site search – MamaBlogga

Google’s Blogger: Search Box for All

Last April, I wrote an open letter to Google Blogger users, asking you to please use the header navbar because that was the only way most people could search your site. (Personally, if I really, really wanted to link to or comment on an older post on your site, I do know a few tricks, but it’s still extra work for me—and do you want to make me work more when I’m trying to link to you?)

Well, even if you didn’t listen (for shame!), Google did. I mentioned almost a year ago that Blogger in Draft had added two cool, user-friendly features for Blogger users to try out: a comment form right on the post page and a search box gadget (AKA widget). However, to put those features on your blog, you had to move your blog from regular Blogger to Blogger in Draft.

Then last October, Blogger moved the comment form to regular Blogger, meaning you can put form on your post pages for people to leave comments, just like WordPress and Typepad blogs. And yesterday, regular Blogger finally got the Search Box Gadget!

To add a search box to your Blogger sidebar, go to Layout>Add a Gadget. Select Search Box from the list. Then you get a list of options:

Here you can set the title for your search box (I don’t think you really need one, but “Search this blog” is fine, too). The check boxes allow you to choose what tabs you want to see in your final version.

Here’s a look at the search results:

See how it says “This Blog,” “Linked from here,” and “The web” across the top? Clicking on each of those reveals a different pane of results for the same search term. Also note that these search results are inserted right above your blog content.

So help out the people who want to read and link to your archives today and add the Search Box Gadget!

Dear friends using Blogger

Hi. I, or at least other people like me, like reading your blog. We like reading it so much, in fact, that I frequently remember posts that you write. Sometimes they’re so awesome, frankly, that I remember them months later and just have to link to them.

I hurry over to your site and—bam. No navbar—no search bar. Sure, you may have Scribbit’s wonderful custom search engine for mom bloggers, or even a Technorati search box, but in my experience, those aren’t super reliable in helping me find the specific post from your blog that I’m looking for. Granted, I work in search engine marketing, so I do know a trick or two to find the post (if it’s been indexed by Google), but really, not very many people do.

Look, I know it’s ugly. It may not go with your theme. You might not like the fact that it has a Blogger logo on it. I’ve heard lots of people express concern that the “Next Blog” button might lead to objectionable content, or be seen as a a link to such content by search engines.

May I point out here, though, that there are a few color options for the navbar: blue, black, silver and tan. And in my (admittedly limited) experience and recent testing, I have never come across “adult” content from the “Next Blog” button. Adult blogs are supposed to be properly labeled and carry a warning message through Blogger software. And the way that the navbar is coded, there is no actual link on your site from your blog to the “next blog.”

If you wouldn’t mind to terribly, having the navbar would help make your site easier for me to use. Can you go easy on me? I have a two-year-old.

Thanks,
Jordan (MamaBlogga)

P.S. Also, for some reason, the popup window that Blogger uses for comments is just not big enough on my computer lately (and it won’t let me resize). Sometimes I can’t even read and write comments (or at least not easily) or see the spam CAPTCHA image in the popup window. Just FYI.