Over on the Graphicus and Elusive Images blogs, people are struggling a little with how to put links into a blog comment, so I thought I’d share my cheat’s way to do it. It’s a cheat for blog owners, so wouldn’t work for those of you who don’t have a blog. I’m also working on the assumption that you know how to create a blog post with a link in it.
So, there you are reading a blog and you want to leave a comment with a link in it – such as a link to your own blog where you have a challenge entry or something.
Well here’s what you do. Open a new window (or tab if you prefer) which is usually done by pressing the CTRL key and the letter N, or by clicking on the File menu then clicking on New Window. (CTRL T for a new tab)
In your new window, bring up your own blog and go to the blog entry that you want to link back to. Copy the address (sometimes called permalink) of that specific blog entry. The address is the bit at the top of the screen that starts with http:// – you need to copy the whole line which you can do by dragging the mouse over it and then press CTRL C. The address is now copied into memory.
Now start a new blog post.
Type in the text you want to put as your comment, eg
Click here to see my challenge entry
Drag your mouse over the text that you want to make a link (eg Click here) and press the link button (I’m being deliberately generic here as Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, etc, all have slightly different buttons). In the window that comes up you have a box to put the link address in (often has http:// already there for you), press CTRL and V and the address you copied earlier will be pasted in.
Press the ok button and your blog entry now has the link in place.
Somewhere in your blog editing mode, you should have an option to view the HTML version of what you are typing – you probably don’t bother much with it unless you know what you’re doing, in which case this whole discussion has probably bored you to tears by now. Well click on that HTML option and you’ll see your text with some code surrounding the link you just set up.
While in that HTML view, highlight the whole comment including all that code stuff (CTRL plus the letter A, or just drag the mouse over it all) and once again, copy that into memory (CTRL C is the shortcut).
Now the clever bit – switch to the original window where you were about to leave a comment. Get to the point where you have your box to put your comment in, press CTRL and V and you will paste in the comment, including the HTML code, that you just copied from your own blog.
Finish the commenting process with any verification and when the comment appears, you have correctly linked to wherever you originally wanted.
You can then go back to your own blog where you composed your comment and simply exit from the window without saving what you’ve typed. If your blog has an auto save setting, you might find it’s saved a draft for you already. You can just delete that in your admin/dashboard.
Sounds a bit complicated at first, but follow the steps and you’ll see it’s pretty easy. With a bit of practice you’ll be whizzing around windows leaving linked comments all over the place!
Go on, try it out, leave me a comment with a link to somewhere interesting!
PS – feel free to link back to this blog post if you are running challenges and want people to include a link in their comments. The permalink for this specific blog entry is http://artylicious.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/links-in-blogs-the-cheat-sheet/ so if you make sure that’s what you link to, your readers will come straight to this entry, not just to the most recent entry on the blog.
WOW! How do I say THANK YOU! I have been wondering how to do that for a while and it WORKS! So easy…thank you thank you
Cheers,
T
Thanks again Glenda. I made it work – I have tried before and failed.
Now I’d like to know how to create word link ie when you click on a word in a blog and it takes you to a site related to the subject of the blog. Any chances of instructions? (If you need something doing – ask a busy person.)
Hi there Glenda I’m just giving those instructions a try out.
Thank you for your help with this. My test link is the following
http://maggiestearn.blogspot.com/2009/03/personnalise-your-hbs.html
Regards Maggie
Thanks for this Glenda, I needed to make a link and remembered this, I need to practice a few times methinks, though!! lol
xxsue
Hi Glenda thank you for sharing that with us all!! very useful and very well explained
hugs lynne x
THANKYOU Glenda,lm new to this blogging lark and had just popped by to yours after unsucessfully trying to leave a URL link on a new blog l was reading elsewhere!your like the light at the end of a tunnel! give me a couple of days!
thanks Glenda – printed out the instructions, then tried it with my challenge entry – it worked! Think I ended up with far too many windows, but it was relatively painless, and far less hassle than looking up the addresses, writing them down , then typing them in and hoping I didn’t make a mistake.
This is a great tip, Glenda, & it works beautifully.
However, there must be people who’d like to post links in blog comments who don’t have their own blog. So I’ve put a post on how to do it, if you don’t have your own blog, on my blog here
I hope it works. It took me ages to work out how to show the code without it turning into the link, or gobbledegook, but I think I’ve managed it now! I hope someone finds it helpful anyway.
Ha! So clever. What a great idea.
It worked wow, thank you so much Glenda, have been wondering how to do this for ages
Oooooh thanks Glenda will try it and see if I can make it work.
Sorry there is no graphicus makes on my blog atm.
Click to see my blog here
Well I hope this has worked but I won’t hold my breath.
Will try again tomorrow when I am more awake
too late at night! Have printed email to digest with cuppa tomorrow. Suffering with cold and asthma this week, brain on go slow, but will persevere thanks Glenda. Judith x
How brilliant- TFS, Glenda. I have the HTML memorised, but I still sometimes mistype and get it wrong. This is so brilliant and obvious- get blogger to write the code then copy and paste it. I am going to put a link to this post on UK Stampers as I’m sure it will be appreciated- plus they can all come and admire your blog, too
Ooops, sorry. I do not know why but my reply does not show what you need to type
(((
I will try to explain Susan how to put something neat
like “here” in your comments
You need to type:
name of the card or any word like “here”.
Here is my example for linking to my blog. You can see my card here.
Hope it helps.
Forget the last bit – it`s so clever it did add it as the pharse – now why wouldn`t it on the other blog I wanted too ???
Many thanks for this lesson
Suzanne
Well great article – funny did you know Glenda I was trying to do a link today and it didn`t work !!!! –
I have just tried this on the challenge board I needed the link and it said target not allowed ?? – so I thought I try the same here but with a different posting – about glimmer mists
Hope it works
Glimmer Mist Concertina treasure Box
Not sure why it`s not coming up as the original comment before the HTML – will keep watching
Suzanne
The HTML code for posting a link is (Note the space between a and href).
I keep that written down so I can refer to it whenever I want to post a link.
Between the two sets of quotation marks, you put the URL of the page you want to link to. The URL is the “address” of the page and begins http:// In Internet Explorer and Firefox it’s usually found near the top and towards the left of the screen.
So the link to my blog will be
I had to split it here otherwise it would have shown as the link & not the HTML code which is what you need to see. The only space should be the one between a and href near the beginning.
If I want the link to look like this – Here’s my blog – I have to insert those words between the two opposing arrows >Here’s my blog<
Then the link will look like this (hopefully!)
Here’s my blog
I hope this helps (and it displays correctly!).
I will need to leave a gap which you must close when you use the code.
put your comment here”
Sorry Glenda – this didn’t turn out as helpful as I had hoped!!
LOL Lynn x
Of course it identified my post above as a HTML code so maybe not the best way to show how to do it!! Apologies.
I honestly find an easier way is to use the HTML code. You type in
your comment here
that’s it! It just leaves you with the visible word that’s in the bit that I have typed “your comment here” that Susan mentioned above. It works for Blogger and WordPress as I use it to link in Challenge entries constantly. Hope this helps! Lol Lynn x
Well let’s see if this one works, I did a blog on my website at the weekend and mentioned crafting and Graphicus, here is the link http://www.vatexchange.co.uk/blog_networking.
I hope it works, if it does, all I did was to copy the URL at the top my blog page and paste it onto this message. Normally that works, I do a lot of links to the Revenue website and other places and the copy and paste method seems to work! It’s a bit quicker than Glenda’s method but then I have no formal IT training and just tried it one day when my techie friend was unavailable and thought it might work and it did. Fingers crossed!
ps its a VAT website, not a crafty one, but that blog was about things I like doing on Sunday afternoons hence the crafty blog entry!
My goodness me – that would flummox me during the day – even more at this time of night! I’ve managed to get my neck round links in blog posts themselves, but never tried in comments.
I’ll try and leave a link now for practice!
http://raphs-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/02/g-is-for-gleeful.html
Well, it’s there, but it don’t look live ‘n’ kickin’! I’ll have another go when I’m awake!
Oh yes! definitely a new day to tackle this one but Thanks for the help Glenda, don’t know how I’d cope without your tips!
Had more snow today, what is this weather like?!
You’d think it was winter or something ;-D
Still it gave me the opportunity to make more cards, yay!
Whilst I’m here, have you noticed how Glimmer mist mica rubs away from shiny card? mine does and I find I’m quite allergic to the mica, so can’t get too close to it. It’s crafting from a distance for me. Should I be sealing it? (perhaps with a light spray of hairspray.)
Tsssssssssss … that’s the sound of my brain being frazzled haha I knew I should have left it until morning before trying to take in this useful info. But since you’ve mentioned it, how do folks manage to put something neat, like … ‘here’ or whatever, and when clicked on, takes one directly to the page or section? In the meantime, will print that instruction up there tomorrow and try get it right next time I put a link in – I hope anyway. Thanks Glenda
Susan