Blogger Inserting Strange Javascript into Metatags

Screwing up titles and Description

[ianama]

Here is the exact code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.blogger.com/static/v1/common/js/327583163-csitaillib.js"></script>
<script>if (typeof(window.attachCsiOnload) != 'undefined' && window.attachCsiOnload != null) { window.attachCsiOnload('ext_blogspot'); }</script>

Others have also reported this problem, and if you search for "http://www.blogger.com/static/v1/common/js/327583163-csitaillib.js" you'll find lots of blogs have it.

[bill]

I only see about 200+ results in Google for sites with this in their title. That is odd.

Have you had any luck asking in the Blogger Help Forum [google.com]?

[ianama]

This only apparently happened today, and so only 200+ is not surprising b/c:

(1) they would have to have published since the problem started (about 24 hours); and
(2) the newly published blog-posts would have to be indexed.

So, if you look for this on Google in the days ahead, I'm confident you'll find more blogs with this issue.

It also may be isolated to those that use Blogger with FTP to another site, like us or only those who have customized their template using Blogger template tags, also like us.

[ianama]

Update: We have removed the <Blogger> and </Blogger> tags, and that seems to have made the javascript disappear, but now some template tags that require the <Blogger> tags don't work properly.

And so now, while an improvement, we have elements like this in our Metas:
<BlogDateHeader><$BlogDateHeaderDate$></BlogDateHeader> at <$BlogItemDateTime$>

[bill]

I see that it's up to almost 1000 sites in the SERPs now. You were right. This does appear to be a growing issue. What is the recommended fix? Removing those <blogger> tags didn't sound optimal.

[ergophobe]

According to a post from someone IDed as a member of the blogger team [google.com] they should have this fixed "shortly".

Meanwhile, people have figured out a number of workarounds [google.com] - notably it appears that you can just put the <Blogger> tags outside the title element and supposedly it's mostly okay.

[edited by: engine at 5:27 pm (utc) on July 2, 2009]

[ianama]

Putting the <blogger> Tags outside does work. But need to also add code to ignore Javascipt errors as the strange Javascript still being inserted.

Also, we dynamically insert the output from the blogger tags into our pre-existing metas, and so we cannot place the <blogger> tags outside, and just have to wait till they fix it.

[ergophobe]

Bummer

Kind of strange that this go through.

[ianama]

Day #7 of this problem and counting. Sure is uncharacteristic of them to let such an obvious issue go so long.

And the code brings up now 7580 results in the SERPs, which I'm sure is only a partial subset of affected sites.

[ergophobe]

I guess "shortly" is a relative term. For the affected client, it means "today" and for the salaried engineer, it means "after I'm done with my vacation and fireworks and coffee break."

[ianama]

Here is the lastest direct from the Horse's Mouth.

[knownissues.blogspot.com...]

If your blog is affected, go to "Template", then click on "Edit HTML". Remove anything between <title> and </title> in your template, and replace it with this:

<$BlogPageTitle$>

We are looking at the feasability of adjusting our code to be sensitive to cases where the template has <blogger> tags inserted in the <title>, but for now please use the above work-around to eliminate the javascript code from your blog's page titles.

Now looks less likely that a fix is coming.

Also, the issue is not only in Title tags, but in all metadata.

I guess this is what you get when you try to give the public unique and relevant titles and descriptions.

[ianama]

Now Google SERPs show almost 25000 pages affected by this and still no fix.

For all practical purposes this renders Blogger Template tags almost completely useless.

Further, this is not an issue of <Blogger> tags appearing within <title> tags, as the funky javascript is inserted whereever the closing </Blogger> tag lies.