Putting files into Blogger's root directory

This article explains the issues, and options, for putting a file into the "root directory" of your Blogger blog.

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If you are using certain non-Google products to enhance your Blog, they will sometimes tell you to put a file into your root-directory.   They may even tell you to use an FTP  tool to do this.

Sometimes this happens when a product also gives you code to install into your blog , This approach is used when the code is written for websites in general rather than specifically to work with Blogger: putting useful files into a place relative to the root directory makes it a lot easier to move a website from a test-address to the live one, so is a common approach outside of Blogger.

Or maybe the other tool has been designed to verify that you do own the website in this way, rather than asking you to change the website code itself.

How to add a file to your blog's root directory:

The short answer for Blogger users is "sorry, you cannot do this".

 The long answer is still no:  "there is no way to do this, but see the rest of this article for an explanation of why, and some suggested work-arounds."

How to replace a file in Google Drive with a new version

This article is about how to update a file that you have loaded to Google drive. It only applies to files that have not been converted to Google Docs format - for example, PDF, Word, Excel etc files.

New versions vs new files in Google Docs

On a couple of my blogs, I provide files that people can download and use themselves.

When you share a file in this way, there are three main issues to consider:

• Where to put the file
• How people will find it
• What format to use.

Today, Google Drive is the most obvious file hosting option for people using Blogger. (A file host is somewhere that you can put files which Blogger cannot upload - see File Hosting options for Blogger for more details and other alternatives.)