Comments on AgaWebs: Custom Meta and Title Tags for Blogger

Dear Mr. Howard, I decided you are right and that...

2010-03-15T22:01:05.242+02:00

Dear Mr. Howard,

I decided you are right and that I should start working on a new version of the wizard. I'm asking around, doing some research and as soon as I have enough information I'll get cracking.

Regarding the problem you encountered, I noticed two possible causes:

1. Blogger embeds images within a link (<a> tag) when you upload them using their wizard. Try placing an image using the <img> tag directly and let me know if it works.

2. I haven't added a picture to my Blogger profile and that's why the share might work for me and not for your blog. If you feel like experimenting, you could try to remove the profile picture and see what happens.

Please tell me if any of these suggestions yield any results.

Regards,
/andrei_aga

Hello again Andrei, Rereading your reply, I'm won...

2010-03-15T19:41:11.032+02:00

Hello again Andrei,

Rereading your reply, I'm wondering if it's not my Blogger template that is causing problems with the AddThis button.

I do notice that Facebook share and AddThis seem to pull in the thumbnail from your blog post, but this doesn't work for the blog I'm working on, unless I use the link rel/image_src in the header. It always defaults to the user profile picture.

http://bewakeful.blogspot.com

In any case, I still think it would be helpful to include this field in your wizard, as users may still want a particular thumbnail to be shown instead of other images in the post.

If you don't have time, maybe you could give me some pointers to create a similar wizard on my site? May I build off your code?

Thank you,
JG Howard

Hi Andrei, Thanks for your reply. Your wizard was...

2010-03-15T01:53:48.422+02:00

Hi Andrei,

Thanks for your reply. Your wizard was a big help in showing me how to create the blogger javascript I needed to customize the Facebook Share. Indeed, all 3 meta tags are needed- title, description, and image_src.

I think it would be worth your time, as I have spent an entire day reading search results from hundreds of Bloggers unable to choose a custom thumbnail. Blogger always defaults to the user profile image as the thumbnail, the title of the blog, and the description of the user instead of what is in the post.

I really believe your code is unique, as I have not seen a similar solution anywhere. It has worked on all of my 38 posts, except for a few where some kind of Facebook glitch does not load the thumbnail, but that is another story I haven't figured out yet.

Thanks.

Dear Mr. Howard, From what I could tell, this is ...

2010-03-14T19:45:26.864+02:00

Dear Mr. Howard,

From what I could tell, this is about the "Add This" button. I'm using it on my blog as well.

If I use it to share a post which contains pictures, the corresponding Facebook post will have a thumbnail and the thumbnail will be one of the images in the original post. If the post I try to share has no images, the Facebook thumbnail will be one of my profile pictures from Facebook.

In conclusion, the easiest way to add a custom thumbnail would be to simply embed a photo in the original post. About the meta title tag, I think it's unnecessary as each post already has a title tag and Facebook just retrieves the title from there.

Please let me know if this answers your question. I could indeed modify the wizard in order to create a custom thumbnail which doesn't appear in the post, but I haven't had time to work on my blog lately and I have to make sure it is worth the effort.

@jean: Thank you for the comment :)

Cheers,
/andrei_aga

Amazing, works perfectly with posts labels as well...

2010-03-14T19:09:56.211+02:00

Amazing, works perfectly with posts labels as well.

Fantastic job !

Andrei, I think your code might be a good start to...

2010-03-13T22:16:27.932+02:00

Andrei,
I think your code might be a good start to addressing the problem with sharing posts on Facebook.

In order to show a specific thumbnail in the share to facebook, the following meta tags must be present:

meta name="title" content="Article headline here"

meta name="description" content="Article summary here"

link rel="image_src" href="http://www.example.com"

as noted here: http://bit.ly/9f9PLS

If you were to change your wizard/code to include these fields, it would be a huge solution to so many people.

As I'm now a wordpress junkie, I'm rather ignorant when it comes to blogger. But I'm trying to help a friend and need to ask you- if there's another way to do this, please let me know.

Thanks!

I think it's OK now. I've had to put the script wi...

2010-03-04T21:05:32.116+02:00

I think it's OK now. I've had to put the script within the post because I can no longer host external JS files on Google's Page Creator.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

/andrei_aga

Hi Andrei, It's not working for me either, could ...

2010-03-04T17:42:14.272+02:00

Hi Andrei,

It's not working for me either, could you please fix the page?

Thank you.

Mark

Fixed! Thank you for notifying me. Please let me k...

2010-03-04T16:14:07.805+02:00

Fixed! Thank you for notifying me. Please let me know if it happens again.

Please Check. This page is not working properly

2010-03-03T12:00:47.875+02:00

Please Check. This page is not working properly

Plz help me i am getting a error while saving on ...

2010-02-26T09:19:07.891+02:00

Plz help me i am getting a error while saving

on freshware.blogspot.com

error is this

Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: XML document structures must start and end within the same entity.

reply me on hasan_shahryar2008@live.com

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2010-02-25T20:28:23.424+02:00

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2010-02-10T18:49:18.169+02:00

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It is a very detailed and understandable post. kee...

2010-01-26T20:47:38.454+02:00

It is a very detailed and understandable post. keep up the good work.

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2010-01-15T23:52:05.080+02:00

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You're Tips are great, I tried it already and just...

2010-01-15T13:25:08.362+02:00

You're Tips are great, I tried it already and just waiting for results

thanks you very much for this tools very useful fo...

2010-01-04T14:50:10.961+02:00

thanks you very much for this tools very useful for me!!!

hi nice and useful tool thank you so much but i ha...

2009-12-28T21:20:36.235+02:00

hi nice and useful tool thank you so much but i have facing one problem. this tool created the meta tags for my 5 posts perfectly but after when i copy and paste code i can see this error

Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: The element type "head" must be terminated by the matching end-tag "".

i tried many time and i am doing in same was as you told in your video what's the problem tell me
regards,

think you for your tool, i was look for long time....

2009-12-10T03:49:15.684+02:00

think you for your tool, i was look for long time... I have a little questions about my blog. i searched my link at google and yahoo but doesn't show up. My link is timtraveldeal.blogspot.com plz help!!!

thanks man u rock!

2009-12-05T11:25:36.190+02:00

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2009-12-03T01:14:16.800+02:00

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I do not know how to thank you.. After so much time looking.. Look at the result! Gabriele Gualco in Viaggio
Thanks Again

Hi Andrei, i just wondering of this custom design ...

2009-12-01T18:22:06.111+02:00

Hi Andrei,
i just wondering of this custom design would work on wordpress as well? i would love to use it.
i am using cpanel/fantastico de luxe.
if it able to implement your design on wordpress, where do i paste the code and how to get there?
thank you very much. hopefully i can hear from you sooner.
loved your creation,man!

regards,

alfons-tokyo
www.chikochoki.com/blog

Hi Andrei, I figured out what I was doing wrong w...

2009-11-22T00:09:22.693+02:00

Hi Andrei,

I figured out what I was doing wrong with my blog and now your instructions and generator are working fine. I actually found the answer on another site that reminded people to replace any apostrophes in their descriptions with ' That solved my issue.

So anyone reading this: If you are having trouble getting this to work, check for any errant apostrophes and replace them with the above key combo.

REMEMBER: '

It works wonders!

~Melissa :-)

PS - I loved your YouTube video. Your instructional technique is very good, clear and concise. I suggest that you continue in this venue for demonstrating coding techniques. You are a natural teacher!

Hi Andrei, Your instructions are great and very c...

2009-11-21T20:26:56.127+02:00

Hi Andrei,

Your instructions are great and very clear, but I cannot get them to work on my blogger blog. Each time I copy and paste the code from your generator into my blog as instructed, I get the following error:

"Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly. XML error message: Element type "meta" must be followed by either attribute specifications, ">" or "/>"."

Yet when I look at the code, I don't see any missing closing tags. Any ideas? My blog is fiddlersfolly.blogspot.com

Thanks so much for any insight you are able to provide! I would love to be able to use your code.

~Melissa

Great work brother!!!! keep it up i m gonna book...

2009-11-18T05:06:45.350+02:00

Great work brother!!!!

keep it up
i m gonna bookmark your site

great!!!!!!