Google’s Being a Poopy Head, Too
Stuff I hate December 2nd, 2007Seems this is a big weekend for Poopy Heads. Google has just changed the way people can leave comments on blogs hosted on Blogger, such as this one. I’m not happy with this change and it’s made me seriously consider moving to another blogging platform.
Until I decide what to do, I thought I’d at least announce what happened and explain all the commenting options now in place.
Why is Google a Poopy Head?
When leaving comment, no longer can you click on the Other option and enter your name and URL back to your own blog. They’ve replaced that field with Nickname, which only allows you to type your name. Poopy Head Move #1.
The old way was much more user-friendly and gave you a way to easily link me and my readers back to your blog.
What to do?
Commenters WITH Google accounts may still login with their Google User ID and password to leave a comment. But when the comment is posted, people will get a link to your profile (not your blog). I know, that stinks. Poopy Head move #2.
Commenters WITHOUT Google accounts have several options, none I like very much. Big Giant Collective Poopy Head Move. 1. Create a Google account and just use it for commenting. This method also means you can check the box to be notified by email of responses to comments.
2. Choose the Nickname field and just enter your name. Simple enough, if you just want to leave your name behind.
3. Enter your blog’s URL below your comment. It’s a poor substitute for the old method, but at least it means anyone who wants to visit your site can copy and paste it (or type it) into a browser URL field to get there. It will not be clickable!!!
A pain, I know, but this is probably the easiest option if you want to display your blog address. (Read on for how to make it a clickable link).
4. Click the drop-down arrow next to "Sign-in using:" and choose one of the services listed if you have an account with one of them. Enter the information it requests (assuming you know it — not all users will).
5. You can still click Anonymous, if you prefer.
Yeah, but what if I really, really, really want to leave a clickable link to my blog in your comments? No problem. You just have to enter your blog’s address in this format:
<a href="http://www.yourblogname.com">Text to Display</a>
Of course, you would replace the "yourblogname" part with your blog’s address, and replace "Text to Display" with whatever you want the link to read.
I’ve done this myself and it takes just a few times to memorize the format. You could also keep a little text file handy with your code already formatted. Just copy and paste into your comment and you’re off. Go ahead and copy the above text and practice it by leaving me a comment and a link to your blog!
If you have any questions, or if you just want to complain about this new system, drop a comment in the drawer. Oh, how we love to complain here! It’s good therapy.
UPDATE: Google has rescinded this change. Read about it here. Sorry, Google. Too little, too late.
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December 2nd, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Here’s a test of technique to add my site to a comment.
It Works!
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:05 pm
OK, let’s see how it goes…
(and here’s hoping no one from Google accuses you of wanting to kill them)
JD at
I Do Things So You Don’t Have To
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Calling Google a Poopy Head does not a death threat make. At least I hope not!
Your link worked like a charm. Kudos!
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I noticed that as well..I thought the old one was just fine…pop over if you have a minute Ai just buzzed you….:)
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
@ Nascar! Oh, thanks for the buzz. I have never been buzzed before. This is a new one for me:)
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I kind of saw that and kind of didn’t pay attention. How annoying! I am tring to become fluent in html though. They say Spanish or Chinese are the languages to learn but “they” obviously don’t stare at a screen as much as I do.
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Gah! I hate the new comment format as well. HATE IT.
Mind if I link this post on BB101? You just saved me some work.
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Wow…you’ve really thought a lot about this! I’ve never noticed any of those boxes! LOL I just hate when I have to do the eye examination to leave a comment…or the word verification as it’s called. I usually fail the first time around.
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Kathy,
I hadn’t noticed the change until you brought it up. I’m going to do a little research and see if I can find where we can voice objections directly to Google.
Tar Heel Ramblings
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 pm
@ Marie — See, the problem is nobody wants to learn HTML if they don’t have to. I’m no exception. I’m disgusted at this change. Have I said that already? Ugh.
@ BB101 — Absolutely. Go ahead and link.
@ DrowseyMonkey — They took a very simple concept and messed it all up. We don’t even know why, but suspect it’s to reduce spam comments. But comment moderation is the cure for that. They’ve basically punished us all for the sins of a few.
@ Lee — It’s really hard to get a note to Google. But check out a heated discussion about this over at BlogCatalog.com. They explain there how to voice your concern. Click Discussions at the top of the screen, then in the sidebar under Discussion Search enter “URL disabled”.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:31 am
Leave it to google to fix something that wasn’t broke!
Just A Thought
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:19 am
Judy — Makes no sense to me, although I’m wondering if it’s a plan. “You want your comments to work like they used to? Sure. That’ll be $9.99/mo.”
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:25 am
Hmmm, let’s see if this link thing works…
The Greatest Blog Ever
Hey, it works!
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:58 am
Humm.. a little extra work but hey I bet I get lots more lookers.
Life In Westcliffe
Oh heck didn’t need to do all that I have a google/blogger account. lol
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:00 am
You can always install haloscan…….
I am still debating my options….
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:17 am
Ran into this problem on Friday and searched Google for their new comment policy. Apparently, the Google change was Top Secret leaving us in the dark?
The problem has another solution which I also need to investigate called Haloscan commenting (http://www.haloscan.com/). My major concern is preventing spam comments. Another concern could be Haloscan erasing the old blogger comments.
On the plus side with Haloscan, you enter your information only once for each blog site that uses Haloscan commenting.
December 3rd, 2007 at 6:51 am
I moved over all of it. I really wanted to stay with Blogger, too, and just use HaloScan comments, but am afraid that Blogger will eventually disallow use of them as well. I’m at Wordpress.com now, but setting up my own domain so that I can use full wordpress (hopefully) soon. Good luck with your blog. It’s not any trouble at all to create a Google account to use for comments (and none for me to just hyperlink my site), but some don’t know how to do that comfortably. And as you mentioned, redirecting to the profile is time-consuming and irritating. If you’re going to stick with Blogger, I’d suggest HaloScan comments. They’re free, and pretty easy to implement. BUT, when you install them, it gets rid of all your blogger comments.
I always thought Blogger’s commenting system was a bit inferior even at best, but this takes the cake!
Devilish Southern Belle
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:53 am
Poopy Head is one of the more polite ways I’ve heard this expressed. I am playing with a Word Press alternative but I really don’t want to switch.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:23 am
@ Jeff — It works, and I’ll be leaving my comments like that, but not sure how many others will. I woke up today thinking I might have calmed down. But I haven’t
@ Janeywan — You have three blogs in your profile, so it becomes confusing for readers to know which blog you are “writing from.” And therein lies the problem with using your Google login. But since you used the Westcliffe link, that’s where readers will go, and that’s great. But if people don’t do what you did, see how ugly this is?
@ Windyridge — Haloscan is not an option for me. From their FAQ for Blogger blogs: “The Automatic Installation DOES NOT delete or lose any comments left using the Blogger commenting system, but you won’t be able to display or access those comments through HaloScan.”
If you can’t display them, they might as well be deleted.
I’m still debating my options, too. But I’m strongly inclined to move to WordPress.
@ Debbie Dolphin — See above. I had high hopes for Haloscan until I read about what happens when you migrate.
@ Devilish Southern Belle — You’re right. The options beyond just using the Google login are too cumbersome for most. I wasn’t a huge fan of the old system, but I could live with it. Now, I’m afraid I can’t.
@ Alan — I really don’t want to switch either. It feels like it’ll be a pain, and I don’t have the expertise. And it’s December and I’d much rather spend my time on holiday preparations. I got help for moving to my own domain from the Blog Bloke, and he’s offered to create a tutorial for moving from Blogger to WordPress, but he doesn’t have the time right now. If I can’t wait for him to do it, I may try my hand at it. If I do, I’ll write a tutorial myself and post on this blog.
Thanks, everyone, for your comments and feedback. I may post again today with a list of links to other places where this issue is being discussed at length.
Stay tuned!
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:45 am
Do it, do it. Come over to WordPress! Come to the dark side!
cardiogirl
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:49 am
@ CardioGirl — It’s looking pretty likely! I really wish Haloscan was the magic bullet. If it was, I’d stay with Blogger no doubt.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:08 pm
To reassure you, you can immport all your comments, posts and stuff into WordPress (self-hosted not the freebie WordPress.Com)in a couple of clicks. And finding a decent host for little money isn’t hard these days. Most have Cpanel, which has a one click (well, maybe 3) install of WordPress.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:23 am
@ Sue — Thanks for the tip. I was hoping to hang onto Blogger, but I really think I need to plan for WordPress. I have to get a host and then worry about my custom domain name and comments. Too much to worry about. Was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. Thanks for stopping by!
December 4th, 2007 at 1:28 am
Hi! Kathy. Great post and I totally agree with you. I thank you for your support and for the tip on the coding. I didn’t know how to do that until now.
I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Regards
Peter
December 4th, 2007 at 1:54 am
@ Peter — Way cool what you did with your link
It’s actually a nice little technique and not difficult. Just takes another 5 seconds. But most readers won’t want to do that, and I don’t blame them. Better to move to another platform that will make putting links in comments seamless, like WordPress. That’s looking very likely for me. Cheers!
December 4th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Once you have enabled OpenID on your blog, then it’s not so bad since most other systems are OpenID providers.
And just testing out using my blogspot url as an OpenID one. My name should link to my blogspot blog if’n it works.
The only thing I would complain about is the communications aspect. They should have realized that ‘taking something away’ would cause people not to know what’s going on, and should have communicated why, and the benefits of OpenID. And to do it right before the weekend made it doubly so.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
@ phydeaux3 — Thanks for dropping by. Your name does link to your blog. I’ve also done the same thing (using another’s tutorial, since I didn’t see yours first). This does indeed work. My name now points directly to my blog’s URL when I use my OpenID account.
However, my concern is that doing this requires a registration at OpenID + adding code to your blog. Non-tech savvy users probably won’t go through the trouble. Or, they may not even know they CAN do it. My hope, of course, is that Blogger does away with this change. But I’m not unrealistic. I even wonder how long it might be before Wordpress and other platforms jump on the OpenID bandwagon. For that reason, I’m sticking with Blogger until the dust settles.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Sorry for the previous comment, I deleted it. Made a mistake and posted from my super secret test account with the false name, and forgot to click the OpenID stuff. Heh.
You saw nothing. 
Well anyway. I pretty much agree with you on the ease for blogspot urls. They say they may make that easier so we’ll see.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
@ phydeaux3 — You’re right. This new OpenID thing is just fine, but it needs to be made much easier for people who want to comment. I’m in a holding pattern now to see what happens next. Hoping for an improvement. It’s all I want for Christmas.
December 4th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Hi! StyleSwag here.
Can you believe how greedy Google is getting. They’re doing this to force people to open Google accounts.
On cheerier note, love your blog and I wish I had come up with “Poopy Head.” (so funny)
December 4th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Hey, StyleSwag — Thanks for stopping by. I’m anxious to get back to blogging about something other than this Google blunder. Please come back when I’m complaining about something else. You’ll find I do a lot of that here, but lately it’s just been about Google
December 4th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Since I have a google account and a blogger account, this isn’t a really big concern. However, if someone wants to read my blog, there are ways to get back to it that aren’t that difficult. There is a link to it on my blogger profile and my homepage. I am more interested in reading what others write more than the comments that are left. For this reason, I use the RSS feed option to let me know when a blog has been updated, and only use the comments on a blog to see what others have said and to see if they have interesting blogs as well. Blogging by nature is a bit of an Easter Egg hunt.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
@ Lotus — It may not be a problem for some, but if you sign on with your Google account and it points to your profile AND you have multiple blogs, it’s a big deal. No one will know which blog is relevant to the discussion. This whole comment thing is a deal-breaker for me. It’s off to WordPress!
Thanks for dropping by.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
i hated the Captcha (sp?) and I hate what Google has recently done with the Blogger commenting system
December 5th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
@ Cyberpunk — You are certainly not alone. I’m still publicly complaining about it, hoping against hope they’ll rescind the change they made.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Drum roll ….
Linky Dinky to My Bloggy
December 7th, 2007 at 8:35 am
We left Blogger a year ago for Wordpress and have been so happy since!
December 7th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Kelli — It worked! That’s what I intend to do on all Blogger blogs that don’t have OpenID enabled (that function is still in Draft, so I’m not seeing it everywhere). Once OpenID goes live, I’ll use my OpenID, but I’ve made a tweak so that it points directly to my blog. If I didn’t, it would point to my Blogger profile.
Easternjourney — My hope is to be moved to WordPress by the end of next week. I have some things to learn, so I’m taking my time getting there.
December 7th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Is there any recourse to let Blogger and/or Google know that people don’t like this?
Barbara H. @ Stray Thoughts
December 7th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Hi, Barbara H — Those who are vocally opposed to the change are making their voices heard in two places that are tied to Google:
1. http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/2007/11/new-feature-openid-commenting.html
This is where Blogger beta changes are announced. There are nearly 300 comments so far, about half against the change(s). Note that there are two separate discussions there. One about OpenID (which doesn’t solve our problem), and one about the elimination of the Other field, where you can leave a direct link to your blog. We suspect the crowd that’s all happy about OpenID doesn’t understand that Other was taken away.
2. http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help (Something is broken)
Whether the complaining helps or not remains to be seen. I’m not holding out much hope, which is why I’m working on the move to WordPress. Too many problems, too few solutions at Google.
December 7th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I was whining about this very thing on my blog the other day!
I tried to link - I thought maybe you had solved all my problems. It didn’t work.
Maybe because I use the free Wordpress and don’t have my own .com? I think I will be getting one soon!
For now - here’s my link the unclickable way.
http://jendisjournal.wordpress.com
December 7th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
That is great! Thanks for the awesome post.
Christy @ The Road to Home
December 8th, 2007 at 12:55 am
@ Jendi — The next time you come back to The Junk Drawer, you might be able to leave your link the “old-fashioned way.” I plan to be moved to WordPress officially by Monday or Tuesday.
@ Christy — You can always leave your link the way you did here on Blogger blogs. But I’ll be on WordPress next week and there will be a place for you to leave your link the normal way. Wish me luck! It’s been a chore, to say the least. I just have to settle on a WordPress template, then I’m importing my blogger blog soon after. Crossing my fingers that everything works!
December 8th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Poopie head doesn’t even begin to cover it!! Thanks for outsmarting them and giving us this info!!!
Here’s my attempt..cross your fingers!!
My Melange
December 8th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
@ My Melange — My technique works great IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. And that’s the problem. Most average bloggers won’t now how to do it, and it makes one more hoop for them to jump through to leave a comment. I will be using the technique on other Blogger blogs, but for the benefit of my own readers, I’m moving to Wordpress. They’ll allow URLs to point to sites and provide a field for it.
Thanks for dropping by!
December 11th, 2007 at 2:21 am
I set up a Blogger blog mainly just to direct ppl to my real blog. Pain in the butt is what it is!
Testing out your procedure here:
Pediascribe
December 11th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Hi, Karen. Your link works fine. I intend to keep doing that for Blogger blogs I frequent. It’s not a big issue for me; just a cut/paste thing. But I know most of my readers don’t want to jump through those hoops, which is why I’ve moved to WordPress. I’m almost there! Just have to switch my domain from my test environment over to the real thing. If you come back in a day or so, I’ll have moved (with a new theme to boot!)
I visited your blog just now. I adore the artwork in the left sidebar!
December 12th, 2007 at 6:14 am
Test
Kathy’s last blog post..Pardon My Appearance
December 12th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog, Kathy. And congrats on moving to WordPress! Now if we can only get the millions of other Bloggers to do so!
Also thanks for ’splainin how to make your own link in a comment. It works great except for one thing: Blogger has those pop-up comment boxes and when my link is clicked on, the box then displays my site rather than in a new window. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. Is there a solution for that? It’s still a big hassle to leave comments, but if I can master the link deal, I can live with it for now.
And…Stinky’s darn cute! But I don’t have to tell you that.
Paula’s last blog post..Warm UP: Christmas Bear
December 12th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Paula — I know what you mean about the window not opening. I know of no way around it. I would usually just right-click the link and choose “Open in new window.”
I believe the blog’s author can control whether a pop-up opens or whether a new window opens. This is done via Settings > Comments (in Blogger Dashboard). Then scroll down and choose “No” for Show comments in a pop-up window.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Ah! Thank you, Kathy. I’ve learned a lot coming to your blog! And thanks for the talking cat video. Too cute!
Paula’s last blog post..IF: Little Things
December 13th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
@ Paula — I’m glad to help if I can. But sometimes I’m clueless, especially with WordPress. But every day I’m learning more and I hope to be saying “WordPress is a breeze” in a couple weeks!
Glad you liked the kitty videos. I watched them again a couple times today. Just cracks me up every time.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
At first I thought all of my Blogger friends had over-tweaked their security settings when I was trying to leave comments. I have a personal blog on WordPress and a business blog on Blogger. I always used the “other” option for comments, using my personal blog. Now I’m logging into Blogger with the business blog, but I have my personal blog listed under the “my website” link on my profile. Good grief!
December 14th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Hi, Dawn. It’s a pain, but at least you can leave whichever blog’s link you want right in the comments. It’s what I do now on all Blogger blogs, even though I only have one blog. This way, people only need to click one link to go directly to The Junk Drawer (instead of the extra click through my profile). I don’t mind having to do that. But I did mind my readers having to figure it out. I was afraid they’d just think it was too much work and never come back!
I like your business blog. I’ll keep you in mind for customizing my header. I want to get a picture of a junk drawer up there some day!
Kathy Frederick’s last blog post..So THAT’S What They’re Saying!
December 23rd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
TRY IT
alice anjo’s last blog post..Another Great Day
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Alice — You can see it worked! But now, of course, it’s not necessary anymore since Google rescinded the change. But it’s nice to know you can insert links right into the post if you need to for some other reason, isn’t it?