Google Sidewiki Tips and Tricks
Google Sidewiki is a browser sidebar that lets you contribute and read information alongside any web page. Here is a complete guide on Google sidewiki tips and tricks that would help you make the most out of Google sidewiki.
Use Google Sidewiki without Google Toolbar – Bookmarklet
You can read the Google sidewiki entries from Chrome, Safari that do not support the Google toolbar. Just drag and drop the following bookmarklet in your Bookmarks toolbar :
When you are reading a webpage and wish to read the Sidewiki entries just click this Bookmarklet. It will open a new pop up window containing the Sidewiki comments. You can even write a new Sidewiki entry about that webpage from the pop up window.
Write a Sidewiki Comment of your Blog that will always appear on top
If you have a blog or website then here is a little trick that will allow your sidewiki comment to be in top of all other entries in every page of your blog.
Just add your site in Google Webmaster Tools and verify yourself as the owner of your blog. Browse to the homepage of your site and sign in to Google sidewiki using the same Google account used for webmaster tools. After that write your Sidewiki comment. This comment will appear on top of all other sidewiki comments on your homepage.
Note : This trick is also true for all the other pages of your blog.
Google sidewiki Firefox add on
If you don’t want to use Google toolbar and love using Firefox, go for The Google sidewiki Firefox add-on. It works in the same way as a sidebar and you need to press the sidewiki button in the status bar. The downside is that the sidewiki comments aren’t auto refreshing.
How to track Google sidewiki Traffic to your Blog
You can actually track how many people are visiting your site by clicking the Google sidewiki links using Google analytics. Following are the steps involved to track Google sidewiki traffic to your blog :
1. Log in to Google analytics account and select a date range for which you want to measure the traffic details.
2. Switch to the “Visitors” tab and select “Referring Sites”.
3. Select “Google.com” from the list of referring sites.
4. Choose “Referral path” from the dropdown and you can see how many visitors clicked the links in Google sidewiki to arrive in your Blog.
Post Google sidewiki Comments Directly in your Blogger blog
You can post your sidewiki entries as individual blog posts in Blogger. While on a webpage use the Google sidewiki to insert comments and these comments can be published to your Blogger blog, with a reference to the original article. Following are the steps involved to post to your blogger blog from Google sidewiki :
1. When you are on a webpage open the Sidewiki sidebar. You should be signed in to your Blogger account while posting the Sidewiki comment.
2. Click on “Write an entry” and write your comment. Give your comment a suitable title as this title would be used as post title in case you want it to publish to any of your Blogger blogs.
3. Select your Blogger blog and Hit the publish button. That’s it. Your sidewiki Comment will be posted as a new blog post in the blogger blog and will contain a back link to the original story.
Here is a short 1 minute screencast of the above process :
How To Send Google SideWiki Comments To Your WordPress Blog
If you have a blog in WordPress , you can import all your sidewiki comments into it, much in the same way as mentioned above. The resulting comments can be published as a new blog post using the wp-o-matic WordPress plugin. Gary Conn, has written a wonderful guide on how to import Sidewiki comments in WordPress.
Watch the following screencast for step by step instructions :
How to View All your Google Sidewiki Comments
To view all of your Google Sidewiki comments, browse to your Google profile page. Switch to the Sidewiki tab and you will have all your Sidewiki comments listed in order of date of posting.
Well, that’s all about the Google sidewiki Tips and tricks. If you know a specific trick which i left out, please let us know through the comments.
When Third Voice appeared on the scene, it wasn’t long before various scripts were released to lock out Third Voice comments. My guess is we’ll see something along the same lines with Sidewiki, assuming someone doesn’t sue Google first. Google has become increasingly fat and arrogant and we’re starting to see the fallout of that.
Thanks Darin for your comment. But the feature is useful and you can’t ignore that anyway
Amit: Is there a way to get Google Analytics for the people viewing my sidewiki entries? Thanks –Ben
@Benjamin: No..You cannot track who is viewing your sidewiki entries. And not many people use sidewiki anyway. Thanks for the comment.