Monday 24 March 2014

Good News Folks!! {How to avoid your Blog Feed breaking, How to Fix it if it does Break & How to check it regularly so if it does break you'll be the first to know!}





***If it's all gobbledygook to you just scroll down to 
the last 3 points & MAKE SURE YOU DO THEM!***

Looks like I managed to fix all my techy problems! {in a sense!!} by creating my new feed. 
PLEASE RESUBSCRIBE IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY - ALL DETAILS IN MY SIDEBAR. 
{no need to resubscribe to BLog Lovin', Google Dashboard or Email - only other readers}.  Any suspected problems in future DO LET ME KNOW WON'T YA?!? I feel like the world  has been lifted off my shoulders as it sure was a worry to me. 

Now WHO CARES about all this stuff?!  Well none of us do but it's important that you know a few basic things because otherwise you could be producing beautiful work, even blogging it all, but you MAY NOT BE AWARE that it is not reaching some or even your entire audience.

It all depends HOW people follow your blog.  Of course if they click in manually to your blog you know your posts are there so no problem, but how many people do that?  Not many...

HOW TO AVOID YOUR BLOG FEED BREAKING

1)  Why would your feed break in the first place?
2 reasons.  a)  It gets too big.  Yup, that actually happens...
How to avoid it.  Go to Feedburner HERE.

Once in Feedburner (part of Blogger & Google) it will open straight on your page.
  CLICK ON THE NAME OF YOUR BLOG & it will take you
 to a page full of details, CLICK UP AT THE TOP LEFT
 where it says EDIT FEED DETAILS.  You'll get to this:-

To stop any possibility of your feed becoming too big over the course of your years of blogging, you need to add an easy peasy little extension to your ORIGINAL FEED.  This should NOT change your Feed Address.  My problem began when I added this code & somehow DID change my original feed.  NO IDEA still how I managed that but if you watch carefully when you are making the change to the original feed you can ENSURE THAT THE FEED ADDRESS DOES NOT CHANGE.  If it does just click "cancel and do not make these changes.

HOW TO FIX YOUR FEED IF IT DOES BREAK

To get the little extension you need to add click on the TROUBLESHOOTIZE tab (see it above?), scroll to the bottom where it talks about how to MAKE YOUR FEED SHORTER so that people get to see the last (anything from 1 - 500) posts.  Depending on how often you blog set the number to be between 8 and 16 for example (as many posts as you would typically make in one month)

This page HERE is the link that opens from the Troubleshootize page which explains how to make your feed shorter.  The code is just ?max-results=8 for example. I did this for Scrap Around The World last night & it worked fine so now I'm a pro :0)

SOMETIMES YOUR FEED BREAKS BECAUSE OF OTHER PROBLEMS.
Mostly because of "bad code"that gets into it from COPYING & PASTING FROM WORD!  Well I never!!  I don't do it myself but sometimes am given text for blog hops, etc, that may quite likely have been written out in Word by others...OOPS!! REMEMBER NO WORD!!!  {As in Microsoft Word}  and if you are copying & pasting into your blog from something you've been given & you don't know where it originated HIGHLIGHT ALL THE TEXT then click this little icon at the top right of your open blog page when in "Compose" {where you change your font, add images, etc...
That will mess things up & you will have to get them looking good again (line spacing etc) but it's the only way to get rid of the offending code that COULD BREAK YOUR BLOG FEED!

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If this happens you need to go through your latest post & unformat them all!!  Yup it would take FOREVER so you end up burning a NEW FEED altogether like me that loses you half your following SO the moral of the story!  Don't let it break in the first place!! {although for me it was unavoidable as I didn't have this information} THAT'S WHY I'M SHARING IT!!  So you can avoid the same thing happening to you!!!

How do you know if your feed is broken?

NO-ONE {Blogger/Feedburner/ Blog Lovin' tells you when your feed is broken.  You have to work it out for yourself.  Mine was broken for 5 weeks before I became aware of it being broken.  I suspected a problem but was not sure what it was or how to fix it.  

BUT I have worked out that there are SOME SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO MAKE SURE YOUR FEED IS ALWAYS WORKING.  Nowhere else is this written & I have read through half of Google & Blogger Help on this issue so you can thank me later if your feed breaks & you pick up the problem immediately!!

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HOW TO CHECK THAT YOUR BLOG FEED IS ALWAYS WORKING!!

1.  ADD YOUR OWN BLOG TO YOUR SIDEBAR in a standard "Blog List"gadget.  This will ENSURE that if it stops updating YOU WILL SEE IT IMMEDIATELY so have it somewhere really visible, close to the top of your sidebar.

2.  Subscribe to YOUR OWN BLOG via Blog Lovin' or whatever Reader you use.  Yes you can easily subscribe to your own blog through your own profile that is linked to that very blog.

3.  Sign up for E MAIL UPDATES to ensure that you receive your blog updates via email.

These 3 updating methods are all affected by your FEED & IF IT BREAKS THEY WON'T UPDATE & you will know right away!  Problem solved before it happens :)

If it DOES happen go into Feedburner & fix it like I told you!  Scroll up!!




16 comments:

Heather Jacob said...

wow Helen, this is such awesome info .. you are a doll for doing this . I have copied and pasted for future reference if needed .... hpw frustrating for you ... love and hugz to you x
Baden is doing well so far we are waiting to hear about his next procedure before the inplant . he has been so brave and courageous ... we can do this .. thanks so much froasking and for your love xoxox

Julie Tucker-Wolek said...

Thanks so much for these amazing tips Helen!!!!!!

Cassandra aka Scrap Savvy said...

You poor dear. Hopefully it works for a long time after all your hard work. Thanks so much for sharing the process of checking and fixing. I am off to implement your tracking suggestions and save the rest of the info in case I encounter your type of problem.

Looking forward to your inspirational creation being posted again.:)

Desire Fourie said...

Awesome Helen thanks for sharing and all the research. I will definitely implement some of the control measure xxx
Hugs Desíre {Doing Life}

Cindy Fortin said...

I'm glad you found the problem Helen! I was wondering what was going on with you for quite some time now. I was used to see stuff on your blog daily. Anyway, I will look at all your "new" posts will great pleasure!

Di Garling said...

WOW Helen, you are one major dynamo woman. I cannot believe you have managed to do all this. I take my hat off to you. WTG girl. I don't understand most of this but I will keep a copy for reference. Thanks for sharing. Cheers Di

Eila Sandberg said...

Goodness Helen! you're a techie! THANK YOU for all of this, I am off to track myself and save the rest for *knock on wood* the future. xoxo

sandi said...

Great to know Helen. TFS!

Juliana Michaels 17turtles said...

TFS this Helen!!!

Lynette Jacobs said...

You are always so amazingly generous with sharing information. Thank you for being you and thank you for leaving so much love on my blog. I really didn't expect you to go way back. Much love xxx

Annie Claxton said...

Wow thanks Helen for sharing all your hard work - I could never have worked all that out. I'm going to come back to this post on my day off and put all you r advice into practice.
So glad everything is in order again - and it must be working because this post came through on my bloglovin :o)xxx

Lisca said...

Thank you Helen., I have no such problems at the moment but I have copied and saved it in case I need it one day.... Thank you so much. It sounds easy.....

Lisca said...
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Val-Belle said...

Jeesh what a performance... Easier to follow by email... that way I also don't have to try and remember who I am following where :P lol gotta love oldtimers :P

paperpapier said...

Received all your previous posts since (after Feb 2 post) at once today. I did not re-subscribe the new news feed. I am using Feedly as the reader. However, I notice that Feedly only showed partial of the post content without any picture. All your posts on or before 2 Feb 2014 had full contents appearing on my Feedly. Love to read and see full contents in my reader, which is more convenient and time-saving.

Marjie Kemper said...

You're a generous soul to share the how-to's on your awful problem. Will pin for (hopefully never needed) future reference. TFS, Helen!