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How to set up Page-level AdSense ads in your blog

This article describes Page-level ads, a new type of AdSense advertisement which Google has recently introduced. It includes how to set up these ads if you use Blogger, and some troubleshooting information about them.

It also describes how to fix an error in the code which is supplied, which causes a message like "Attribute name "async" associated with an element type "script" must be followed by the ' = ' character".

What are Page Level AdSense ads

Google has recently introduced a new type of Adsense ad-units, which may be shown to people who visit a website using a mobile device (eg smartphone of tablet),

There are two types of Page-level ads:

Vignette ads: When a visitor on your site clicks on a link to another page on you site, a vignette ad may be loaded as a full-page overlay which the user needs to close before they see the page which they navigated to.

Overlay ads: these are smaller ads which show at the top or bottom of your screen, and which "stick" to the edge, so they seem to stay in place as the user scrolls up and down your site. The visit may click on them in the usual way.

For Blogger users, these ads are only currently available if you have a full AdSense account: if you only have a hosted AdSense account, then you cannot get the code to install them. But if you do have a full AdSense account (either because you have a custom domain, or because you signed up for AdSense before the "host AdSense account" option was introduced), they are attractive because they don't count towards the count of advertisement-units which you are allowed to display on each page.

They also only work if you have a mobile template switched on for your blog, so that visitors who use a mobile device see mobile-optimised screen.

How to install AdSense Page Level ads in Blogger

Log in to your AdSense account.

Go to the My Ads tab

Turn on one or both of Overlay or Vignette ads options.
(By default, they are both turned Off. Click on the empty box beside the "0" to turn an option to on: in these controls, 0 means "off" and 1 means "on".)

Click the < > Get Code button.

Copy the code that is generated.

Switch to Blogger, and edit your template in the usual way.

Find the text <head> (including the brackets).

On the very next line after <head>, paste in your code.

Optional - but highly recommended - add comments to clearly show what this code is for. I usually use

and then the code goes in here ...

Preview the template, and make sure it's working.
(See Troubleshooting section below if you get a message about Attribute name "async" associated with an element type "script" or similar.

Save the template.

Job done! This is all you need to do to enable page-levels ads for your blog: you do not need to install gadgets to say where these ads go, because Google handles this for you.

How to see what page-level ads look like in your blog

Visit your blog using a smartphone or tablet.

Add the text #googleads at the end of the website address, so it changes from something like:

http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/?m=1

to something like:

http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/?m=1#googleads

After this, when you click on a link to move a different page in your blog, a Vignette style ad will display - these are whole-page ads, which include a "close ad" button, like this:

Troubleshooting

Extra "src" text in the ad-code

Right now, there is a problem with the code that AdSense are providing. I don't know if this is because Blogger doesn't understand a feature that AdSense is using, or if it's a genuine bug. But if you see a message like this when you try to preview the template:

Could not load template preview: Error parsing XML, line 21, column 15: Attribute name "async" associated with an element type "script" must be followed by the ' = ' character.

then there's a very simple change that you have to make.

All you have to do is delete the "src" immediately after the word async.

So your code changes from like this:

<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({
google_ad_client: "ca-pub-DONT-USE-MY-NUMBER-GET-YOUR-OWN-PUBLISHER-ID",
enable_page_level_ads: true
});
</script>

to like this:

<script async ="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({
google_ad_client: "ca-pub-DONT-USE-MY-NUMBER-GET-YOUR-OWN-PUBLISHER-ID",
enable_page_level_ads: true
});
</script>

Different Page Level settings for different websites

If you are using Adsense across several different websites, then you may want to enable one of vignette or overlay ads on some sites, and a different option on others.

Currently, there is no way to do this: you must choose one combination of:

No Page Level ads
Overlay ads only, no Vignette ads
No Overlay ads, but do show Vignette ads
Allowing Google to choose Overlay and/or Vignette ads

Stop Vignette ads being attached to some links

By default, any link to another page in your blog may have a Vignette ad attached to it. However there may be some links which you specifically don't want this to happen to - for example if the user really needs to remember what was on the current page once the get to the next one.

You can prevent any Vignette ads being displayed when a user clicks a link by adding a tag to the link.

The tag to add is:

data-google-vignette=�false�

and you need to switch to Edit HTML (top left of the post-editor window) to add it.

This is an example link to another page on this blog which is prevented from having a Vignette ad, and this is the HTML code I've used to achieve this.

<a data-google-vignette=�false� href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/02/stop-malicious-use-of-your-adsense.html">an example link</a>

More help

Google have provided more information about Page level ads here.

Setting up a mobile template for your blog

Editing your Blogger template

Hosted AdSesne accounts for Blogger users

Taking action when someone has copied your blog without permission

Unknown 17:06 Add Comment

This article is about the steps you can take when someone has made an unauthorized copy of something that is published on your blog.

Finding out that your blog has been copied

Previously, I've described how copyright applies to blogs in very general terms, and the steps you can take to apply copyright protection to your blog.

Even if you follow these these steps, if you put material onto the internet it is quite likely that someone will copy it.

This maybe done out of naivety, or as a deliberate attempt to rip you off, or as part of an organised spam-blogging ("splogging") operation.

There are several way you might find out that someone has copied your work:

You, or your friends, notice it
Maybe you or one of you readers searched for a certain phrase and you found your content elsewhere. Or maybe you found a link to an identical post on a help-forum or discussion board. If you use a lot of in-post linking (ie you link to another article in your content), and notice you are getting a lot of visits from somewhere unusual, then you might visit that site and find your post copied word-for-word, including the unchanged links.

Google's spam bots notice it:
If you get an email or a notice saying that your blog has been identified as potential spam, then one of the possibilities is that a real spammer has chosen your content.

If you found out that someone has copied you work because Google's spam-bots detected the problem, then you simply need to follow the instructions in the email that Google sent you, or consult the Blogger Help Forums. In short, you will be advised about a four step process that you need to follow. This is tedious, but the nice part is that Google is dealing with the copy-cat for you, and (if you're not a spammer) you'll get your blog back.

If you find out some other way, then you need to decide what do to about the problem (if indeed you believe is is a problem). This is closely linked to what you want to achieve - this could be any of:

Do nothing - if you don't mind being copied, and you're willing to risk being incorrectly identified as a spammer
Getting the copied work taken down
Leaving the copy in place, with your name or URL added beside it
Being paid compensation
Receiving a public apology

and I'm sure there are other possible remedies, too.

Once you know what you want to achieve, you can plan what steps you need to take, based on the notes in the next section.

Reality check: There is nothing wrong with being ambitious and wanting to receive $10M compensation. But unless you can afford really good lawyers, it might be a good idea to have a backup plan which involves a realistic goal too, eg having your name added to the copyright materials, or having them taken down.

Steps for resolving copyright problems

Start the easy way

Unless you're certain that the copying was deliberate and malicious, the first step is most cases is to send a nice email to the person who made the copy, telling them that it's yours and what you want done about it. (You might need to just leave a comment on their blog, if no email address is provided.)

Report them to their internet service provider

The obvious first step if politeness doesn't work is to complain to their web-host:

If they use Blogger (ie their URL is WHATEVER.blogspot.com, or they have a custom domain but the source-code on their site looks like Blogger code),
then you should contact Google through this page: http://www.google.com/blogger_dmca.html
Google have a very thorough process for dealing with claims of content stealing - and if the other site that you say has stolen your work is also published in Blogger, they can look at the dates in their database to see who actually published it first.
Make sure that you read all the details of Blogger's policies before you submit a complaint: they don't like malicious complaints, and you could be fined quite heavily if you claim that you own something which you don't really own.

If the person who has copied your work isn't using Blogger, you may need to do some detective work with whois (use Google-search it to find a whois service for the domain you're looking for) to see who the host is, and what process this host uses to resolve copy-right complaints.
This could be particularly difficult to do if they're not located in the same country that you are (so their laws will be different), or if they use a different language.

If the person who has copied your work has put it into YouTube, you can use information and tools on YouTube's opyright page.

Complain to other services

If the other party's web-service-provider can't or won't help, then you could try reporting them to other services that the use.

For instance many websites are also on Facebook: if the contents includes your material, or links to a website that's distributing your copyright material, you may be able to use Facebook's intellectual property violation reporting process. (I haven't tried it myself, but have been told that this can be particularly effective.)

If they show advertising on their site, then complaining to either the advertisers, or to the company that organises the advertising programme, may be effective. AdSense is quite sensitive to not having it's ads shown along with copyright violations, and provides a policy violation reporting form that you can let them know about the problem.

Charge them

Some people have had success from sending the offender a bill for use of your work. This takes a bit of thought: if they pay the invoice, then legally you may have licensed them to use your work for far less than it is worth. On the other hand, if the amount that you ask them for is ridiculously high, they will probably just laugh and ignore you.

Threaten legal action

This can be fun: write a very formal-sounding letter demanding that they cease-and-desist from using your work (name it very specifically) by a certain date, and advising that failure to do so may incur penalties including but not limited to commencement of legal proceedings for in which you will be looking for legal expenses as well as damaged incurred.

If you would actually be willing to sue the person (see the section below), then consult a lawyer, and get them to send the letter. But if there's no chance that you actually will sue (and most bloggers simply don't have the time, resources or levels of proof to do so), just make the letter sound good. If necessary, get a friend who can write pompous-sounding letters to draft it for you. Send it by regular mail - emails are too easily ignored - and make it look official.

Finding the address to send a letter to can be a challenge - one option is to scour your copy-cat's work, and see if you can find their company or personal details on LinkedIn (most are smart enough to hide themselves on Facebook). And if you can, then complaining to their boss may be an option, too, depending on your niche and whether their action might be harming their company's reputation.

Legal action

If all else fails, another option is to sue the person or organisation that copied your work. If you or the copy-cat are in the USA, then the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides an approach for this. But if you and they are in different countries, then different laws and processes may apply. But no matter where you are, two things are likely:

You will need to hire a lawyer - so it may be expensive and take a lot of time, and

You may need to prove that you really did create the work, and when it was made.

The second point is where copyright registration services come in to play: they provide evidence that you really had created the work as at a certain date. Unfortunately this is one of the ironies of copyright: listing your material with a copyright service does nothing to stop anyone using it. But if you don't list it shortly after it's created, you probably won't have any evidence if you ever get to the point of wanting to sue (or even formally complain about) someone who has copied your work.

There are some other issues with copyright services too:

It can be difficult to list a blog, which by its nature has different material being loaded very frequently.
You won't necessarily know which services(s) to register with - because you don't know where someone who copies your work is located, so you won't know what services a court in your country will accept evidence from.

So, while I'm not advising you to avoid the registration services altogether, it's important carefully to choose when and how to use them.

Peer pressure / Name-and-shame

If the legal approach doesn't work, or would be too expensive, then another option is to use social pressure to convince your copy-cat that they need to stop copying your work etc. This can take a range of formats - eg, if a local small business has copied your photograph and isn't willing to compensate you, you might get all your friends to contact the business and threaten not to buy there again. Or you might start a Facebook campaign, or put a video on YouTube telling your side of a story. Whatever you do, make sure you that you:

Really know what you want to achieve: fame, a pay-off to stop the campaign etc
Consider the risks (ie what could go wrong) and whether they're worth it
Don't break the law yourself (it's not worth it, especially if you're the small guy), and
Think strategically about what you might do, and how this could affect the relationships in your area or niche: some people are just too much trouble to have an enemies.

DISCLAIMER

This article contains general advice about the copyright issues faced by people who use Blogger. It cannot cover every possible case or specific legal systems.

If you need legal advice about a particular situation, consult a lawyer, ideally one who is familiar with copyright law in your country.

I do not, under any circumstances, suggest using illegal approaches - threats of violence, sabotage, etc.

Copyright, Blogs and Bloggers, an Introduction

Tools for applying copyright protection to your blog

Putting 3rd party HTML (eg a Creative Commons licence) into your Blog

Removing the Attribution Gadget from your Blog

Displaying a gadget only on the home page - or only on a specific page

Unknown 01:44 Add Comment

This article is about how to set up a gadget / widget in Blogger so that it is only visible on the first place that a reader sees when they visit your blog (often called the "home page"). It is one of a series of articles about controlling what goes on the homepage of your blogspot blog.

Front Page Bob
By Paginator (Own work)
[CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

There are a number of reasons why you might want to put a gadget only the screen that shows when a visitor first navigates to your blog's home page.

You may want to show a welcome message, or a topic-index page, or to give a view of your recent tweets or some other RSS feed.

No matter what the reason, the process is very similar:

How to make a gadget only appear on the first page

Note: in Blogger, the words "gadget", "widget", and even "page-element" all mean the same thing. I generally use "gadget", because the Page Elements tab currently says "Add a Gadget". But they're absolutely the same.

1 Add the gadget

Do this in the usual way.

2 Place the gadget

Drag-and-drop the gadget to the place where you want it. It may be over or under your blog-posts gadget, or in a totally different place.

A popular place for a gadget that is going to look like a "home page" would be in the Body section, just above the Blog Posts gadget, where "Test Gadget" is in this example:

3 Find the Gadget-ID in the usual way.

4 Find the code for your gadget:

Edit your template.

Click in the search box inside the template editor, and look for the widget name that you noted in step 3. Once you've found it, notice what comes after it. In this example, it's the line for Blog1:

<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Text1' locked='false' title='Test gadget' type='Text'/>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'/>

Use the expansion triangle at the left side of the template editor to expand this section of the code. After you do, it will look like:

<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Text1' locked='false' title='Test gadget' type='Text'>
<b:includable id='main'>

<b:if cond='data:title != ""'>
<h2 class='title'><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<data:content/>
</div>
<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>

5 Add conditional formatting

You need to put conditional formatting code around the code for the gadget - makings sure that it doesn't go around the code for anything else! (which is why you noted what comes afterwards in step 4)

And to avoid leaving blank space where the gadget would have gone, you need to update a "hide" instruction to apply it to the gadget-id you noted in step 3.

The code to use is this - except put the gadget-id instead of the XXX.

<b:if cond='data:blog.canonicalUrl == data:blog.homepageUrl'>

THE red CODE FOR YOUR GADGET GOES IN HERE

<b:else/>

<style type='text/css'>
#XXXX {display:none;}/*remove blank space that the gadget leaves*/
</style>
</b:if>

The example above looks like this, when the code has been added:

<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Text1' locked='false' title='Test gadget' type='Text'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.canonicalUrl == data:blog.homepageUrl'> 
<b:if cond='data:title != ""'>
<h2 class='title'><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<data:content/>
</div>

<b:include name='quickedit'/>

<b:else/>

<style type='text/css'>
#Text1 {display:none;}/*remove blank space that the gadget leaves*/
</style>

</b:if>

</b:includable>
</b:widget>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>

6 Check that it's worked

Preview your blog before you save the changes: check that the the widget is visible.

Save the template changes, and look at your blog. Check that

The widget is on the first page
The widget is not seen when you look at an older page (eg one from your archive)
The other elements of your blog (other widgets, blog post titles, dates and contents) are all as you expect them - on the first screen, and on other screens too.

If anything is wrong with how your blog is working, go back to the template editor (Layout > Edit HTML), and upload from the copy of your template that you made at the beginning of step 1. This will let you blog work properly, while you figure out what went wrong.

How to display a gadget only on a specific post or page

Follow exactly the same approach as above.

But instead of

<b:if cond='data:blog.canonicalUrl == data:blog.homepageUrl'>

Make the conditional statement based on something else.

This can be a different condition, or a specific page URL. For example to display a gadget only on a specific page, use this code, and put the address of the page instead of POST-URL:

<b:if cond='data:blog.canonicalUrl == "POST-URL"'>>

Note: for the address of the page, if your blog does not have a custom domain, then be careful to use the "blogspot.com" version of the address, not one with a country-level name (eg the blogspot.in or blogspot.co.uk version)

To display a gadget on every page except a specifc one, replace the double equals signs (==) with the HTML code for not, which is an exclamation mark followed by an equal sign (!=). For example:

<b:if cond='data:blog.canonicalUrl != data:blog.homepageUrl'>

Blogger have now provided an expanded list of conditional statements - you can find information about it:

The support forum articles about tags https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/46995?hl=en
and about expressions: https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/6214580?hl=en
Blogger Buzz about some more extensions: http://buzz.blogger.com/2015/05/adding-new-expressions-to-blogger.html
Another Blogger Buzz post - even more extensions: http://buzz.blogger.com/2015/06/even-more-expansions-to-blogger.html

Where to get more information

Controlling what goes on the homepage

Adding a gadget / widget / page-element to your blog

Editing your blogger template

Putting a slideshow from Picasa onto your blog

Getting the HTML code to put a picture into your blog

Making a gadget that looks like a posthttp://buzz.blogger.com/2015/06/even-more-expansions-to-blogger.html

Making someone an author on your blog

Unknown 16:52 Add Comment

This article shows you how to set up another person (ie another Google account) as an author for your blog.

Google, Blog-Authors and Blogger

Setting someone up as an "author" in Blogger is one way that you can let other people post to your blog.

It's easy to do: you tell blogger to create an invitation, which sends the person an email saying you would like to be an author, they click a link in the email and then sign in with a Google account to accept the invitation. And once it is done, the person can write and edit their own posts.

All you need to know is the person's email address: it doesn't matter if it's a gmail address or not. You can send invitations to people with hotmail, yahoo, and indeed any email address where your invitee can read their email.

However the other person will need to use a Google account (which doesn't necessarily include Gmail) to accept the invitation: don't waste time inviting people who are allergic to Google and not willing to sign up for an account.

How to make someone an author on your blog

Send them an invitation:

Go to Settings > Basic > Permissions
Beside Blog Authors, click + Add Authors
Enter the email address of the person you want to invite
Click Ok

A few minutes later, the email address that you sent to receives an email invitation, like this, from no-reply@google.com:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: You have been invited to contribute to AnotherTestBlog
Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:47:45 +0000
From: THE NAME OF FROM YOUR BLOGGER PROFILE
To: maryc@act.nz

The Blogger user Mary has invited you to contribute to the blog: AnotherTestBlog.

To contribute to this blog, visit:
http://www.blogger.com/i.g?inviteID=468-GEEKY-LOOKING-CODE-973&blogID=31-GEEKY-LOOKING-CODE-83

You'll need to sign in with a Google Account to confirm the invitation and start posting to this blog. If you don't have a Google Account yet, we'll show you how to get one in minutes.

To learn more about Blogger and starting your own free blog visit http://www.blogger.com.

When the person who gets the email clicks on the link, they are taken to Blogger, and asked to sign in

Once they have clicked the link and sign in, the Google account that they log in with has "author rights" to your blog (just the one you invited them to, not any others you've made).

The person does not need to have a gmail or Google account for you to invite them to be an author - but they will need to sign in using a Google account (new or existing) to accept the invitation.

What you will see

Once the person has accepted the invitation, the Google account name (which looks like an email address) that they use to accept it is shown as an author on the permissions tab (the one that you went to to invite them to be an author):

If they accept the invitation by signing to Google in with a different email address than the one you invited, you will get a message telling you about this. It says

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Your invitation was accepted using a different email address
Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2011 22:51:33 +0000
From: Blogger
To: YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS

Your invitation for THE-EMAIL-ADDRESS-YOU-INVITED for your private blog "AnotherTestBlog" has been accepted, but using a different email address. It has been accepted by THE-ACCEPTING-EMAIL ADDRESS.

If your invitation has been accepted by someone you do not know or did not intend to invite, please visit the Permissions tab of your blog where you can choose to revoke access.

Thanks,
The Blogger Team

What your new author will see

When your new author logs in to Blogger.com - using the Google account they accepted your invitation with - they see a regular Blogger dashboard, except that they only have access to a limited range of functions:

An author can:

Create a post,
Edit the date for posts they have made
Turn comments of for posts they can edit (provided the default setting is On)
Edit a post that they made
Add a mobile device so they can post using SMS/MMS - (this may only work in certain countries)
Set themselves up to post using email (the mail2Post feature) - note that their "secret words" address is different to yours - and that an author could use this feature to let anyone else post from their account.
Remove themselves as an author

An author cannot:

Edit posts made by other authors or administrators
Change the template, layout or gadgets
Change the blog's URL, title or description
Set up for any email address to receive comment-moderation alert messages
Moderate comments (even about their own posts), or change the global comments settings
Edit any of the blog's Pages
See the blog's statistics
Install AdSense into the blog (although they can put ad-units of their own inside their own posts)
Give other people permission to write on the blog - except by sharing their own mail2Post "secret words" address.
Change the default language and date/time settings for the blog
Alter the RSS feed settings in any way
Set up Google Analytics for the blog
Edit the Adult-content warning setting, or the blog's Open-ID URL.

Troubleshooting

Be sure your transfer works

If you are accepting the invitation yourself (eg you are transferring the blog to another Google account that you control), then make sure that you either

[Recommended]: use a different browser for each Google account, or
Each time you need to change Google accounts, log out of the present account, clear your cache and re-start your browser.

Make sure the emails arrive

We sometimes see questions in Blogger Help Forum from people who say that they sent invitations, but the email message was never received.

The most common solution is that the author-to-be needs to check their spam folder - very often that's where the messages have gone. If that doesn't work:

Try sending the person an email address from your regular email account - so you know if there's a problem with their email.
Cancel the invitation (there's a link in the Invitation screen), wait a few minutes and try again.
Try sending an invitation to a different email address that you control, and forwarding that message (without clicking the accept link) to the person.yourself.

If none of this helps, post a question in Blogger Help Forum: tell us your blog's URL, and exactly what options you have tried.

More things to think about

As well as giving the person rights, you may also need to work with them to make sure they understand how you use certain features in Blogger:

What's your editing and quality-assurance approach - how you do make sure you've got posts right before you publish them? Do you allow adult content? What about content that might not suit advertising that your blog is showing.

Do you use labels? How do you decide what labels to apply? This is especially important if you put your posts into pages.

What time of day do you post (to get maximum benefit from your RSS non-email subscribers)

How are posts promoted on social media - do they need access to your blog's Twitter account or Facebook page too?

What policies do you have for responding to comments - Who is notified about comments left about their posts? What guidelines are followed about complaints? How do you deal with spam and abuse - and what do you regard as abuse?

How do you organise pictures, and other external files that your blog uses?
I always upload pictures to Picasa-web-albums outside of Blogger, LINK so I can control the picture size/resolution. If you do this, you need to make sure that your new author knows where to file their pictures.

Have you got a place where you keep policies, documetation, ideas for new posts, etc (eg I use a separate documentation blog for this) - does your new author need access to this?