Putting files into Blogger's root directory

<b>This article explains the issues, and options, for putting a file into the "root directory" of your Blogger blog.</b> <br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br /><div style="text-align: right;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR9N1_OhYkuLaW3tQpNmrN2qD5mWb7aq1RsWYGIULozZ0ktTr4wb5_80ju1j7clmIxVVoJPK85dTTn_mJ7XPQOqZAA3Y8hexez8O4nw02_r0UkPHTxgh3XrlfjkpFi-li44AB07EaXEbAG/s1600/root-directory-files-and-blogger-adding-files-to-root.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1241" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR9N1_OhYkuLaW3tQpNmrN2qD5mWb7aq1RsWYGIULozZ0ktTr4wb5_80ju1j7clmIxVVoJPK85dTTn_mJ7XPQOqZAA3Y8hexez8O4nw02_r0UkPHTxgh3XrlfjkpFi-li44AB07EaXEbAG/s320/root-directory-files-and-blogger-adding-files-to-root.png" width="320" /></a></div>If you are using certain non-Google products to enhance your Blog, they will sometimes tell you to <b>put a file into your root-directory</b>.   They may even tell you to use an FTP  tool to do this. <br /><br />Sometimes this happens when a product also gives you code to <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html">install into your blog</a> , This approach is used when the code is written for websites in general rather than specifically to work with Blogger: putting useful files into a place relative to the root directory makes it a lot easier to move a website from a test-address to the live one, so is a common approach outside of Blogger. <br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div>Or maybe the other tool has been designed to verify that you do own the website in this way, rather than asking you to change the website code itself. <br /><br /><br /><h2>How to add a file to your blog's root directory</h2>The short answer for Blogger users is <i>"sorry, you cannot do this"</i>.<br /><br />The long answer is still no:  <i>"there is no way to do this, but see the rest of this article for an explanation of why, and some suggested work-arounds."</i><br /><br /><br /><h2>Why not? Every other website tool lets me do this.</h2><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0SwergkGgt44yPB0890QJ7NZsYidIN4G8qAzddKcEVcbZ0vv14BjsesxgS8Z5sPT8VqVYwGSCDSc9UK9z2YWcUk6e0PBqZiy846woaQxkMCrwmw_AbrkdZC6R2oxQvlOmYRAnXm-_07EC/s463/post-blogger-content-management-tool-from-Google.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="By screenshot [GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="Home - cpg1.5.x demo 1287551599033" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0SwergkGgt44yPB0890QJ7NZsYidIN4G8qAzddKcEVcbZ0vv14BjsesxgS8Z5sPT8VqVYwGSCDSc9UK9z2YWcUk6e0PBqZiy846woaQxkMCrwmw_AbrkdZC6R2oxQvlOmYRAnXm-_07EC/s463/post-blogger-content-management-tool-from-Google.png" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Posts:  Blogger's tool for managing <br />the content on our blogs</td></tr></tbody></table>If you're clever, and have lots of time,<b> you can make a website just using a text-editor (eg notpad), a graphics program, and ftp software</b> that lets you put the files into the right places on computer that's connected to the internet.<br /><br />Tools like Dreamweaver take away a lot of the time-consuming work, and some of the need for cleverness.  But you still need to know a lot about the internet to do things in a way that makes a good website.<br /><br /><b>Content management systems</b> make this easier still: they let a technically-minded person do the nuts-and-bolts work to make the website, and give authors / artists / editors / content-creators simpler-to-use tools that let them put "stuff" (ie content) into the website, without needing to worry about the details of how it works.<br /><br />Blogger is a (very simple) website content-management system, it creates our web-pages for us based on data that we put into certain places. <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/12/setting-up-new-administrator-for-your.html">Administrators</a> can set up and change the theme, <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/01/letting-other-people-write-in-your-blog.html">other people</a>, eg <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/01/letting-other-people-write-in-your-blog.html">authors</a> simply make posts.<br /><br />When we use Blogger, the main way that we change <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-data-in-blogger-blogs-is-organised.html">the data in our web-pages</a> is using the Blogger software.  <br /><br />Some items inside posts or gadgets can be changed using other software, eg Google Docs, provided they were were set up using that other software in the first place. But - key point - <b>there is nothing in the way that Blogger is put together that means we need to access the base directory</b>. So they don't let us do so.    And I doubt that this this will change anytime soon. <br /><br /><br /><h2>What to do instead</h2>The options for getting around this restriction depend on how the file that you need to put into your root directory is intended to be used. <br /><br /><h3>Installing code</h3>If you have code to install into your blog, and a file to go with it, then you just need to <br /><ol><li><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/file-sharing-hosts.html">Host the file</a> somewhere else (maybe in your <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-picasa-very-basic-introduction.html">Picasa-web-album</a> for the blog, if it's a picture)</li><li>Change the code to point to the full path of where you have hosted the file, instead of the relative path used in the code</li></ol>For example, here is the code for a button linking to my blog, with the picture in the root directory: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.Blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="/<b>/Logo.png</b>" width="100" /></a></div></blockquote>To change this to use a specific location, I just add a file-path and the file-name of the picture wherever it is hosted. <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.Blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="<b>https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtxmUeKSgafZPVoJubIebIbHG-SEx2jaM5QPzOEI7k9y7xFjIWyozJEWikdLRJ-hCtg6IHV0K5hklJePUWIrd0RyBKm-VRpYUayb_Kr_H2qLxSbZw1nqULxWev6EFdTYaw-OPL8SLcsgQO/s320/Logo.png</b>" width="100" /></a></div></blockquote><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>TIP: blogger's editor sometimes gets links mixed up, so it's important to start the filepath with "http://"<br /><h3><br /><br />Verifying ownership</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeRpZW3zzsFHe_G-cWb47Fuk0DXxWd4eoPo4gvBA2K0Vy_t1zjP8N3o1Z7FYYJcDRrrqWwwD4KqHut15L-0OKFEW8pdw5py9xEGgjUvHt8bH4KNRmIfo2vnUxhkKtNc3IHymFFYYe-RInv/s1600/application-keys.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeRpZW3zzsFHe_G-cWb47Fuk0DXxWd4eoPo4gvBA2K0Vy_t1zjP8N3o1Z7FYYJcDRrrqWwwD4KqHut15L-0OKFEW8pdw5py9xEGgjUvHt8bH4KNRmIfo2vnUxhkKtNc3IHymFFYYe-RInv/s1600/application-keys.png" /></a></div>If someone wants to use a file's position to check that you control a website, then they will have code on their own website that looks for the file in your root directory.<br /><br />You cannot change this code. And you cannot place the fie. <br /><br />So you need to <b><i>ask them for an alternative way to verify</i></b>, that is suitable for people without root directory access.<br /><br /> If they don't have any alternatives, try lobbying for this on their product support forum:  by not having alterantives, they are ensuring that <b>Blogger users, among others, cannot use their service</b>.<br /><br />If the official answer is still "no", then you could also ask in other on-line forums if anyone has found any other work-arounds.<br /><b><br /></b><br /><b><br /></b><br /><h2>An afterthought: what isn't recommended</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikHmRhesXWBm5jdkrGkas2PKV73JuksNUEliN2e_TARhAxq8zcJh2cT0pB7V8NBLdOUhHfnk67qbBH6aR0_mD_830xQZmTGvTyuQcbtLJ9LG_HH6TlAhVeBPoJ8-5x0bxMH77iMK80ixWg/s1600/Transclusion-icon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikHmRhesXWBm5jdkrGkas2PKV73JuksNUEliN2e_TARhAxq8zcJh2cT0pB7V8NBLdOUhHfnk67qbBH6aR0_mD_830xQZmTGvTyuQcbtLJ9LG_HH6TlAhVeBPoJ8-5x0bxMH77iMK80ixWg/s1600/Transclusion-icon.png" /></a></div>I've recently seen someone suggest in a help forum that people with custom domains can put files into their blog's root directory by FTP'ing the files into place.<br /><br /> This may be true, <b>if the service that you are purchasing from your domain registrar includes file-hosting</b>. But file hosting(*) <br /><ol><li>Isn't necessary for a custom domain used in Blogger (since Google hosts our files for us), and</li><li>Isn't available as part of the services when you buy a custom-domain through Blogger.</li></ol><br />So it's not a general solution for most Blogger users, though it may work for some.<br /><br />Initially I was a little sceptical of the idea: Blogger doesn't expect to see any files in our root directory, so I was concerned that it might do strange things if it found them there. But on reflection, I think there is probably a low risk of this happening, since the file-location is outside Blogger's control.<br /><br />(*) To avoid any confusion, file hosting and DNS hosting are not the same thing. If you buy a custom domain for your blog from a registrar without going through Google/Blogger, then you do need to pay for <b>DNS hosting</b>, but do not need to buy <b>file-hosting</b>. <br /><br /><hr /><br /><h2>Related Articles</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/file-sharing-hosts.html">File hosts - places to store files used in your blog</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-picasa-very-basic-introduction.html">Picasa-web-albums: a quick introduction</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-data-in-blogger-blogs-is-organised.html">How Blogger data is organised</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/12/setting-up-new-administrator-for-your.html">Setting up a new administrator for your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/01/letting-other-people-write-in-your-blog.html">Options for letting other people write in your blog</a>

Putting files into Blogger's root directory

This article explains the issues, and options, for putting a file into the "root directory" of your Blogger blog. If you are usin...

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