Sharing a Link

Today I'm going to talk about the difference between a link to a blog and a permanent link to an exact post on a blog. For some of you this will be old hat (ooh, I love that expression, don't you? I'll have to google it and find where it came from.) But, I digress. If you're reading along and all this is old hat to you, don't continue.

But if you are like me - just a self-taught blogger/internet fool who picks things up as you go along, you might learn something.

Say you find an interesting post on the internet that you'd like to either
a) share with your friends on facebook/twitter/wherever or
b) save for yourself to read later by bookmarking it or saving under favorites on your computer.
For instance, the post previous to this one, which is an interview with Bobbie Pyron and a giveaway of her fabulous book A DOG'S WAY HOME.

If you just share the address for this blog: http://www.lindabenson.blogspot.com then when someone clicks on it, they get my most recent post, which at the moment is this one. Then they'll have to search around to find the interview with Bobbie.

So the best thing to do (to share a link) is to click on the title at the top of the post (in the case of the interview it is Meet Bobbie Pyron) and the actual address of the link comes up which is: http://lindabenson.blogspot.com/2011/02/meet-bobbie-pyron.html )

Notice the difference in the two links? Go ahead, click on them both, and see what you come up with.

Now what if you've clicked through to a cool link to a blog, you like what you see and want to come back and read this blog some more? Well, my previous method, before I became a little more savvy about this (and trust me, I only know a smidgen about all this internet nonsense) was to save the link to the exact post, under favorites or bookmarks, on my computer. But what if I wanted to go to (for instance) Linda Benson's blog again, how would I get to her more recent posts? Well, two ways.

1) If you are getting the hang of the way labels for posts work, you can go to the URL (which is the address up top) and backspace/delete all the stuff on the right until it just reads http://www.lindabenson.blogspot.com (or whatever blog you're trying to read.)Then hit ENTER, and it should take you to the home page for the blog, with all their recent posts. Save that under favorites. If this sounds too confusing, try this.

2) Most blogs have a sidebar, which lists their posts by month. If you click on the current month, you will get all the most recent posts. Some blogs even have tabs on them, and if you look you might find one that says Home. That's what you want. Then if you save that link, you'll always get the most recent posts.

Of course, when you get good at this, you can subscribe to a blog, which means you can get all the recent posts in your email, or you can set up a Google reader to read all your favorite blogs. And then there's shortening a link, to make it fit on Twitter. But that's moving ahead.

So for now, remember this: To share a post or a link, click on the title of that post to get the exact address for the link.

To find the actual address for the blog itself, look for the simplified name (usually ending in .com) without all that other stuff on the right hand side of the URL.

Anyone else have comments or knowledge to share about Sharing Links or Saving Blogs? What has worked for you?