A Consuming Experience

Technorati have finally released a link count widget - basically some code to paste into your blog template so that your readers can see immediately how many blogs have linked to a particular post of yours. Previously they'd provided code to let users click to find a list of linking blogs, but it didn't show the number of linking blogs against each post as you get with comments, unlike say the "link tracker" code provided ages ago by rival blogsphere search engine Icerocket. The new link count widget does that, so Technorati have finally caught up with Icerocket on that front.

They've provided code for the main blogging platforms:

• classic Blogger
• Movable Type
• TypePad and
• WordPress

plus generic code for other blogging software.

I'd blogged before about how to display links to your blog via Google's Blogsearch (backlinks), Technorati's Cosmos and Icerocket's link tracker - I use a combination in my own blog, as you can see. I've now updated my template (I'm still on classic Blogger, they've not given me the link to move across yet) to use the new and whizzier link count code instead of the Cosmos code.

However Technorati have not provided anything for Blogger Beta, so below is a widget I prepared earlier - based on another by my Magical Sheep pardner Kirk after he spotted Blogger's new help page on creating widgets (added later: which they've not really officially publicised much, except in passing in this post - I wonder why? it's potentially so useful), as I couldn't get my own efforts to work (I tried to put the code in the widget.content bit first as the Blogger page seemed to suggest, but I couldn't get it to do anything), so any mistakes are mine and the good clever stuff is his, as usual! This "one click to add" is as I've said before an excellent innovation.

Magical Sheep Technorati Link Count Widget for Blogger Beta

<b:includable id='main'><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'><a expr:href='"http://www.technorati.com/search/" + data:blog.url + "?sub=nscosmos"'> <img alt='Technorati icon' src='http://static.technorati.com/pix/icn-talkbubble.gif'/><data:content/></a><b:include name='quickedit'/></b:if></b:includable>

UPDATE - Blogger keeps messing up the code in the form on publishing, so I've given up: To use this widget, click the appropriate button above on this page; it will ask you to sign in to Blogger Beta if you aren't already signed in. Then you get an Add Page Element page:


Choose the blog you want to add the widget to, from the "Select a blog" dropdown.

Change the stuff in the Title box if you want to: it's what will appear as the heading or description of this widget on your Page Elements tab, yeah I know it's a bit long the way I've set it up.

The Edit Content bit, if you click on it, just contains the default text that will display on your blog for this widget, that people can click to see the list of linking blogs on Technorati - change it if you like (e.g. to "View blog reactions").

But I seriously wouldn't recommend changing the code you get in the box on clicking Edit Template unless you really, really know what you're doing! And on your own head be it if you do and it all goes horribly wrong..

So, once you've picked your blog, and tinkered with the title/content if you wish (but you don't have to), you can click Add Widget, and the widget is added to your sidebar and you get taken to that blog's Page Elements tab:


See the new Technorati Link Count page element added under "Add a Page Element" on the right in the sidebar section? That's where widgets get added using Blogger's new system. This particular widget won't be much use in the sidebar. You can drag it to wherever you want it, e.g. the bottom of the Blog Posts box (or the top of that box if you prefer):



Then, click Save, and the widget will be added to your blog.

Note that this widget will only be visible when viewing an item or post page; it doesn't display at the bottom of posts shown on the main page. Here's an example post page showing the widget installed (scroll to the bottom of the page to see the link, there's no link count displaying as no one's linked to that test post! A better example, on Blogger classic rather than Beta, is this post).

Kirk will I hope be rustling up a proper widget that shows the Link Count info for each post on the main page as well as the post or item page; the above is just to get you started for post pages if you just can't wait.. (update: nope, you can't have a widget inside a widget apparently, it would be rather complicated to do, one area where Beta falls down compared with classic - so pretty please, Blogger?)

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