A Blog is an Outlet for News or Topical Information
A blog is an outlet to publish news or topical information. Blogs have quite a few options to change posting strategies, improve access, manage comments and other functions. To access any of these options, navigate to the blog and click the pencil tool, then click Manage > Manage Blog > Blog Options, or Manage Blog > Post Options.
Manage Blog Options
Blog options center around functions you can manage.
Blog Options | Identification, tracking, contact, and blogging options (see table below). |
Post Options | Post commenting, excerpting, placement, and rating (see table below). |
Posts | Search for all or unpublished posts. |
Mirrored Feeds | Create external feed mirrors. |
Comments | List of comments on blog's content |
Trackbacks | A list of trackbacks for the blog. |
Tags | Manage or moderate blog tags. |
Featured Content | Manage content in the blog that is featured. |
Permissions | Change permissions for site or group roles on the blog. |
Snippets | Create snippets to increase click-through rate in search results. |
Syndication SEO/SMO | Keywords in site description and blog content; Post, keyword/tag, and comment RSS options and URLs, iTunes support, Atom syndication, ping service, syndicate external links. |
About the Author | Copy for About the Author and enabling publication of the page. |
Blog Options
Blog Options center around options you can configure for the blog. The contextual panel contains the following options:
Blog title | The blog title can be set or changed here. |
Web address | The part of the URL that names this post. |
Blog group | By default, the blog's group is where it is created. However, it can be moved to another group. |
Blog Description | Describes the blog. |
Authors | A blog can have more than one author, which you can add here. You can also temporarily add someone as an author and then remove them. |
Enable AggBugs | An AggBug is a transparent image embedded in syndicated content that helps track remote views. |
Include posts in sitemap | The blog is placed in the sitemap so that sites such as Google can index it. |
Include in community aggregate | Includes posts when listing posts for the group, parent group, or entire site. |
Enable contact form | Enables readers to contact the owner or a different email address about the blog. |
Contact email address | Email address used to contact the blog owner or the different email address specified about the blog. |
Enable blog by email | Blogging by writing an email remotely from the local site. The subject and text are the post name and body. |
Post Options
Post options center around functions you can configure for individual posts.
Can readers comment | Allows readers to comment. This only applies to comments made after this check box is checked. |
Comment moderation | Requires that new comments (that is, after the check box is checked) be approved before being published. |
Can readers rate posts | Can readers use stars to rate a post. |
Collect trackbacks | Determines whether trackbacks should be collected from blogs that link to your post. |
Disable comments | This differs from "can readers comment" in that comments are allowed for a specified number of days and then closed. |
Display posts on blog's homepage | Newest posts are displayed on the blog home page. |
Use post summary | An RSS-related option that by default shows a 250-character excerpt in feeds, activity streams, email, and post lists (but note that blog authors can override this decision). |
Post summary length | The length of the summary, defaulting to 250 characters. |
Automatic post names | A post automatically uses the post title in the URL. |
Default post image | You can upload an image to be the default for all posts in the blog, using the Upload file below this option. |