What's The Canonical URL Of My Blog?

This blog is (for those of you not familiar with it) "The Real Blogger Status". The URL of this blog is currently "http://blogging.nitecruzr.net". As long as I publish the blog properly (as "blogging.nitecruzr.net"), I am allowed to advertise the blog using any combination of lower case and upper case letters, that I like. This blog can be accessed as "blogging.nitecruzr.net", "Blogging.Nitecruzr.Net", or even "BlOgGiNg.nitecruzr.net". We say that Blogger URLs are case insensitive.

Even with my readers allowed to use any combination of lower and uppercase letters, to access this blog, I don't want the search engines to index (and determine page rank) my blog using the exact URLs, as typed by each different reader. Even with this blog being addressed as "blogging.nitecruzr.net", "Blogging.Nitecruzr.Net", or even "BlOgGiNg.nitecruzr.net", the search engines index this blog as "blogging.nitecruzr.net". To help this happen, Blogger provides the "canonical" tag, in the blog header.

BlogSpot Published Blogs Being Accessed Using Country Code TLDs

Recently, some blog owners outside the USA have been asking about mysterious redirects which they (or their readers) are seeing, when accessing their blogs.

Why is "xxx.blogspot.com" now redirecting to "xxx.blogspot.com.au"?

and

Why was my blog address recently changed from ".com" to ".in"?

Troubleshooting Custom Domain Issues

If you are trying to make your custom domain published blog work, see my referential guide Troubleshooting Your Custom Domain Problems.

If you want to know how to setup a custom domain properly, from the beginning - and avoid the need for Troubleshooting - see Setting Up A Custom Domain.

If you're just browsing, then read on - but get a good cup of coffee first. And welcome, to Nitecruzr Dot Net.

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Custom Domain Publishing - Moving Back To BlogSpot, Using The New GUI, Isn't Obvious

The New Blogger GUI (2011) has been available for just over 6 months - and we see new confusion about using it, daily, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?.

How do I cancel my custom domain redirect, in the New GUI?

This is one specific question, that's been asked, recently.

The answer to that specific question is actually right there, in front of us - we just don't see it.

The Involuntary "Adult Content" Warning Is Collaborative

Some blog owners find evidence of opinion from their viewers, but cannot accept the opinions expressed.

Why is there a "Content Warning" on my blog?

They don't understand the collaborative opinion being expressed, when this warning is displayed.

Setup An Audit Trail For Your Team Blog

Ever since Blogger gave us the ability to have team blogs, blog owners have been asking

How do I track what my authors are posting?

as if Blogger blogs have an audit trail option. The unfortunate truth is that Blogger is a website publishing platform - it is (or was, at one time) called

Blogger One Button Publishing

Blogger, quite simply, is not a Content Management System.

However, even if Blogger does not provide a packaged audit trail, which would be a standard feature in any CMS, this does not mean that we cannot set one up, with very little work. If you publish a team blog (or a single owner blog), you already have this option.

Identifying And Removing Deviously Engineered And Marketed Blog Hijacks

We saw the symptoms of the first carefully engineered blog hijacks, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, two years ago. During each succeeding holiday season, each attack has apparently become more and more deviously engineered.

This season - each season starting in Fall of one year and lasting until Spring of the following year - we are seeing a hijack complement which appears to be devious in both marketing and installation technique, and which requires a complex search of the affected blogs. If you are receiving reports from your readers

Your blog starts to load - but is quickly replaced by a page full of advertisements!

you may need to exhaustively examine your blog for any third party code - and as always, the problem code may have been installed at any time in the past. When discovered, the hijacks are not consistently found in recently installed code.

Deletion Is Not An Alternative, If You Cannot Authenticate Yourself Or Recover Access

Some supposed blog owners, unable to login to their Blogger accounts because they forgot the Blogger account name or password (or never bothered to remember either), try to compromise. They figure that, if they can't regain access to the blog, then Blogger will be willing to simply delete the blog - and everybody will be happy. They appear to have overlooked the repeatedly stated policy

Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire.

The fact is, blog deletions are as sensitive to illegal action as account recovery.

Retrieving The PostID, To Recover A Deleted Post

One of the challenges of using the Blogger "Edit Posts" menu (in the Classic Blogger GUI) or the "Posts" menu (in the New Blogger GUI) is the too easy ability to delete posts, if you are not thinking about what you're doing. Fortunately, under the right circumstances, accidental deletion of a single post won't cause a terrible catastrophe - though you (the blog owner) will need to react properly.

Search Engine Results Are Not Permanent

One of the oddest problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken comes from blog owners who only want their blog to be found, in search engine results.

I started a blog 6 months ago. I spent a week getting my blog publicised, it started showing up in search engine results, and all was well. 6 months later, my blog shows up nowhere, it's like it doesn't exist. What happened to my blog??

These blog owners do not realise that a position in any page of the search results is not permanent.

Why Does Blogger Use A Google Account, Which Is Based On Your Email Address, To Identify You?

One of the most constantly seen discussions, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, involves people who have forgotten their Blogger account name or password. Generally, it's a rather simple task to recover access to one's Blogger account, should you forget / lose access to any one Blogger authentication token.

The Blogger Forgot your username or password? wizard will send, upon request, an account recovery email message, to the email address associated with the Blogger account needed, for any active and online blog. Just provide the blog name, read the email, and follow instructions.

Unfortunately, not all Blogger blog owners can always use email based account recovery.

What Is The Mysterious 90 Day Period, After Blog Deletion?

We see periodic evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, about deletion of our blogs.

I deleted my blog last year - can I get it back?

and

I deleted my blog last month - when will I be able to use it with my new Blogger account?

and

I deleted my blog, but it's still visible, on the Internet!

Not everybody is fully able to understand the "90 day" deletion policy.

Link Your Blog, Using A Dynamic Template, To A Non Dynamic Page In Your Blog

The dynamic templates have been available for just over 3 months, and for all their usefulness, there are a number of identified deficiencies. We see, every week, naive questions about one well known deficiency.

How do I add a bloglist (Followers gadget, labels index, popular posts, what have you...) gadget to my blog, with it using a dynamic template?

Adding gadgets to a dynamic template display just won't be a simple project. Not to be facetious, but there is really no space on the screen, for an accessory bar (also known as a sidebar). The dynamic views dynamically fill all horizontal space.

Two Level Comments, And One Known Post Template Update

From feedback being received about the recent release of two level commenting, and the many different problems attributed to the release, it appears that there is one commonly identified update to the post template. It's possible that adding this one change, to some blogs with tweaked post templates, may eliminate the need for a post template refresh.

This is a simple change - but it must be made in 4 different places. I highly recommend that you backup the template, before and after making this change. Allow 30 minutes, to concentrate properly on the task.