Custom Domain Publishing, And Google Apps - July, 2009

This week, we have various problem reports, from folks with blogs published to various mature custom domains - custom domains that have been online for some time, not ones just setup. All of these reports involve blogs using server "72.14.207.121" in their DNS addresses.

Here's an example - "onfiction.ca".

onfiction.ca.        10800    IN    A    72.14.207.121
www.onfiction.ca.    10800    IN    CNAME    onfiction.ca.

eh-in-f121.google.com (72.14.207.121)
72.14.192.0 - 72.14.255.255
Google Inc.

"72.14.207.121" is the third of the original Google Apps servers, replaced by the current 4 servers in November 2008. The other 2 servers in the original set of 3 have been offline for many months; and now this server joins the other 2, and is itself permanently offline.

If your custom domain uses "72.14.207.121" in its DNS addresses, your blog is probably offline too. And, that's why. You originally had 3 DNS servers providing addresses for your domain, then you had but 2, and later, only 1. This week, you have 0.

Update your DNS addresses to a righteous configuration. Or, tell your readers that you're offline.

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Removing Surplus Administrators Is Not A Formality

In the not so distant past, there was always the possibility that some blogger would, in the process of cleaning up the complement of blog administrators in Settings - Permissions, manage to remove herself (himself) from the list. If that blogger was, as in many cases, the only administrator, you'd next see his (her) post

Help!

in Blogger Help Forum.

Sometime later, Blogger fixed that design flaw, and made the Settings - Permissions wizard check the list before removing any selected administrator. Now, any account that is the sole administrator cannot be removed from administrator status. There will always be at least one administrator.

Yet some bloggers still manage to lock themselves out of the house. In the process of changing from one administrator to another (as in transfer of control), there is occasionally the temptation to leave the old administrator in place, as a backup. With the old administrator in place as a backup, occasionally someone may lose track of his senses, and remove her (his) current (newly assigned) account from the list.

If the old administrator is now non functional (as will happen with unused accounts), the blog is now left with merely one non functional administrator account. And, nothing to do but post

Help!

in Blogger Help Forum.

Removing the old address may seem like a formality, but here we see that it's more than that. It's a necessary safety strategy.

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Precedence and Uniformity Justify The Blogger Policy About BlogSpot URL Availability

The goal of a legal system is not to be fair to everybody, it is to be consistently fair or unfair to everybody. Any single law, fair in some instances, will be unfair in other instances. The principle of Precedence is used to make a legal decision consistently fair or unfair over time.

The Blogger Help "law": This blog has been abandoned and I want its address, which controls the reissuing of "abandoned" URLs, is not fair - to those who want a URL, that appears abandoned, issued to them. Yet, it is uniformly unfair to everybody.

The Blogger "law" about the permanence of URLs simply says

Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Therefore, we can't take away somebody's blog address to give to you.

This law says nothing about activity - a blog updated once in 5 years is equally as valid as one updated daily for 5 years.

If a blog was setup 5 years ago, and never updated, it is still valid, in the eyes of the law. This may be unfair to other people, who would like to use that URL, and have a more dynamic blog. But, it is uniformly unfair to everybody.

To do any better, Blogger would require a system of laws, considering factors such as

• Frequency of update.
• How long since last update.
• Quality of updates.
• Relative need of use of URL.
• Relevance of URL to current affairs.
• I'm sure that you can think of more relevant factors.

And, a Blogger judge would have to weigh each factor, collectively and individually, in deciding upon the permanence of any URL, vs its being reissued to a litigant. Ultimately, any URL would be subject to this process. Would you want to have to defend yourself, and your right to retain your URL, against any newcomer who desired your URL? Maybe against two newcomers, who simultaneously desired your URL?

Instead of subjecting themselves, and all bloggers, to a system of undefinable complexity, Blogger simply made one law.

Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Therefore, we can't take away somebody's blog address to give to you.

That's the law, and it's equally fair or unfair to everybody.

This policy, at least, limits the active unfairness to the limited few, who can't think of a URL except the ones that are taken, causing them to proclaim the unfairness loudly. Were Blogger to setup a courts system, and judge the permanence of any URL when one of the latter decided to demand that Blogger take away someone else's blog address to give to them, the unfairness would be much more widely spread.

• Many worthy and anxious bloggers would have to spend more time waiting, as the Blogger judges were busy judging a URL permanence case, for their blogs to be unlocked, custom domain to be reset, or another Blogger wildfire to be diagnosed.
• Many folks with popular URLs would have to, repeatedly, defend their right to continue to publish to their URL.
• Maybe even, sometime later, the person who successfully took away someone else's URL would have to defend his right to continue with that URL.

Blogging would become like a den of thieves, where you have to protect your wallet (and the one that you just stole) yourself, every second, because the police are always busy elsewhere.

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Blogger Blogs Redirecting To "blogoholic.info"

This weekend, we have seen several queries from anxious bloggers who report that their blogs are redirecting to mysterious URLs containing the domain "blogoholic.info".

My custom domain blog is being redirected to Blogholic.info, more specificaly this page http://searchacross.com/?flrdr=yes&nxte=js&dn=blogoholic.info&fp=kXHnDH0xDZIfzljX%2BDZc03diJWrFV5N2iQsAAr%2B8wZ5vQbLTczZHqvpj5dH6ceOni8J3qmgZu6B7HPtmtRSh3liB4Bceya4r6bgt7Hun9mtM%2BFPcjOiVrmJZXmemWKnsednw2Q%3D%3D&prvtof=xjrTXwchHaVL%2BUf32HNg%2BrxOBffsFN1Lkm7UUA%3D%3D&cifr=1

Upon research, we've found that the blogs affected were knowingly using a script provided by Blogoholic, and some portion of the script was apparently discontinued. That causes the URL reference (quoted above) to redirect to the Blogoholic web site itself.

In cases where the Blogoholic code was installed in a HTML / JavaScript gadget, the cure for the problem is to simply delete the gadget with the bad code. One blogger, however, had installed the code directly into his template, and reported more complications.

I can't do his solution (remove the bad code) because you have to go to 'Layout' to get to 'Edit HTML', and the redirect to that other website occurs when I double-click on 'Layout', too.

In the latter case, the "Edit HTML" wizard can be accessed easily, by finding out the blogID, then referencing the "Edit HTML" wizard directly by URL. Once in the "Edit HTML" wizard, it's not terribly difficult to find and remove the offending code.

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Renaming A Followed Blog

I've said before, repeatedly, that you must rename your blog with great care, if it's mature and / or has any reputation. Don't go changing the blog URL without planning the change, if you hope to keep your readers or search engine reputation. That admonition applies, likewise, to a blog with Followers, since people Follow blogs, not people.

This isn't an obvious limitation here. If you look at the "Follow Blog" link in the navbar, you'll see an odd code snippet.

<script type="text/javascript">function follow(blogID) {window.open("/follow-blog.g?blogID=" + blogID, "followblog", "height=600, width=600, toolbar=no, menubar=no, scrollbars=no, resizable=no, location=no, directories=no, status=no" );} </script>

The key there is "blogID", not URL. When you Follow a blog, you Follow the blog, not the URL.

Unfortunately, when you subscribe to a blog feed, as when you become a Follower of a blog, you subscribe to the URL.

If you look at your Reading List, Google Reader Subscription List, or any other newsfeed client, you'll see blog feeds which are based upon the blog URL. With a new blog name comes a new blog URL - and your Followers won't have the updated blog feed in their Reading List, or anywhere else that matters, unless you let them know to change their subscription.

Since the Follower to blog relationship is maintained by blogID, a staged development / test strategy may not be a good idea. Where a separate blog is developed with major changes, then substituted for the current blog, you would end up with a new blog (and a different blogID) in the existing blog URL, and your Followers would be Following a dead blog.

So here we see more reasons why you absolutely must plan any blog URL change with great care.

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