14 DAY TRIAL // Blogger is getting some power user features that a lot of people are going to appreciate. Users can now create meta tags for their blogs, add redirections and even custom 404 pages.
Serious bloggers, those that haven't switched to WordPress yet, are going to enjoy the flexibility the new features provide as it will enable them, for the first time, to do some basic SEO for their blogs.
"Ensuring that your blog, posts, and images are accurately indexed so they appear correctly in search results is valuable. Today we introduced a suite of new features that enable you to more effectively customize your search preferences," Bruce Polderman, a product manager at Google, wrote.
"Managing how your blog is viewed by search engines is an important aspect of maintaining a healthy blog, regardless of whether you’re new to blogging, or a seasoned veteran," he said.
The new features are grouped under the new "Search preferences" section. There'll you'll find three sub-sections.
"Meta tags" is rather self-explanatory, it enables users to create a description meta tag for their blogs, used by search engines, without having to write custom code in their blog template. Users will also be able to add individual descriptions for all posts, in the post editor.
In the "Errors and redirections" sub-section users will be able to create a custom 404 page and message as well as add redirects, but only for internal URLs.
Finally, advanced users will also be able to edit the robots.txt file for the blog, to allow/disallow certain pages to be indexed by search engines for example, and also add custom robots header tags.
After languishing ignored for years, Google's first acquisition is now getting some attention, though it remains to be seen whether it will be enough to stem the flow of users going to WordPress and, more recently and more likely, to Tumblr.