Zemanta and your Blog: how to add and remove it

This article is about Zemanta and your blog:  what it is, how to add it, and how to delete it.

Overview

In June 2009, Google announced Zemanta - a tool for "blogging smarter", which had to be downloaded and installed into your browser.   More recently, they announced a closer integration between Google and Zemanata:  there is now a Google-hosted page where you you can choose to install Zemanta with pretty much a single click.

Zemanata is basically an assistant that sits inside Blogger while you're writing, and makes suggestions about related things (pictures, articles etc) that you might like to link to. It's fine in theory (although I'd prefer to control my own research process, and take responsibility myself for meeting copyright conditions), however I found real performance issues when I tried to use it - which is why I went looking for the removal instructions! Some people at Blogger clearly like it though, so it must have some advantages.

It's possible that there will be some more Zemanta integration coming:  eg options inside Blogger for enabling  and disabling it and setting the user-options/preferences.   But in the meantime the basic information about adding it to a blog, and removing it too, is presented here.


How to add Zemanta to your Blog

To turn Zemanta on for your blog:

• Log into Blogger with a Google account that has admin-rights on the blog which you want to use Zemanta with
  
  
• Click here to add the Zemanta gadget

• In the window that opens, choose the Blog from the drop-down list

• Click the orange "Add Zemanta" arrow.

Immediately after clicking the arrow, you are taken to the Post Editor with a new post for the blog that you selected.   There is an extra gadget showing on the right hand side of the editing window.  This gadget will be on the screen every time that you edit a post.

It's not currently available in the Page editor - but if you really want to use it while writing a Page, then just write the contents in a Post, save it as draft (ie don't publish), and use the HTML copy/paste approach described in Moving a Post from one Blog to Another.


How to remove Zemanta from your Blog

• Log into Blogger with a Google account that has admin-rights on the blog which you want to remove Zemanta from
• Open the Post Editor (eg by clicking New Post).

• In the top row of the Zemanta gadget, at the right hand side, there's a small down arrow.  Click the arrow and choose "Remove this gadget".

•  Click Ok.

Some people reported that removing it from Chrome was different:  they said that there you would not see the small drop-down arrow, but instead need to look in the browser's address bar and use the  Zemanta icon on the right hand side, which has an option to isable Zemanta for blogs.   However this clearly isn't the case now, because I just removed it from Chrome to make the pictures above.   It may be that these instructions apply if you have used some other method to install a toolbar:  in this case, you may need to go into the Control Panel and use Add/Remove Programs to remove it.

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Moving a Post from one Blog to Another

Copyright, Blogs and Bloggers

The difference between Pages and Posts

Zemanta - a tool for "blogging smarter" .