Importing your blog from AOL Journals to Blogger

How to Import your blog from AOL Journals to Blogger

Importing your blog from AOL Journals to Blogger is a fairly simple process. When you import your AOL Journal to Blogger, your posts, comments, photos and videos will be preserved. Blogger is a free blogging service from Google that makes it easy to share your thoughts with friends and the world. Blogger supports most of the features you've come to expect from AOL Journals and is easy to get started. You can learn more about our features here, or view our getting started guide here. If you're ready to get started, please follow the steps immediately below. If you still have questions, you can visit our Blogger Help Group or see if your question is answered in the Frequently Asked Questions. If you've already tried importing your blog to Blogger but encountered an error, please see our troubleshooting tips.

• Step 1: Sign in with the Google Account you would like associated with your blog at this page. If you don't have a Google Account, you can make one here.
• Step 2: Once you've signed in with your Google Account, you'll be asked to enter your AOL Journal URL (e.g. journals.aol.com/screenname/title-of-blog) and click "continue."
• Step 3: On the next page you'll be asked to sign in with your AOL OpenID screen name or email address.
• Step 4: The import process will then begin and may take a few minutes to complete.
• Step 5: After your blog finishes importing, you'll be asked to choose a title for your new Blogger blog as well as a new address.
• Step 6: Once you've chosen a new title and address, you can then select one of our blog templates.
• Step 7: You have now successfully imported your blog to Blogger! Click "view your imported posts" to visit your blog at its new address.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: I don't want to move my blog to Blogger, how can I move it to another service?

Answer: You certainly may choose to migrate to another blogging service. Since Journals has no built-in exporting function, you'll need to find a blogging service that has the ability to import from AOL Journals. Blogger.com was chosen by AOL for many reasons, first and foremost reason was our willingness to build such an import tool that would help you build a new blog with most if not all of your postings and comments, as well as pictures intact and ready to publish.


Question: My blog won't import, or my blog is missing information after my import to Blogger was completed. What do I do next?

Answer: Please visit our Blogger Help Group to get assistance with any problems you may have encountered during the migration process.


Question: Will my journal live in two place after I migrate my blogs to Blogger until Oct 31st?

Answer: Yes, your blog will reside on the Journals site and Blogger until AOL performs the Journals shutdown on 31 October.


Question: How secure is the AOL Journals to Blogger.com migration? I don't want my AOL user name or password made available to a third party.

Answer: You can rest assured your AOL data will remain secure as all user name and password activities will be handled securely and only as instructed by AOL on an AOL OpenID Sign In page.


Question: I have a private AOL Journal. How will this be handled in the process of migrating to Blogger?

Answer: As you proceed through the Blogger migration process, Blogger will sense you are attempting to migrate a private journal and will instruct you to log into your private Journal to make it temporarily public. Once you have done this and then finish the migration to Blogger, you'll be able to return your Journal to private. In addition, you can mark your Blogger blog as private. If you want to make your Blogger blog private or limit who can view it, read our help article to learn how.

Troubleshooting

I started importing my blog, but it failed midway or only partially worked.
If this happens and you see a partially imported blog in your Blogger dashboard, then you can delete this blog and re-import it by going here.

My import fails during the final "publish posts now" process.
Refreshing the page will usually fix this.

After I imported my blog I have the option to "publish all posts now" or "edit posts before importing." When I choose "edit posts before importing," by default I only see 50 posts and the option to check "all." However, this only publishes the 50 posts I imported.
You may need to repeat this process until all posts are published. On the "Edit posts" page you can choose to view up to 300 posts at a time and publish up to 300 posts at once.

I'm getting the error message "we cannot find your journal."

There are a few reasons why this might happen:

• Your AOL Journal is still private. You need to make it temporarily public in order to complete the migration process, after which you can make your AOL Journal (as well as your new Blogger blog) private again.
• You entered the URL of a non-existent journal. Make sure you have entered the exact address of your current AOL Journal.
• The journal you tried to import has been deleted in AOL and doesn't exist anymore.
• A disruption in network service occurred during the importation of your blog.

All about the Blogger 'Monetize' tab

The Monetize tab in Blogger makes it easy to enable AdSense ads on your blog. Once enabled, Blogger will retrieve your AdSense earnings data directly from AdSense so you do not need to go to AdSense to get basic earnings information.

AdSense Reports
Once you start generating AdSense impressions, you will begin earning money when people click on ads that show on your site.

The earnings report (visible when you click on the Monetize link from your Dashboard, or the Monetize tab when viewing your blog while logged into Blogger) includes a drop-down bar with Today, Yesterday, Last 7 Days, This Month, Last Month, and All time.

Selecting an option will retrieve the relevant report directly from AdSense.

All time
If you are already an AdSense user, you will notice that Blogger created a new channel (with the URL of your blog) in your account. If you have had AdSense ads on your blog before using Blogger’s AdSense integration to insert ads into your blog, it is important to note that All time will retrieve data only from the time you connected Blogger to your AdSense account.

This in no way affects your overall AdSense reporting, available directly from AdSense.

Terminology
The AdSense report visible from the Monetize tab contains basic information about how many ads have run on your blog, how many clicks were generated, and how much revenue you have earned. Each term in the report is defined below:

Page impression: A page impression is generated every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We will count one page impression regardless of the number of ads displayed on that page. For example, if you have a page displaying three ad units and it is viewed twice, you will generate two page impressions and six ad unit impressions.
Clicks: # The number of times an ad was clicked on in the given reporting period.
Page CTR (Clickthrough Rate): The number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions for the page of ads that appears when a link unit is clicked.
Page eCPM (Effective Cost Per Thousand Impressions): Calculated by dividing earnings by number of page impressions and multiplying. This makes it easier to compare multiple sites to see which are performing better.
Earnings: Total revenue earned to date. More detail about earnings is available in the AdSense Help Center.

source: www.google.com/support

How to put AdSense in your blog's sidebar

Note: This article assumes you are using a classic template. For Layouts-enabled blogs, you can simply add a new AdSense page element to your sidebar, or drag an existing element to the desired location.

If you're new to AdSense and not too familiar with making modifications to your blog's template, you can follow these instructions for placing AdSense code in your blog's sidebar (using the Minima template as an example).

Assuming you have already signed up and been approved for a Google AdSense account, you should be able to log in here. Once you're signed in, click the AdSense Settings tab near the top of the page. To cut right to the chase, focus on these steps:

1. Choose Your Ad Layout - To fit ads in your sidebar, it's best to choose one of the following ad layouts.

Button (125x125)
Skyscraper (120x600)
Wide Skyscraper (160 x 600)
Vertical Banner (120 x 240)
Small Rectangle (180x150)

2. Choose a color palette - They are very cleverly named but it's really just a matter of your preference.

3. Copy your AdSense code - At the bottom of the page, there's a box with code in it. Highlight all of that code and copy it.

4. Paste the code somewhere - Notepad or Text Edit or something like that is a good place for now.

5. Go to Blogger.com and sign in - Choose the blog you want to put ads on and click the template tab.

6. This is less of a step and more of a precaution - Copy your entire Blogger template and save it in Notepad or Text Edit just in case.

7. Find the place in your template that says this; you might have to scroll down pretty far:

8. Paste the AdSense code you saved earlier right after that part.

PUT YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE!

9. Save your template changes and republish your blog.

source: www.google.com/support

How do I show ads between my posts?

If you want to show ads between your posts but chose not to do it while initially signing up for AdSense, first go to your Template | Page Elements tab. Then, in the "Blog Posts" section, click on "Edit". A pop-up window will appear with options to configure your blog posts. Check the box next to "Show Ads Between Posts". (Note: You must be signed up for AdSense before you can check this box.)



Once you check this box you'll see the configuration options for your ads. You can then select how often you would like ads to be shown after your posts.



For example, if you want ads to be displayed after every post, select "1" from the drop-down menu. (Please note that AdSense policies limits you to a total of 3 ad units per page and Blogger will automatically prevent you from going over this limit.) You can then select your ad format and colors. Once you have finished configuring your ads, click on the orange "Save Changes" button in the bottom right corner.

About AdSense for Your Blog

Blogger provides a simple way for you to make money with your blog. AdSense is Google's content-targeted advertising program. This means that you don't select keywords or categories for your ads. Instead, Google's servers determine what your posts are about and display the most relevant ads to your readers. So, if you blog about baseball, there might be ads for Major League Baseball memorabilia next to your post. If you blog about painting, there might be ads for art supplies.

Blogger requests access to your AdSense account in order to allow us to create and place ad code on your page through our layouts and template tools. As part of this process, you may notice that Blogger is receiving "0%" of your AdSense earnings - this means that you will receive the same amount for clicks or impressions as you would creating the ad code from your AdSense account. To view any partners that have requested access to your AdSense account, and their associated revenue shares, please log in to your AdSense account, click the "My Account" tab, and choose the "Account Access" sub-tab. If you see a "grant access" link next to blogger.com, you must click this link in order to create ads with Blogger tools.
Putting AdSense on Your Blog

This integration between AdSense and Blogger is intended to make it easier for you to get up and running with AdSense on your blog. To place AdSense on your blog quickly and easily, see our help articles here:

* How do I put AdSense on my blog (using Layouts)?
* How do I put AdSense on my blog (using a classic template)?

To take full advantage of other AdSense options and settings, you can sign in to the AdSense site and have a look around. That's where you can see how much money your ads are earning and all that good stuff.

See Also: What Is AdSense?

What is Blogger

What is Google Blogger
Blogger (formerly Blogspot until 2006) is a blog publishing system. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. The service itself is located at www.blogger.com, and blogs that do not publish to their own websites are hosted by Google at subdomains of blogspot.com.

As part of the Blogger redesign in 2006, all blogs associated with a user's Google Account were migrated to Google servers. Blogger claims that the service is now more reliable because of the quality of the servers.

Google Blogger New features
Along with the migration to Google servers, several new features were introduced, including label organization, a drag-and-drop template editing interface, reading permissions (to create private blogs) and new Web feed options. Furthermore, blogs are updated dynamically, as opposed to rewriting HTML files.

In a version of the service called Blogger in Draft, new features are tested before being released to all users. New features are discussed in the service's official blog.