Controlling Blog Comments

You have several options for controlling the comments made to your blog.

Start by looking under the "Settings" tab for "Comments."

The first choice you have in controlling blog comments is to answer the question "Who Can Comment?" Your choices are 

• Anyone (This includes Anonymous Users)
• Users with Google Accounts
• Only members of the blog

If you want to restrict comments in your blog to classmates, you could set the blog permissions and limit readers to only other classmates. The next step would be to restrict comments on the blog to only members of the blog, or only people that you have allowed to read your blog.

Comment moderation
Another way to restrict comments is to have the Comment moderation option ticked as "Always." This ensures that you read any comment before it gets posted.

For more on Comment moderation, see the Blogger Help topic on "How do I moderate comments in my blog?"

Word Verification
A third way of restricting comments (and reducing spam) is to tick, "Yes" for "Show word verification for comments?"

Requiring people leaving comments to complete a word verification step will help reduce spam.

For more about Word Verification, see the Blogger Help topic on "What is the word verification option?"

Setting Blog Permissions - Selecting Readers

Blogger allows you to choose who has access to your blog.

To choose who has access to your blog, go under the "Settings" Tab and select "Permissions."

Look for Blog Readers

Answer the question, "Who can view this blog?" Your choices are:

• Anybody
• Only people I choose
• Only blog authors.

By default your blog is open to all readers.

You can restrict your blog to only readers you choose. If you chose to restrict your blog, the readers will need to log into Blogger before being able to read your blog.

For more on restricting your blog, see the Blogger Help topic "How do I control who can view my blog?"

Adding Gadgets to Blogger

Gadgets are an easy way to customize the layout of your blog. Any of the Basic Blogger Gadgets, Featured Gadgets, Popular Gadgets and many others (More Gadgets) can be added to your blog.

How to Add a Gadget to Blogger

1. From the Page Elements sub-tab, click Edit to edit existing gadgets, or Add a Gadget to add new ones.
2. To add a new gadget after you've clicked Add a Gadget, simply click the plus sign next to your desired gadget. You can choose from gadgets by category, or search for a specific gadget in the top right of the pop-up window. 

For more on adding gadgets to blogger, see the Blogger Help topic on "Getting Started with Blogger" under Customize Your Layout.

Gadgets can be added in several places to your blog from the Layout Screen. Look for the areas that say "Add a Gadget." In the basic blog layout, you can add Gadgets to

• The top of the blog
• The bottom of the blog
• The top of the side bar
• The bottom of the side bar

If you adjust your blog layout template, just look for the areas that say "Add a Gadget" to see where you can add a gadget to the new layout.


See the blog post on "Basic Blogger Gadgets" for a list of some of the Gadgets you can add to your Blogger Blog. You can also look at the earlier post on "Fun Wellness Widgets."

More on Blogger Reading Lists

You can follow your classmates' blogs using Blogger Reading List.

Visit their blog and sign up using Google FriendConnect (How to Use Google FriendConnect and Blogger Reading List) or go to your Blogger Dashboard and add the URL from their blogs by clicking on the "Add" button.

By selecting from "All blog updates" or a specific blog, you can read what has been recently posted in that blog.

Find out more about "What is Following?" by reading the answer on Blogger Help.