I WAS REVISITING SOME old blog entries this morning (Thursday, May 11, 2017) and discovered that the links to other articles — some of them mine, many others’ — were “broken.”
When I checked the copy, I discovered — alas, not for the first time — that Google had “modified” the links.
In the sample below, Google added the red in the text strings.
I HAVE BEEN CREATING HTML-coded copy for a long time. I have done it for commercial clients, I did it for my own web site (now inactive), and I have been doing it on this blog since “Day 1” several years ago.
I know how to code a link to another URL*
Google does other “strange” things to a writer’s works,
On one blog site, the indentation code <UL>/</UL>> works fine. On another blog site, Google ignores the code.
How do I know the code is correct when I upload — “publish” — the copy? I check my coding by saving my word processor file as plain text as <something.html> and opening the file in Google’s Chrome browser.
The URL code - <A HTML=”destination URL” TARGET=”new window”> followed by the linked text, e.g., Laugh-In’s Flying Finger of Fate, and ending with </A> This code has been around since before my well-worn copy of Netscape 2 Unleashed was published in 1996.
Perhaps Google believes I should create my files within its “blogspot” using its limited attribute icons.
Most of the time most of my code seems to work OK. Even multi-cell tables display properly — most of the time.
The easy way to create a table is to use a spread sheet application (e.g., LibreOffice Calc), then add extra columns for HTML code; finally, save the now coded spread sheet as a text (*.txt) file and embed the file into the copy.
I have a love/hate relationship with code. Back in the day — before page composition applications such as FrameMaker, PageMaker, and Ventura learned to “read” word processor codes, I coded my word processor files for the destination application.
I didn’t ENJOY the time-consuming task — shades of WordStar and its pre-< A HTML=”http://justsolve.archiveteam.org/wiki/WordStar#Control_characters” TARGET=”WordStar codes”>WordStar codes>/A>WYSIWYG coding (see http://justsolve.archiveteam.org/wiki/WordStar#Control_characters .
I thought the mono screen would bring back memories for my generation.
I wonder — and that’s all I can do — if I was able to FTP** my text to Google if the blog app would let my coding remain the way I intended.
I am not asking Google to let me use some esoteric code, or something that only Firefox can read; all I am asking is that Google stop rewriting my link code. It also would be nice if it was consistent across all blogs — I can indent on one but not the other (ibid.).
Complain to Google? Impossible.
BOTTOM LINE: If the link code FAILS and you read a “Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist.” message, RIGHT CLICK on the link, select INSPECT from the pop-up menu, and find the URL in the window to the right.
* URL: Uniform Resource Locator. In the event that the URL is corrupted by Google, the URL is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL
** FTP: File Transfer Protocol. In the event the URL is corrupted by Google, the URL is http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/ftp.html
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
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