How To Keep Your Google FriendConnect When You Switch To WP Or Your Own Domain {UPDATED}
Many people on Blogger use the Google FriendConnect. It’s a nice thing to use. If you’re on blogger. But it doesn’t really benefit bloggers who use WordPress, unless that blogger used to be on Blogger {Blogspot} or their readers are blogger users. Google does offer options to use this on different platforms, but that area seems to be hidden now and I will have to do some digging to find it. I have one because I used to be on blogspot. I think that it is a good thing. It helps to keep all of your followers in one place and it automatically adds the blogs whose GFC you join to your Google Reader. One less step to do!
Here are the instructions to successfully move your GFC from Blogger to WP or to your own custom domain that is still hosted on Blogger:
UPDATE: As of March 1, 2012, Google will no longer allow the use of GFC on non-Blogger blogs. Mine actually stopped working 3 months ago. I suggest the use of Linky Followers and the G+ widget instead. This tutorial is still useful if you are staying on Blogger with your own domain, though.
Go to http://www.google.com/friendconnect, sign in and make sure you are on the OVERVIEW tab on the correct blog.
Change where it says “OVERVIEW” in the URL to “SETTINGS”. But ONLY that part of the URL. DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE.
You will now be on the page where you can adjust the URL your GFC pulls your blog feed from. Add your domain starting from the “http://”.
Once you have saved your new custom domain to your GFC settings, it’s time to get your HTML code for your gadget. This is the easy part.
Click on the link that says “Get The Gadget”.
You can customize the colors of your GFC here. You do not have to only use the color swatches they offer. If you have a color hex code, put that number in the box and VOILA! Customized Google Friend Connect. DO NOT click anything to make the code compatible with Blogger or WordPress. You DO NOT need the GFC Integration plugin. It does not work. Just copy the code as it is and place it in a sidebar text widget.
Please understand that GFC will not transfer to every WP theme. It is a strange quirk. It also may take from a couple hours to a couple of days for it to appear on your blog. As long as you don’t get an error message, you should be fine. If you have any other problems, just contact me and I will see if I can help you.
Oh and for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE center you sidebar content! All you have to do is add this BEFORE the start of the code <center> and this AT THE END of the code </center>. It is THAT simple. So please give my designer eyes a break and CENTER YOUR SIDEBARS!!
Thank you. 😛
Category: Tech and Blog Tutorials
About the Author (Author Profile)
I'm Shan and I 'm the creator of The Asylum and a magnet for The Free Range Stupid™. I'm a little nutty, a lot sarcastic and pretty damn smart. I am also a graphic designer, blog coder, virtual assistant, free lance writer and can whip you up a killer resume, media kit or press release that would make others green with envy. Go to Skewed Design Studios to check out my services. You won't be disappointed.Subscribe
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Very important for people to know when they are making the switch! Don’t put out too much info though because than they will do it themselves and not pay you to do it LOL.
Well I found this info online after some digging, so it is already out there. LOL But I’m not going to reveal ALL of my tricks. If I did that I would have no customers.
Good thinking!
Alison recently posted..Kraft Sandwhich Mayo New Link
OMG! I am so confused. This is great to know. Too bad I’m so “Technologically Challenged”. LOL!
You’ll learn eventually. It will come to you, I promise. If I can learn to do it, you can learn to do it.
Thank you! This was particularly helpful. I was able to go into the Advanced settings and allow GFC to work on both my old blog URL and my new custom domain.
Much appreciated!
Jenna St. Hilaire recently posted..Currently Reading- Wings
You are very welcome! Glad to be of help. 🙂
Thanks Shan I’ll be sure to link to you in my post about switching to WordPress as soon as I gain my sanity back if all goes well. I’m about to go nutty. This certainly isn’t easy. if my hubby was working I’d certainly hire you.
Email me and I’ll walk you through it, Tricia. 🙂
Thanks a bundle! Finally a tutorial that works!!!
Penelope recently posted..I Really Do Want to Look Like Angelina Jolie
Glad I could help. Let me know if you need anything else. 😀
Hi Shan – thanks for your post! I’ve been working for the last couple of hours trying to add GFC (same widget I used on my blogger). I had figured out how to do it – but all I’m getting on my blog after I hit save is the html showing – no actual gadget.
Do you have any ideas on how to fix it?
Thanks for your help – I appreciate it! Tina
Tina “The Book Lady” recently posted..Introducing Blossom by ChicoBag – Review-Giveaway
It’s because you’re on wordpress.COM not self hosted wordpress.ORG like me. You have to be either on Blogger or self hosted in order to get the GFC widget.
A lot of people think that .COM and .ORG are the same, but they’re not. I wish I had a better answer for you. Sorry. But if you need help switching, I do that , too. 🙂
So if I self host with go-daddy that should take care of the problem? Am I understanding that right – is go-daddy self hosting?
I’m also having trouble adding the code for inlinkz and random.org. If it’s that easy of a fix – I’ll self host it.
Thanks! Tina
Tina “The Book Lady” recently posted..Introducing Blossom by ChicoBag – Review-Giveaway
Stay away from GoDaddy! They are HORRIBLE.
What you need for a self-hosted wordpress blog are: your own domain and your own hosting. You can get a very cheap domain name through NetFirms that comes with FREE privacy. You can buy EXCELLENT unlimited hosting through Hostgator. There are buttons for both sites in my sidebar under “Sponsors”.
Once you have secured a domain and hosting, you can get a self hosted WP dot ORG blog like mine. Then you will have all the functionality I have and also be in complete control of your website.
There are other steps to getting the site up, such as pointing the nameservers of your domain to your host, installing wordpress on that domain then importing your posts from wordpress dot COM into your shiny new wordpress dot ORG blog.
I can help you with this. I design blogs & websites for a living.
I guess I thought since I could add a text/html box that I could add gadgets that required html text.
Tina “The Book Lady” recently posted..Introducing Blossom by ChicoBag – Review-Giveaway
Hi,
I have made the switch & my GFC followers are showing on the site. The problem is my new posts are not updating in either blogger or the google reader, I’m worried all my followers will think I’ve stopped posting. Is there are fix for this?
Did you update where Google & FeedBurner pull your feed from? I have a tutorial on that here: http://lastshredsofsanity.com/2010/04/how-to-change-your-feedburner-feed-when-you-switch-to-wordpress.html/
Hi, I had only recently set up feedburner on the old site, so I just set up a new feedburner for the new blog and deleted the old one as it didn’t have any subscribers.
I’d already updated the URL in GFC but no luck. I’ve also updated blogger – settings – site feed with my new feedburner URL but that doesn’t seem to solve it either. There’s still no updates for followers when I post on the new site.
Sometimes it takes a couple of days for FeedBurner & Google to catch up with the changes you’ve made. Give it a few days and see if anything happens.
Do you have the publicize apps activated? Look at the screenshot in the post of mine and make sure you have the same ones activated.
Ok I’ll give it a few days and take a look at the apps. Thanks again for your help, hopefully I wont be back in a few days as it will have sorted itself 🙂
Hey,
I have tried, but I can’t make it work. Would you take a look on my site? (It is in Danish) – but if you scroll down, you will see the HTML-code for the GFC.
Thank you 🙂
Christina
It’s because you’re on wordpress.com not wordpress.ORG (self-hosted). I don’t know why that platform won’t allow this widget, but it doesn’t. Maybe check their support forums for help or post a topic about it? If you’d like to go self-hosted wordpress, I can help with that, too. 🙂
But i am selvf hosted, i just picked .com instead om .org? :s
Christina recently posted..Studentergaver
According to your source code and the text at the very bottom of your blog, you are on wordpress.com. You may have paid for your own domain name, but unless you also pay for your hosting through a host like Hostgator, you are using the free version of wordpress not wordpress.ORG which is self-hosted.
If you are paying for separate hosting, then there is something wrong and I would need access to your blog and GFC to figure it out.
Would you write to me email? chris_sej@hotmail.com, then I give you access to my blog 🙂 If you want to help me?
Christina recently posted..Studentergaver