[box type=”warning”]This widget is not yet updated and probably will not work. You may want to check out these Blogger widgets instead.[/box]
The Recent Comments Widget for Blogger doesn’t work with private blogs. While trying to find a work-around with the widget’s script, I came up instead with a way to make a new widget that can display Recent Comments on private blogs. It will display excerpts of the last five comments, with the item dates and the names of the sources/authors.
See screenshot on the left.
Instructions
Here’s how you can make a Recent Comments widget for your private Blogger blog:
1. Login to your Blogger Dashboard
2. go to your blog’s Layout, and click Add a Page Element
3. add a Feed (click “add to blog” under the page element Feed)
4. Configure Feed:
A. Enter your blog’s feed URL in the box. Use the URL below..
Just replace the text indicated in blue with your own blog address.http://YourAwesomeBlog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=rss
or
http://www.YourAwesomeBlog.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=rss
(for self-hosted blogs)B. Click Continue.
C. Change the Title to “Recent Comments” or whatever you prefer to call it. To show the item dates and names of the authors, check the appropriate boxes.
5. SAVE CHANGES. That’s it!
As this widget is a Blogger’s feed widget, titles of posts that were commented on can’t be displayed, unlike the Recent Comments widget. But still, it is a good alternative.
Update: If you get INVALID FEED URL, just try repeating step #4 until the site’s comments feed is finally fetched. Sometimes the Blogger feed widget has a hard time fetching a feed url.
Thanks for the effort MadTom, I really appreciate it, but that URL won’t work with the blogger feed gadget. It returns an “Invalid Feed URL” message.
And yes, I did change totally awesome to my blogs URL.
Oops! Error. Sorry, my mistake. :D
It should have been
http://YourAwesomeBlog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=rssor
http://www.YourAwesomeBlog.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=rss.Post now updated.
great information. Thanks Mad Tomato!
Love it. Thank you Mad Tomato. :-))
Chris & Hilda,
You’re welcome. :)
Hi,
I am Rose’s friend. Rose is from http://kuchingnite.blogspot.com
Ermm..not sure if it is ok with you but can you teach me more on PR ranking? I have been blogging for about 3 months but my blog is still zero PR. Not sure what to do…
Sorry for bothering you and even if you cant help, thanks in advance for your time.
Hi M.Tom, I have a private blogspot.com blog and tried your 2.27.08 updated feed configuration; was very careful, like Dissent, to change blue script to my blog’s name. I still get answer: INVALID FEED URL. Are some private blogs more private than others? Or can you guess what is missing in my case?
P.S. I also tried changing Settings/Site Feed/Allow to “Full”. Still no go with the feed configuration. Any suggestions? Thanks for your work on this!
Hi Lolly,
If you get INVALID FEED URL, just try repeating step #4 until the site’s comments feed is finally fetched. Sometimes the Blogger feed widget has a hard time fetching a feed url.
I got the same INVALID FEED URL message when I configured/entered the feed url but got it right when I entered the feed url again.
How funny. I left the last post to go searching for the recent comments post (not knowing it was here) and low and behold, here it is – smacked me right in the face. Rock on, man.
Thx tons. Sleep well. *huggies with antibacterial wipies* (what. there are sick pepl out there. you can never be sure.)
I tired your solution many times and still get the “Invalid feed URL” error.
Hi Jen Jen,
I’d be glad to be of help.
It seems that Google has been undergoing (or undergone) some major recalibrations or changes with their PageRanking system since the last quarter of 2007. And many websites were affected by this with their PR down by 1 or backed to zero. Mine, too. Some of my websites suffered the same fate. Google’s PageRanking system has become unpredictable — that’s what it seems, at least for now.
Unfortunately, your blog might have been a victim, too. I’ve just checked your blog’s backlinks and I found out it has sufficient incoming links that it would have gotten a PR 3 or 2.
I recommend you continue exchanging links with other bloggers. This will help your blog get some PR on the next update. The last two PR update was done last December 2007 and February 2008 (usually, end of the month). Google could be doing the PR update every 2 months now. If this is going to be the case, the next update would be by the end of April 2008.
Another thing, apparently Google have penalized blogs with PPP posts or ads (Pay Per Post). If you’re doing review posts with PPP, do not put any PPP or sponsored tags in your posts. And do not place any PPP ad, banner or any PPP disclosure on your blog.
I highly recommend that you sign up with http://www.SporsoredReviews.com instead.
Yep, I also get the “Invalid feed URL” error and have tried the URL multiple times over mulitple days….
Hi Mad Tom,
Thanks for the information. It is a relieve to know that it is a glitch in the google Pageranking system and not because I have not been doing the right things. I am suspecting that the reason I am not getting enough assignments for payed review is because of the PR = 0.
So, I will continue with what I am doing now and enjoy myself^_^
Thanks!
hey! very informative post. Anyway, you’ve been tagged.
excellant information. thank you
very cool, I’ll try this.
No way, it doesn’t work! I tryed and retryed…
It really works? U could show us your html so we could copy it with the name of our private blog…
Filo, Ali, Mal, (how’d it ever go for you, Dissent?). I don’t see how the URL can work; see how a test goes when you try either the “…default?alt=rss” code or the plain http://YourAwesomeBlog.blogspot.com URL in something like Google Reader, it flashes back in a bright red block: “No feed available for…….” So it appears there is nothing for Blogger to FETCH in the first place, when the blog is private. How did this widget ever work for anyone with a private blog?? Is there a free-standing HTML hack? Step #4 in the Add Feed Page Element instructions of this post has not worked even after 30, 60 attempts. Help? I want to believe it is possible….
Hi there, just dropping by to say Hello,
I found your blog from the Big Bang Master List.
Have a nice day.
Very usefull tips..Btw..did you know that now we can full customize the blogspot style?..I had proven it..just visit to mine and prove it. Do you agree?
thank you, i’ve been searching for 2 days, at last i hit the jack pot, this is actually appearing on my site – yay!!!
thanks for article
hi, what if my blogger template is a classic one? How should I manage my recent comments?
Hi Kate,
You can try the RECENT COMMENTS WIDGET FOR BLOGGER.
You have an impressive favicon. But I started to chuckle when I thought of how it might be adjusted to an animated favicon for Netscape and Firefox. An exploding tomato, no, not nice. Maybe the sunglasses could flip up and down. Oh well, I can’t think of one. If you need tips on animated favicons, you can find them at http://www.cathetel.com/favicon.htm .
This doesn’t work for private….I’ve tried everything. I ended up having all new comments emailed to a gmail account, then the gmail account forwards them to a public blog that I created just to receive these forwarded emails. Then on my private blog I added a feed from the comment public blog. It isn’t the greatest solution, but better than your idea that doesn’t work.
Hi there,
It worked perfectly for me!!! Thanks a lot!!!
Is there any way to show the names of those who comment? That would make the widget better I feel :)
@Akshatha Kamath
You can try Recent Comments Widget For Blogger.
hi….mdm..
i love your widget so much and i’ve been trying to add the widget…it’s failed..so sad when i saw others using it. any suggestion?
Mulţumesc mult! Am reuşit din prima! Să fii sănătos şi fericit! :)
ı use it. thanks madtomatoe.com…
this doesnt work on my blog. can anyone explain it. how come it works for other blogs and not mine???
thanks
it’s not working!
Thanks so much for this! I had tried a few other ways and it never worked properly,but this was great!
Oh, I wanted to add that I had to repeat step #4 three times before my url was accepted. Perhaps that’s the problem with other posters who are having a problem.
It doesn’t work on private blogs, at least not with my blog. Maybe it worked back when it was made up but I have tried for hours re-entering and repeating the process. It gets the wrong feed and just for to see how it turns out I tried to post that- wouldn’t have worked anyway. Can’t understand why Blogger is so anti “recent comments” function. (Something to do with ads or something I read.) It’s annoying.
Hey mine is a private blog, too. and it doesn`t work on my blog, either..
: (
Pretty cool post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say
that I have really liked reading your blog posts. Anyway
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!
I love your site. :) Love design!!! I just came across your blog and wanted to say that I
Wallpaperdon.Com collection of the Unique desktop wallpapers of urban and mainstream female stars and all resolution wallpaper.Such as normal resolution, HD resolution, Wide resolution, multimonitor and dual monitor wallpapers.Wallpaperdon.com across more than 150 categories and the collection is ever growing. Each category is having a number of sub categories which are accurately defined.
I tried manytimes and still show invalid feed..have you tested on private blog and work?
dear every one, if it’s not working, you should put www. after http:// and it must be work!
Not working at all. Is there any other alternatives?
good alternatives for me, especially when considering that my recent comment doesn’t work for about a months…wonder if it could be more better in appearance…