Add Trackback to Your Blogger Blog: The Easy Way
Buzz it
I recently posted my reasons for reconsidering my original decision to not add Trackback to my New Blogger Blog. If you want to know why you can read about it at the bottom of this post.
But that in itself posed another problem because Haloscan doesn’t offer the code or any tutorial how to do it for New Blogger. Instead, they have an automatic installation widget.
So why is that a problem? Well, in my case I only wanted trackback, not comments. But the auto-install widget unfortunately disables Blogger’s comments and installs both of Haloscan’s comments and trackback. Stink!
So this is how I did it if you want to just install just trackback and leave your Blogger comments alone:
1. First make a backup of your template by downloading it to your hard drive and put it in a safe place. You can do that in your Blogger Dashboard “Edit HTML” section of your “Template” menu. Click on “Download Full Template” to save it.2. Log into your Haloscan account (or create one if you haven’t already) and click on the “Install” menu. There you will find a list of blog platforms (Blogger is the first one). Make sure the “Blogger or Blogspot” box is chosen as well as the “Display Trackback Code” box.
3. Click on “Next” and you should come to the page with instructions for the “Blogger Installation Wizard”. Follow the instructions how to download a copy of your current template from Blogger to your hard drive. Then click on “Browse” to upload it to Haloscan.
4. Click on the button “Upload Blogger Template” and you will be taken to Step 2 of the “Blogger Installation Wizard”.
5. Click on the “Download Blogger Template” button and it will prompt you to download the new template to your hard drive. It will probably be called something like “Upload_this_to_Blogger.xml”.
6. Now this is where we diverge from the Haloscan instructions. If you want to use both of Haloscan’s comments and trackback features you do not need to proceed any further. Just follow the instruction how to upload your new template into Blogger. But if you just want to use trackback then please continue reading.
Instead of uploading the new template code to Blogger, copy the code from the file (”Upload_this_to_Blogger.xml”) into something like Notepad that will not add anything more to the code. Whatever you do – do NOT use Microsoft Word because it will just wreck the code by adding a bunch of junk to it.
7. After loading the code into Notepad, search for [ <!– start haloscan (part 2) –> ] and you should see something like this:
<!– start haloscan (part 2) –> <script src=’http://www.haloscan.com/load/bloke’ type=’text/javascript’> </script> <span class=’post-comment-link’> <p><a class=’comment-link’ expr:href=’”http://www.haloscan.com/comments/bloke/” + data:post.id + “/”‘ expr:onclick=’”HaloScan(” + “\”"+ data:post.id + “\”" + “);return false;”‘> <script type=’text/javascript’>postCount(’<data:post.id/>’);</script> </a> <a class=’comment-link’ expr:href=’”http://www.haloscan.com/tb/bloke/” + data:post.id + “/”‘ expr:onclick=’”HaloScanTB(” + “\”"+ data:post.id + “\”" + “);return false;”‘> <script type=’text/javascript’>postCountTB(’<data:post.id/>’);</script> </a></p><br/> </span> <!– end haloscan –>
8. Your code of course will look a little different than mine. Now copy that code from your Notepad. Then go into your Blogger Dashboard (click on “Template“ and “Edit HTML“), and be sure to put a check mark in the “Expand Widget Templates” box.
9. Search your template code for something that looks like this:
<b:widget id=’Blog1′ locked=’false’ title=’Blog Posts’ type=’Blog’>
<b:includable id=’postQuickEdit’ var=’post’>
<b:if cond=’data:post.editUrl’>
<span expr:class=’”item-control ” + data:post.adminClass’>
<a expr:href=’data:post.editUrl’ expr:title=’data:top.editPostMsg’>
<span class=’quick-edit-icon’> </span>
</a>
</span>
10. Paste the code that you just copied from your Notepad file on a line immediately after the [ </span> ] tag.
11. Now we are going to do the same thing again for the rest of the code. Go back into your Notepad file and look for something that looks like this:
<!– start haloscan (part 1) –>
<script src=’http://www.haloscan.com/load/bloke’ type=’text/javascript’> </script>
<span class=’post-comment-link’>
<a class=’comment-link’ expr:href=’”http://www.haloscan.com/tb/bloke/” + data:post.id + “/”‘ expr:onclick=’”HaloScanTB(” + “\”"+ data:post.id + “\”" + “);return false;”‘>
<script type=’text/javascript’>postCountTB(’<data:post.id/>’);</script>
</a>
</span>
<!– end haloscan –>
12. Again, your code might be slightly different than mine. Now do the same thing and copy that code from your Notepad file.
13. Go back into your Blogger Dashboard and search for something that looks like this in your template code:
<b:if cond=’data:post.allowComments’> <a class=’comment-link’ expr:href=’data:post.addCommentUrl’ expr:onclick=’data:post.addCommentOnclick’><b:if cond=’data:post.numComments == 1′>1 Comment<b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>
14. Immediately after the code [ </b:if></a> ] paste your code that you just copied from your Notepad file. You can of course put your trackback code somewhere different than I did if you prefer. Or your code may look a little different than mine so you might have to experiment a little to get it where you want it.
15. Click on “Preview” to make sure that everything is working properly, and that’s it. If there are no error messages you can save your new template.
Did I say this was going to be easy? Well it certainly is a lot easier than trying to figure it out on your own that’s for sure!
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I did this a few weeks ago and was very proud to have done it as my template didn’t match the instructions I was following (have by now forgotten where they came from); I haven’t experimented with it much yet, only enough to know that it works. Trackback is probably crucial to some people’s style of blogging - pity Blogger didn’t use it.
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…and because I haven’t used it, I also hadn’t noticed until just now that I must have trashed it when I changed the Blogger template a week or so ago. Ah, well, back to the drawing board, but at least I know where to find some instructions now.
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I hope it helps Julie and thanks for dropping by.
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Thank you so very much for this guide. I was just about ready to tear my hair out, having tried just about everything else I could find.
Only one problem though, I still have Haloscan comments, only they’re in addition to, rather than instead of Blogger comments.
Any advice on how to get rid of the Haloscan comments completely? I’d rather not have two comment links.
Thanks again, that was brilliant.
The Raconteur’s last blog post..Oh my god! The Blog’s on fire!
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Hi Raconteur, and you’re welcome.
If you already have haloscan comments installed it should be just matter of removing everything you have and replacing it with my code.
As always, make a backup first!
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Hmmm, I must be doing something wrong here… bear with me, I’m completely code illiterate…
What I did was (as far as I can recall, I’m pretty sure) I followed your instructions to the letter, took my regular template, uploaded it into Haloscan’s fixerruppa, and copied the appropriate bits and pieces in the appropriate places…
It SHOULD be working… but if you could take a quick gander at my blog, you’ll see there’s two comment links under each post.
Very odd.
The Raconteur’s last blog post..Re: The Raconteur Bible - What About the JWs?
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Hmm, I took the code right out of my own template so I know it works. There must be some other code in there for the 2nd comments to be showing up.
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I don’t suppose I can convince you to take a look at my code for me? (Pretty please!)
Really, I’m so horribly inept at this. But I suppose I’ll catch up eventually.
Also, on trackback in general, I’d tried tracking back to this page but I couldn’t get it to work. Gone to Haloscan and sent a trackback manually to this url, but it said it wasn’t accepting.
The Raconteur’s last blog post..Re: The Raconteur Bible - What About the JWs?
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There is more reason to comment than ever before!
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Thank you for your post it is valuable information for me
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This is pretty interesting. I’m still debating on the whole trackback thing for my blog, but it is worth the thought. Good post. Thanks
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Having installed the JS Kit re Haloscan commenting and trackback into my nevertheless blog I seemed to have lost my header image and title. looking at my layout window my header appears still to be there, but looking at html code there appears 0 size.
Any tips on how I can get the header back will be warmly received, thank you.
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I works pretty fine that’s very great thanks alot buddy
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@Fahad, you’re welcome and thanks for letting me know.
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