PureBlogging

Google Toolbar has a cool feature that allows you make and install custom toolbar buttons. I created one for PureBlogging.com and actually get a few visitors from Google’s Toolbar Button Gallery every day. So not only can your regular visitors add your button to their toolbar, you may get a few new visitors too.

To make your button, all you have to do is create a simple XML file that contains some basic information about your site. After making your new button, you can use this simple form to add it to the button gallery. Google offers a few samples here and their official instructions can be found here.

First, let’s take a look at a basic template:

What you need to do is copy the above XML code into your favorite text editor and replace the values inside the elements. The elements are:

1. title - Enter the name of your site or button between the tags.
2. description - Enter the description of your site or button between the <description></description> and tags.
3. site - Enter the URL of your site between the <site></site> and tags.
4. update - Enter the location of the XML file on your site between the <update></update> and tags.
5. feed - Enter the URL to your rss feed between the <feed refresh-interval="1800" refresh-onclick="true"></feed> and tags.
6. icon - Enter the base 64 version of your favicon between the <icon mode="base64" type="image/x-icon"></icon> and tags.

If you don’t have a favicon, you can easily create one using your logo or any other picture with this tool. After you have created your favicon you will need to convert it to base 64 by using this tool. You then place that code between the <icon></icon> and tags in your toolbar button XML code.

You should now save your XML code with a .xml extension.

And that’s it! You should now have a functioning Google toolbar button. Here is what my XML code looks like:

After you have created your XML file you need to upload it to your server. I recommend saving it to your domain root so the button address would be something like:

http://www.domain.com/your_button_name.xml

Once the button is in place, try it out. You can use something like this for a link (be sure to enter the URL to your XML file):

<a href="http://toolbar.google.com/buttons/add?url=URL%20TO%20XML%20FILE">My Toolbar Button</a>

That would result in a link like this: PureBlogging.com Toolbar Button

Click on your new link and make sure the Google Toolbar is actually adding your button. If all goes well, go ahead and submit your button to Google with this form.