the New Blogger GUI Posts Editor, for new posts.

Some people would like to use custom permalinks for existing posts - and for pages. We can do that, too - but not by using Custom Permalinks. Custom Permalinks only works for new posts - and not for pages.

To change the permalink for existing pages and posts, we use the Custom Redirects option, in the "Settings" menu under "Search preferences".

This post was published as

blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/07/custom-redirects-let-you-modify.html

If I had used the "Permalink" option before publishing, I could have entered

new-blogger-gui-gives-us-custom

and published

blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/07/new-blogger-gui-gives-us-custom.html

If I want to change the URL of an existing page or post, I would use "Custom Redirects".

To address this post as

blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/07/new-blogger-gui-gives-us-custom.html

instead of

blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/07/custom-redirects-let-you-modify.html

I would use "Custom Redirects", and

1. Enter "From:" as "/2012/07/custom-redirects-let-you-modify.html".
2. Enter "To:" as "/2012/07/new-blogger-gui-gives-us-custom.html".
3. Select "Permanent".
4. Click the "Save" link.
5. Hit the "Save changes" button.

Note that Custom Redirects, unlike Custom Permalinks, lets you change the published month and year ("/2012/07/"), and the extension (".html"). If you use Custom Redirects, do this carefully.

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Custom Permalinks Let You Create New Posts, And Publish Different URLs

We've been asking for the ability to have post URLs that differ from the post titles, for some time. Up to now, we had a workaround, to do this.

• Publish a post, with a title worded to give the desired URL.
• Edit the previously published post, and change the title.

That was a clumsy procedure - and it had side effects.

Now, you simply use the New GUI Post Editor, and publish a new post. In the "Post Settings" menu for a new post, under "Permalink", select "Custom URL", and enter the customizable portion of the URL. Note the restrictions, for Custom Permalinks.

• You can only customise the post title portion of the URL.
• You can only customise the permalink, for a new post.

This post was published as

blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/07/custom-permalinks-let-you-create-new.html

If I had used the "Permalink" option before publishing, I could have entered

new-blogger-gui-gives-us-custom

and published

blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/07/new-blogger-gui-gives-us-custom.html

In Blogger Buzz: Customize your posts with permalinks, we are specifically instructed

The bolded area is the portion of the URL that is customizable.

In this example, "new-blogger-gui-gives-us-custom" is the customizable portion of the post URL.

If I want to change the URL of an existing post, I would use the "Custom Redirects" option, in "Search preferences", under "Settings".

Plan ahead and use Custom Permalinks - or don't plan ahead, and use Custom Redirects. It's your choice.

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