I'm trying to build my own social sharing links on blogger but the problem is that data:post.url doesn't retrieve the URL of the current post, it seems like it doesn't work at all.
And here's what I'm trying to do in more details:
1) I'd like to create my own sharing links so that my website runs faster than using third party plugins/websites — which usually inject tracking .JS and are not SEO optimized.
2) I'm totally aware that for data:post.url to work, I should first add the expression expr followed by href... for ex: expr:href
3) So the final code for a facebook sharing button is like this:
<a expr:href='"http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=" + data:post.url' rel='nofollow' target='_blank' title='Facebook Share'><i class="fa fa-facebook" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>
When I hover my cursor over Facebook sharing button (or click on it), I get http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u= without the current URL which means that data:post.url is not working
Is there a solution or an explanation to this?
Thank you.
Problem solved!
After that I posted this question here, I opened an old blog I made a long time ago for testing purposes and started observing the code until I found a similar one, which means that the above is correct.
I did a test, I pasted this one right before the closing </body> as I used to do and it didn't work. I then tried to paste it in front of the original code and guess what? It worked with no problem!
Well, it's totally normal, thanks to an article I read after that, I found out that there are two types of data: Those that can be accessed anywhere in the theme (Global) and those that can be accessed only under their appropriate widget (Local).
So data:post.url is a local type of data which can be accessed only under Post widget!
If you'd like to see a similar code functioning, search for Blog posts widget and paste it there under it.
To find Blog Posts widget, open the HTML of your theme, then on your keyboard click on CTRL+F and type Blog posts, you will be directed to title='Blog posts', paste your code anywhere between <b:widget title='Blog posts'... and </b:widget>. Save the changes and then visit your website to see how that perfectly works!
For my share buttons, I used another type of data that can be accessed anywhere in the theme: instead of data:post.url, I typed data:blog.url so that I can put the code right before </body>.
If you'd like to see how it works on my blog: Click Here