Bug in Blogger creates 404 pages

There is a potential bug related to republishing in Blogger when you delete a post that also deletes the associated archive URL.

Let’s try to reproduce the bug here:

1. Create a simple test blog on Blogger and switch on monthly archiving. Make sure you template code displays the Monthly archives.

2. Write three sample posts - one with a date of Jan 2005 while other two with a date of Feb 2005.

3. Now open Blogger dashboard and delete your Jan 2005 post. Here Blogger does two things - It deletes the jan 2005 post and also permanently deletes the Jan 2005 archive page since there are no posts for the month of Jan 2005.

But Blogger just forgot one very important step. Even though the permanent link to Jan 2005 archive no longer exists, Blogger didn’t delete all references to the URL across the blog.

If you open your main blogger page or any of your feb 2005 posts, you will find that the Monthly archives still carry a link to the Jan 2005 archive URL though it is no longer present.

This “forgetful blogger” bug creates “404 links” in your blog which your web audience or even Google spiders really don”t appreciate.

So before the busy Blogger team fixes this issue, there is an easy work-around. Always republish your entire blog if you are deleting a post that would delete the associated archive URL (monthly or weekly).