The Real Blogger Status

Today, we see the latest in the never ending saga of blog owners, who previously (maybe / maybe not recently) installed some deviously created software - whether intentionally or not - and who now find their readers unable to view their blogs, and themselves even unable to access the template editor to remove the malicious code. My blogs are redirecting auto to ping . blogspot - ping . com", can anybody tell me how to fix this? The malicious redirecting appears to be cause by a small snippet of JavaScript code - which has been installed, in most cases, as template HTML. Alternatively, some blog owners have added separate HTML / JavaScript gadgets , to host this code. It's easy enough to identify - not so easy to remove, as some owners have found. In many cases, we are seeing reports that even when directly accessing the Layout wizard or Template Editor , the malicious code activates, and redirects the blog owner's browser.

Since Blogger restored Custom Domain Publishing last month, with the new domain ownership verification requirement , there have been a few complaints from customers of some registrars who just can't provide the required DNS address record for ownership verification. My registrar says that I can't have two "CNAME" records in the same subdomain. and My registrar's domain manager wizard displays an error saying "Address too long.", when I try to add the "CNAME". Blog owners contacting the registrar, and asking for help, are generally told That's Blogger's problem! (Update 2012/11): Blogger Engineering has provided a workaround for this problem, with any uncooperative registrar, such as 1And1 - use of a (free) third party DNS host .

Now that the custom domain publishing feature is back online again, there remains one feature of custom domain publishing to be restored to the Blogger dashboard. The very popular Blogger dashboard option to redirect the domain root (aka "naked domain"), to the "www" alias, may not be reliable - or even available . Too many people report I can't redirect the naked domain - I can select the option, but the next time I look, the box will be un checked. and My "www" alias works just fine - but the domain root now returns a "404". Fortunately, there are alternative solutions to provide the naked domain redirect.

Recently, a few Blogger blog owners are looking at their blogs and wondering Where is my Navbar? or Why don't I have a "Sign In" ("Sign Out") link, at the top of the page? When investigating further, they may discover that none of the blogs, that they view, shows the Navbar. And, they did not intentionally make any template changes, to their blog, to hide the navbar . Many of these people, later investigating the problem in Blogger Help, learn that their browser, or another anti malware product, is blocking the navbar as suspicious code. This is another example of improperly configured layered security , planned to protect our computers. If you are observing the lack of the navbar on your computer, and you request help in Blogger Help, please help us to help you better, and provide details. What browser ( name and version - and precision matters) are you using? What add-ons are installed, in the browser (completeness matters)? What anti malware product...

Now that custom domain publishing is once again available , though without the option to buy a domain through Blogger , too many anxious Blogger blog owners are asking the obvious question How do I buy a domain? Not a lot of blog owners want to be told Contact the registrar of your choice. The backup to "Buy a domain" would be to buy a domain directly from a registrar - however, this presents too many challenges to the casual blog owner. (Update 2012/10/09): "Buy a domain for your blog" is once again part of the Publishing wizard. Fortunately, there is a substitute to "Buy a domain", available through Google. Google Apps - which is the support organisation for "Buy a domain" itself - provides the option to buy a domain, along with the Google Apps Dashboard. Google Apps does not use easy to remember URLs, unfortunately.

With the recently restored custom domain publishing feature, and the new domain ownership verification requirement, comes various queries from blog owners unable to verify domain ownership , and to publish their blog to their custom domain. Can I use a "TXT" file, instead of a "CNAME"? My registrar suggests this as an alternative. and Why do I need this? My domain was working, just fine, before I had to re publish the blog! Not all blog owners understand the historical need for verifying domain ownership .

We're seeing a few reports this week, from blog owners who recently deleted their custom domain published blogs - who now lament their decision - and who are unable to un delete the blogs. I can't "undelete" my blog, that used to be published as a custom domain URL. I received the following error code: bX-afpmyd. This problem, like others, appears to have started when custom domain publishing was restored , last week.