The Real Blogger Status

As most of us know, Blogger HTTPS support does not include custom domain publishing . The advantages offered by HTTPS access are widely advertised - and have led to envy between blog owners who publish to custom domains, and native BlogSpot blog owners proudly advertising their new HTTPS connectivity. Long ago, we saw possibly malicious code which helps our readers avoid using country code aliases , to read our blogs from an aliased country. Recently, there was dodgy code which blocked HTTPS mode , to read a customised blog. Now, we have custom code to force HTTPS access, for BlogSpot published blogs.

There are millions of Blogger blog owners - and each owner has their own idea, how their blog should look. Not every blog owner is willing to settle for using a Blogger supplied template. Some blog owners design their own templates - and others choose templates provided by non Blogger developers. Some blog owners - even those with no technical background - choose third party supplied templates, and demand instructions in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . Not every blog owner can be supported, according to their personal level of need.

We see occasional frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , involving broken or unreliable custom domains. I setup the Custom Domain properly, following the Google directions . For some of my readers, my custom domain is not opening. I can see it is going in an infinite loop in the browser - and after a long time, it's throwing errors. My domain is setup, properly. Why do I have to deal with this? And we will investigate - and in many cases, we find the domain is setup properly .

One of the most useful features of Blogger is the ability to add many different accessories, to a blog. There are accessories, for every blog - and for every owner preference. The "Add a Gadget" wizard, in the Blogger dashboard, is the best procedure for adding accessories , to customise a blog reliably. Using "Add a Gadget" is a simple process. It will be most useful, in the long term, if used cautiously, however.

With Blogger now providing (optional) HTTPS, on all blogs, we're seeing a few anxious reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I'm getting an error, on one of my plugins. This content is not yet available over encrypted connections. What can I do? The answer won't be encouraging. Don't enable "HTTPS Redirect", on your blog.

Many popular accessories start with raw HTML / JavaScript code, from different third party services. One of the advantages of publishing a Blogger blog is the abundance of available accessories . With Blogger being in the top 3 of Internet publishing platforms, every third party service wants customers who publish using Blogger. There are plenty of abusive or malicious accessories , that should not be installed, even when offered - and there are ways to best install the accessories, that can be safely installed.

Some third party templates come with extra features - that not everybody appreciates. How do I get rid of the "lorem ipsum" nonsense, that's part of my signature? This blog owner just got a shiny "free" third party template, for her blog. Some custom template providers publish free templates that contain odd, irrelevant details. When I click on the "Read more" link on my blog, it opens up the post - but has added in a odd kind of signature. It displays my name but is using an image that isn't me, and the "lorem ipsum" text. I have no idea where to edit this?

Last week, Blogger turned off their workaround from June 2015 , that was allowing Windows Live Writer, and other third party editors and auxiliary Blogger services, to access Blogger. All week, we saw various reports of problems, reminiscent of the problems that we saw in June 2015, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Yesterday, Blogger Engineering provided a status announcement . We would like to let all users of Windows Live Writer know that Microsoft has made the application open source and it’s now a different application called Open Live Writer ( you will need to download it here ). A few months ago, the Windows Live Writer and Blogger integration stopped working for a few days due to improvements in Google’s authentication systems. We agreed to keep the old authentication systems for a few more months but starting December 11th, they will be retired and Windows Live Writer will stop working. The Open Live Writer team is now working on making OLW use ClientLogin a...

If you have a malicious or misbehaving gadget in your blog, one of the easiest blog cleanups is removal of a malicious HTML gadget . Unfortunately, this does not work, for every gadget on every blog. Depending upon how a gadget is installed, malicious code may, or may not, be visible - and if visible, may, or may not, be easily removable.

A few folks have asked me about my social media toolbar, that I added a couple months ago. It took very little work, to develop and install this gadget. I just went to the AddThis website , registered, selected the options, and got the code. Then, I added one more HTML gadget, to my blogs.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

It appears that Scribfire is one more third party product, that needs upgrading to use OAuth 2.0 authentication . We have a report in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I use Scribefire to post to my blogs. It works fine with WordPress, but I have not been able to set it up with my Blogger Blog. And later, I have already enabled the "Less secure apps" option. Still no go. This blog owner is patiently trying to diagnose a problem, over which neither he nor we have any control.

In 2010, we learned about the mysterious Post Template - and the problems that can be caused, when it is corrupt or out of date. We developed magical ways of correcting the problems . Revert the widget templates. Reset the post template. Add or tweak specific template code. It's now 2015, and Blogger Engineering has rewritten the Template Editor , and given us new possibilities for correcting problems with the post template - and other gadgets.

Ever since Blogger Engineering completed the emergency upgrade to support Windows Live Writer , we've seen demands from people who use similar offline editors, and other third party products. The "ClientLogin" protocol (aka OpenID 2.0) was replaced by OAuth 2.0 (aka OpenID Connect) , last month. As the problem with Live Writer was diagnosed, in a joint effort by Blogger and Microsoft, we saw evidence that Live Writer was not the only offline editor , that needed attention. The problem is not with Microsoft is with ALL external soft. Do not work with Zoundry Raven, BlogJet, Post2Blog, PowerBlog Personal Client, W.Bloggar, Windows Live Writer, etc. Blogger is about personal choice, however - and some Blogger blog owners use offline editors that are not produced by Microsoft.

This week, we have a multitude of complaints about Windows LiveWriter, and similar third party editors, unable to login to Blogger. Blog owners who use LiveWriter, and similar third party products, to compose and publish posts, have reported authentication problems. I have used Windows Live Writer, to publish to my blog, for years. I now cannot publish, and the message I get is that the ID and password are not correct.

One interesting question, which we see occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , would be about making the blog easier to read - if the blog were static. How do I number the pages, in the blog? This blog owner does not quite understand the concept of dynamic content.

We see various questions about getting advice and non standard accessories / code, from blogs and websites advertised outside Blogger / Google control - generally in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why can't I see my blog? Every time I click on "View blog", I get a face full of ads! and Where can I get accessories, gadgets, and templates for my blog?? and How do I know what accessories, gadgets, and templates are safe, for my blog? and Why did Blogger lock my blog, as a malware host? All of these folks are discussing the same issue - blog content security. Some are asking properly , before they cause their problems - but others are not .

Recently, we've had several reports from naive blog owners, with blogs locked for malware or phishing, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Some owners have found accessories, such as email address collection or even a convenient login gadget, offered by helpful third parties. Installing the new gadgets, they have later received the well known (automated detection) notice, from Blogger Support.

From time to time, we see evidence of anxiety, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why do my posts have hashtag suffixes? and from some, more anxiety How do I know what hashtags to add, when referencing my posts? These blog owners don't understand the purposes of the suffixes.

This week, we're seeing a new stream of problem reports, from blog owners whose blogs are, once again, mysteriously redirecting their readers to unknown destinations . When I open my blog, it automatically directs to another search engine display. This appears to be yet one more gadget, willingly installed by many Blogger blog owners, which is now redirecting uninterested viewers. The target of the redirection, this week, is a parked domain website (ie, "search engine display") - for a product which was apparently installed, willingly , by the blog owners.

Blogger blog owners may have productive action, when their Blogger accounts are successfully hacked through an attack on their GMail accounts. GMail account owners can get detailed instructions on recovering a successfully hacked account, and on preventing future hacking attacks from being successful. Some of the instructions are specific to GMail use - but overall, Blogger account owners will benefit from their use.

We're seeing a steady stream of reports, from blog owners in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from Blogger blog owners, reporting the latest hijacking of their blogs. My blog is being redirected to a search engine display. or My blog has a porn popup attached! These are all blog owners who have installed the latest hack, willingly distributed by Blogger / Google. This appears to be yet one more gadget, intentionally installed by many Blogger blog owners, which is now redirecting unwilling viewers. The redirection target is a website which provides commercial advertisements for various Internet services, which creates a variety of symptoms , as reported in the forums.

Not all Blogger blog owners appreciate the features provided, in Blogger native commenting. Some suggest that third party commenting systems, such as Disqus, provide a superior service. It's possible that, to some, third party commenting systems are more feature rich - but only Blogger native commenting provides one essential feature, in comment moderation.

This week, we're seeing a new stream of problem reports, from blog owners whose blogs are, once again, mysteriously redirecting their readers to unknown destinations . When I open my blog, it automatically directs to another website, which is SCM Music Player. This appears to be yet one more gadget, willingly installed by many Blogger blog owners, which is now redirecting uninterested viewers. The target of the redirection, in this case, is a website which is simply a commercial advertisement - for the product which was apparently installed, willingly , by the blog owners.

We've been seeing a few problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from blog owners who are not aware of the risks from installing third party code, on their blog. Some blog owners are not even aware that the code being installed is not supplied by Blogger - and is not subject to the same coding standards as code supplied by Blogger. Third party accessories and code - from simple JavaScript that installs in the blog template, to attractive XML gadgets installed using the "Add a Gadget" wizard - has always been a challenge, to Blogger blogs. Knowing when you are installing code provided by someone other than Blogger / Google, and taking appropriate precautions, is your responsibility. What you install can affect your reader activity - and even your reader's computers.

Earlier this week, we noted an increased level of activity in reports about blogs locked as suspected spam hosts, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Upon review of the increased volume of spam referrals, with the majority of the cases found to be spurious, Blogger Support provided advice, about a new reason for deleted blogs . Yesterday, our malware detection system began receiving reports of malicious content on some blogs. While the blog content on many of these blog may be malware-free, 3rd party widgets on these blogs may contain malware. When a blog is locked for hosting malicious third party gadgets, the blog will be present in the dashboard "Deleted blogs" list - and should be unlocked, on the spot, using the "Restore" option in the list.

This week, we're seeing a small flood of problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken about problems with the Template Designer. Every time I change something, I have to refresh the page in order for it to show up. It won't "Save" when I try to save the layout changes. It just says "Saving..." at the top of the page and fades away, but doesn't actually save any changes. Many problems involve changes made to the template, using the Designer, which aren't being saved - or are broken when saved. Most of the people reporting these problems have made changes to the template, previously - some are so experienced at making changes, they can't believe that their latest changes could ever have problems. Interestingly, this history of changes is not a coincidence - and it's likely that some of the changes helps to cause these problems.

The recently observed problems with some third party gadgets , previously added by many blog owners to their blogs, leaves these blogs lacking various accessories. One of the gadgets identified is the "Recent Comments" / "Recent Posts" gadget pair. For many blog owners, this gadget is not impossible to replace. Blogger provides us with a native accessory, called a "Blog Feed" gadget, which will provide acceptable "Recent Comments" and "Recent Posts" functionality, for many blog owners. Look at the sidebar of this blog, for "The Real Blogger Status - Comments", and "The Real Blogger Status - Posts". Those are "Recent Comments" and "Recent Posts" gadgets, which are based on the Blogger supplied "Feed" gadget - which is not a third party accessory, and is not subject to future third party peccadilloes.

This week, we've seen several reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from Blogger blog owners, reporting the latest hijacking of their blogs. My blog is being redirected to a spam site - was it hijacked? As is all too frequently the case, the redirection appears to come from third party code or gadgets, willingly installed by the blog owner. Examination of the website in question appears to indicate a long expired domain. This domain name expired on Nov 7 2012 11:32:24:000AM It's possible that, right now, this is not a maliciously planned hijack - though any expired domain can be re purchased for a devious or malicious purpose .

We're seeing a noticeable amount of noise today, from blog owners reporting that their blogs appear to be susceptible to antivirus detection - and others reporting that their readers are complaining of mysterious misdirection, when viewing their blogs. My blog is struggling to fully load, and hangs saying "Waiting for platotv . com" and "Waiting for directagain . net" and I'm getting warnings from Avast when I try to view my blog! Upon examination of the blogs affected, we see a large number which contain the "I'm An Instagram Addict!", or similar, gadget. Most blog owners who admit to having an Instagram gadget have reported relief, having removed the gadget in question. We're still looking, to see where these dodgy gadgets are coming from. (Update 2012/10/08): We are now seeing suggestions from various people, representing themselves as employees of "BadgePLZ", suggesting that the problems with their code has been fixed. I...

In the latest round of blog hijacks, from misbehaving or miswritten accessory gadgets, we have reports this month in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken about blogs redirecting to "kunoichi . info". My Blogger site, xxxxxxx . blogspot . com, with over 8 years of blog posts archived, has been redirected without my permission, to "kunoichi . info". I see my blog for a few seconds before it goes to the new site.

The New Blogger Interface has been available outside Draft Blogger for almost a year - and continues to provide traffic to Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , with new problems, every month. One subject of problems appears to involve the Template "Edit HTML" wizard, and various bX errors issued when attempting to save changes made to the HTML code. The bX errors are very mysterious - and to those of us outside Blogger Engineering - almost monolithic. Recently, we've noted one possible affinity in the errors, involving blogs using templates developed outside Blogger / Google . I got a custom template for my blog, from TheCutestBlogonTheBlock. I followed all the directions to add the template to my blog, and copied everything correctly - but I keep getting a message that says Sorry, we are unable to complete your request advising me that I need to contact Blogger Support.

We are seeing a steadily increasing flood of reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from people who use Norton Safe Web, and who are now seeing some distressing advice. When I try to view any BlogSpot blog, I see This web page is a known fraudulent web page. It is recommended that you do NOT visit this page. For your protection, this web page has been blocked. Visit Symantec to learn more about phishing and internet security. What is Google doing about this false alert? Since Norton (aka Symantec) is not a part of Google, there is not a lot that Blogger or Google can do about this problem.

An occasional sign of confusion, seen occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , starts with a simple statement. There's a frog on my blog! Those of us who know about third party templates know what's up, here. Given the right browser, you can find the problem, in a couple minutes.

We see daily evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about photo hosting. How much space do I get for photo storage? and What happened to the pictures on my blog? and Why does my blog look weird now? Some of these questions come from photos (pictures) hosted by Google, others from photos (pictures) hosted outside Google - and the uncertainty about hosting leads to confusion about the problems.

As we add social networking accessories and gadgets to our blogs, we need to appreciate the nature of the connections, which we are adding. Some Blogger blog owners fail to understand the relationships between the different Internet services, such as Blogger / Google, FaceBook, and Twitter. Why do I have to solve a CAPTCHA when I post on my Wall? and Why does my "Share to FaceBook" wizard not let me include a snippet or thumbnail from my blog? These are typical questions, seen recently in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . The people, asking these questions, probably do not understand that services like FaceBook are not part of Blogger or of Google.

Some blog owners misunderstand the apocryphal promise from Blogger to us Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. From the tone of some questions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , some blog owners seem to think that Blogger promises us unending service, without requiring any effort on our part. We need to think of Blogger blogging as a partnership, between Blogger and us. Blogger is a business - and some principles of business apply to how they treat us.

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.

Late last year, Blogger blog owners seeking to publicise their blog posts using their FaceBook Wall, were denied that possibility, silently . That problem was recently resolved, though still in silence. Recently, Blogger blog owners started reporting a new symptom of problems with FaceBook. I try to share my blog address on FaceBook, and I receive this message The content you're trying to share includes a link that's been blocked for being spammy or unsafe: Now what do I do? This symptom is most likely a problem which the individual blog owners will need to discuss, with FaceBook Support .

In spite of my recently published caution against gratuitous additions of third party blog accessories, we're seeing a small yet steady stream of reports about mysterious blog hijackings, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . When I view my blog, it shows up for a few seconds - and then forwards to this weird website, that I've never heard of. Not everybody is aware of the dangers of adding non Google developed code, to their blogs.

The Winter Holiday season is approaching, and this week we're seeing queries by some blog owners, getting ready. Why do my readers see a search display - instead of my blog? and How do I make it snow on my blog? and a few owners, and visitors Why does my browser freeze or lag when viewing this blog? Many blog owners, who publish craft, family, and personal themed blogs, just have to make their blogs reflect their holiday wishes for their readers. Only later, they may re think their decision.

Blogger blog owners have been suffering from the onslaught of referer spam, in their Stats logs, for over 6 months now . Some blog owners, who use third party visitor logs / meters like FlagCounter, Sitemeter, and StatCounter, have started to wonder. How do SiteMeter and StatCounter manage to filter out the referer spam, yet Google cannot do anything about it? This would be quite a magic trick indeed - if this was happening.

Slightly less than 1 week ago , we started seeing reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , suggesting yet another hijack of Blogger blog readers. When trying to view my blog I am redirected to http://rpc.blogrolling.com. Has my blog been hacked? The titles (questions) are phrased so differently, and posted in such numbers, in the forums (and as comments to my blog), that suggests that nobody publishing these questions sees how many other people are reporting the same problem. And even with many of us knowing about the problem, and having developed a simple diagnostic procedure, the reports keep coming. Why do we see so many reports, about one simple problem?

This week, we're seeing a new small flood of complaints about redirecting blogs, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . When I try to view my blog, I am being redirected to http://rpc.blogrolling.com! Many blog owners have forgotten the past, and the accessories they installed on their blogs, long ago. Sometimes - as now - the past can return, to haunt you.

Recently, we're seeing a number of problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about various gadgets that display content from the blog and comments feeds. My Recent Posts (Recent Comments, Popular Posts) gadgets aren't displaying! From the reports, this appears to be happening with gadgets installed using " Add a Gadget ", from the "Featured" list.

As publishers and readers of Blogger blogs, our browsers are probably the most used feature on our computers. We use our browsers both to access Blogger, to publish our blogs - and to access BlogSpot (or our non BlogSpot domains), to read our blogs. Every one of us is different, and every one of us has different ideas what we want to see in our blogs. Just as no two blogs are alike, no two browsers, as used by two different bloggers, are alike. Every browser, as it gains a user population, will have some users who want additional features and functions. Some users will contribute, and write software to provide those additional features and functions - aka "add-ons". Each different blogger is going to have a different idea about what combination of add-ons are necessary, for their personal enjoyment of their own browser.

And just as we saw earlier this year, we have more reports of blog hijacks. My blog is getting redirected to some other website. And, as noted last time , we see a possible "falling snow" decoration as the first suspect in the never ending drama of our blogs, under attack. <script src='http://skigeninfotech.com/snowstorm.js' type='text/javascript'></script> This problem, fortunately, was not too deceptive. My blog is getting redirected to some other website (http://fileinxt.com/?dn= skigeninfotech.com &fp=pqVXxjF5eZbZPUdjA2CrQZZYLeqa1yd9fqFglE50v8v4EC1bOn33UcPSed%2FwDeiJ9Reh2eiwg8SutCcQJKwtDg%3D%3D&prvtof=pvwzxikjk5Y8qIVO5T2y%2FXDEmNhqCs0%2B8Ro0gzCGabvCE6HiL7ziqtwSEZqp3rEKm6Jh9%2FJ1f%2F2wvhisupe6NXdlr3gpOBXWMdVDWrkFKlk%3D&poru=M%2F0o7laCl49QHRW5Qtdx3sFgJ9q8HQrB4cyfP%2Fqb9agYFzJufaOkqO8J%2BtnyVG5HntoKr9AJzMJSk1shzG2Y7oQgw7gogohmR%2Fc7iiJpC6Y%3D&cifr=1&flrdr=yes&nxte=js) A simple string search on "skigeninfotech" yi...

One of the most useful skills to have, when diagnosing a problem with your blog, is looking at the page source code. Every browser has this alternative, called "Page Source" or "Source", and generally accessed from the "View" menu. I'll instruct you to View - Page Source for such basic tasks as Determine the blog feed URL . Identify the blog owner . Verify the template name and vendor . Extract HTML code, to use when embedding a gadget in a page or post . Sometimes, even this basic task is impossible.

In a new volume of the series " Tales Of The Hijacked Blogger Blogs ", today we have multiple reports of blogs redirecting to "hijriah.jentayu.com/hijriah.php". This tale is somewhat less exciting than the previous episodes in this long saga, however. The problem code, which is causing the hijacks, typically appears in various HTML gadgets, and is not difficult to find. The code appears to consist of simple HTML gadgets, intentionally installed by the blog owners. You'll probably not find this hack by editing the template HTML code - it will be an HTML gadget , located in your sidebar or maybe the blog footer / attribution section. If you use a text only proxy , like the Rex Swain HTTP Viewer or the Web-Sniffer View HTTP , you can retrieve the blog in safety. Then, do a simple text search on "hijriah.jentayu.com". You'll find something like </div><div class='widget HTML' id='HTML7'> <h2 class='title...

Recently, we have seen a few reports from bloggers who have a blog with a "Cutest Blog" template, who are mystified by the PhotoBucket icon This image or video has been moved or deleted and discussions such as Have a photobucket icon appearing in the middle of my blog that says a picture has been deleted. are common in BHF: Something Is Broken .

Blogger is continually adding new features to the Blogger platform. Some features, which are specific to individual posts, don't always work as well as they should - or in some cases, don't work at all. Other Blogger supplied features may stop working, after the blog is changed to use a third party template , or after the template code is tweaked using " Edit HTML " - maybe when installing a third party commenting system . In many cases, failure of a post related feature to work consistently, or at all, is caused by the lack of supporting code in the post template. Generally, when someone reports such a problem in BHF: Something Is Broken , the advice to refresh the gadgets, or the post template, will be given. Some forum helpers may grow to see the advice, now given as From Template - "Edit HTML", select "Revert widget templates to default", and select "Blog1". as a magic wand, to be waved over any blog with a problem. There is n...

There's a popular adage In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. I would amend this to read In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and browser differences. I've written about this before , yet still we see the occasional confusion and naivete, reported in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why does my blog look so good under Firefox, yet so scrambled under Internet Explorer? I can name three possible problems, which may be present in the template in any blog. Custom code. Old code. Third party code. Custom code . If you installed any template tweaks , did you test your changes in multiple browsers ? Old code . Blogger releases various changes , in the templates which they provide. If you got your template last year, there may be a fix that could help you, this year. Third party code . I've published various warnings about third party code. This article continues that series. In case you s...

Recently, we've seen a few reports of apparently missing content in some blog posts. At the top of all of my blog posts it says "undefined undefined". Frequently this will be reported after having changed templates, possibly for a third party template . The portion of the blog where the problem is reported will be typically part of the post or comments area. The most likely candidate for the problem, then, is the post template. A good thing to check first would be post template corruption, so refresh or reset the post template . If that's not helpful, then look for a problem with the date setting . >> Top

As yet another chapter in the tale of the hijacked Blogger blogs , today we have reports of blogs redirecting to "freegadget2015.blogspot.com" and "freegadget-xde". For those newly experiencing this persistent assault upon our blogs, see the FAQ My Blog Has Been Hijacked - What Do I Do? for diagnosis and removal techniques. Note that you'll probably need to use the "Edit HTML" wizard, and delete the offending code , for expedient removal. >> Top

Blogger Support took control of the blog hijacking problem yesterday . Today, I did a search in "Add a Gadget", and found encouraging results. I believe that they are now trying to disable the installed gadgets - so if you see a blank space on your blog, that's possibly why. (Update 2010/11/25): And to celebrate Thanksgiving Day 2010, we see a report of yet another hijack attempt . >> Top

In a disturbing repeat of problems experienced earlier this month , we have reports of blogs redirecting again, this time to "freegadget2014.blogspot.com". For those of you experiencing this assault upon your blog, see the FAQ My Blog Has Been Hijacked - What Do I Do? for current diagnosis and removal techniques. Note that the gadgets noted this week, as earlier, appear to resist removal, so you'll probably need to use "Edit HTML", and delete the offending code . (Update 2010/03/23): Blogger Support has taken ownership of the problem . Our team is working to sort out these affected gadgets from our side, and hope to have this fix out shortly. >> Top

As the ongoing investigations into the nature of the latest malware based blog hijacks continues, some victims are claiming that the malware that they installed, unwittingly, was possibly part of a Blogger provided gadget , installed using the Blogger "Add a Gadget" wizard in " Page Elements ". If you find this as you clean your blog , will you please report your finding here. Please state, in a comment below, as completely as possible The title of the offending gadget. The author of the offending gadget - this detail is very useful, as many popular gadgets are provided by multiple authors! Any specific selections or settings that you made, when installing the gadget. What you find, and what you provide here, will be passed on to Blogger Support, at all possible speed, for their verification. All responsible bloggers thank you, for your honest contributions. >> Top

Occasionally, in the recently discovered social engineering blog attacks that involve shiny blog accessories, we've seen reports of aggressively protected malware, that's being installed on some blogs. When a misbehaving HTML gadget is the source of the problem, it's sometimes possible to click on the "Quick Edit" icon for the gadget, and click "Remove". Alternatively, go to " Page Elements ", and click on the "Edit" link for the gadget in question. This does not always work so simply, however.

This week, we are seeing a few reports from anxious bloggers that their blogs are redirecting to mysterious URLs containing the domain "deplayer.net". This is somewhat reminiscent of the "searchinvented.com / smashingfeeds.com" hijacks seen during January 2010, and to the "sendptp.com" hijacks seen during February 2010.

This Sunday, many bloggers will celebrate another important holiday in the year - the holiday of celebrated relationships, aka Valentine's Day. Some bloggers will decorate their blogs, using a Valentine's Day standard - falling hearts. Incautiously chosen relationships cause pain and suffering - some even known as "the gift that keeps on giving", aka an STD. Some incautiously chosen falling hearts decorations have recently been found to cause another "gift that keeps on giving". At least one falling hearts variant, provided free by a hacker, has been reported as causing a blog hijack, noted by several bloggers in Blogger Help Forum as a "sendptp.com" hijack . Like STDs, the blog hijacks being discovered recently don't always show up immediately. Normally, when people write in to the forum reporting I´m being hacked! Every time I type the address to my blog, I´m getting redirected! we advise them to remove any recently installed third party...

This week, we are seeing a few reports from anxious bloggers that their blogs are redirecting to mysterious URLs containing the domain "sendptp.com". This is somewhat reminiscent of the "searchinvented.com / smashingfeeds.com" hijacks of January 2010 . I can log in to my blog, but then in a few seconds the page goes blank, and in the URL it says..sendptp.com/ramk2.html...at the bottom it says redirecting and flashing back and forth... Immediate reports suggest a "falling snow" decoration, apparently acquired before Christmas 2009, as one known culprit. Other reports mention a possible variant, "falling hearts" (Valentines Day?). http://everything-u-need-is-here.blogspot.com/2008/12/snow-effect-widget-for-blogger.html http://h1.ripway.com/anand2360375/snow.js In one case, the "searchinvented.com" / "smashingfeeds.com" redirect is being found on a blog that has a "falling snow" gadget. I wouldn't bet that this is...

This week, we are seeing a few reports from anxious bloggers that their blogs are redirecting to mysterious URLs containing the domain "smashingfeeds.com" . This is somewhat reminiscent of the "blogoholic.info" hijacks of June 2009 . My blog site has been hijacked & redirects to: http://searchinvented.com/?flrdr=yes&nxte=js&dn=smashingfeeds.com&fp=57S Immediate reports from some bloggers suggest that removal of a possibly recently installed "Tweet This" gadget may be the most likely solution, when faced with this problem. If you can access the "Page Elements" wizard , and if you have previously installed a "Tweet This" gadget on your blog, that's where you should start. Other blogs have the code installed directly into the template, and will have to use the "Edit HTML" wizard . As with the "blogoholic.info" redirect, this exploit has been seen to cause corruption of the blog or gadget template, ...

As I've written before, labels (which are, as noted, best used with blogs using a layouts template), in my opinion, are one of the best ways to organise your blog , and make it user friendly. But labels are text based. Many of you have blogs, and readers, that like pictures. For those of you that build blogs with pictures, there's LinkWithin. LinkWithin uses thumbnail copies of the pictures in your posts to make a "related posts" index at the end of each post. This is a pictorial equivalent of the labels list, that you see after each post. Note that LinkWithin installs automatically for you, with you logged in to Blogger. This is a process which, as I have written separately, should be considered with care . >> Top

Have any of you seen this sort of offer, when looking at third party accessories, and contemplating installation? You don't do a thing! For Blogger blogs, we offer "EZ Install"! Just give us the blog URL, and an account name and password, sit back, and let us do the work! and maybe later, you're posting in BHF: Something Is Broken Somebody is posting spam posts on my blog! or Where did these ads come from? I didn't put them there! or worse yet Why is my blog deleted? I don't post malicious script! All of these concerns have been noted, in real problem reports, and were caused by real mistakes.

Recently, we've seen that Google, StopBadware.Org, and various other services, are stepping up the fight against malware distributed by Blogger blogs. Not only blogs actively distributing malware, and blogs linking directly to web sites that distribute malware, are affected. In one identified case, a blog that linked to a "clean" web site, that linked to another web site where malware was distributed , was locked. In other cases, blogs that use dodgy accessories are being targeted. It seems now that many of the reported URLs have a 'BlogLinker.com' code snippet in them- *please* stay away from this widget in the future; it is completely nefarious.

Occasionally, we see queries from blog owners, considering moving their custom domain published blogs to new hosts. I bought my domain through Blogger, and now I need to move it to my own hosting. Can someone please advise me. I know that I need to change the name servers somewhere. Here we have a somewhat vague question, that can have several results. You need to be aware of three essential services , that are involved in any blog or website. Be aware of the differences between Domain Registration, DNS Hosting, and Content Hosting, and decide what, specifically, you need to do. Keep the custom domain published Blogger blog, and add a new blog or website to the domain . Keep the custom domain published blog, but host the domain with a different registrar. Move DNS and registration only. Move the blog from Blogger to another host. Move content, DNS, and registration. Move the domain, to host DNS using a third party service . Consider these alternatives carefully, they may affect ...

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, howeve...

We're seeing a few reports this weekend about blogs freezing when loading, with the mysterious address "http://0.0.0.0/" (and the precise text in this address varies from report to report), showing in the browser status bar. Some bloggers have discovered that this is caused by the presence of the Widgeo counter being installed. Remove Widgeo, and the problem goes away. Find another visitor counter , that's more reliable. If you're seeing this mysterious symptom in your blog, and Widgeo is not involved, diagnose your recent changes . Then, let us know what you diagnosed as the cause, in your case. Practice peer support . >> Top

This month, we have another round of bloggers complaining of problems being experienced while uploading templates provided by Pyzam and other third party sources. I'm tired of wasting my time trying to upload a new template that just won't upload. I am new to Blogger and just when I knew where beautiful templates are, that's when Blogger upload starts going crazy. It used to be very easy, no hassle before. I'm starting to lose my interest in Blogger. I'm beginning to resent the fact that is difficult to upload third party templates now. and I have been trying to change my template, but I am receiving error messages every time I try. It states: We were unable to save your template. Please correct the error below, and submit your template again. Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly. XML error message: The markup in the document following the root element must be well-formed. Here we have an...

During several past weeks, we've seen quite a few reports of bloggers, who are using visitor meters from EasyHitCounters, stating that their counters are not working . I'd advise anybody who isn't getting results, or any support, from EasyHitCounters , to try using a mature and responsive product like SiteMeter or StatCounter. In order to accurately meter visitor activity on your blog, you need a service that can accurately and reliably provide statistics, over long periods of time. Moving to another service won't help you to develop your blog, as well as you can with statistics gathered over long periods of time. One general problem with third party products is unreliability, and it appears that EasyHitCounters falls into that category right now. >> Top

Recently, we've seen a few reports of blogs which contain malware, or links to malware. Unlike the Adult Friend Finder splogs , and similar blogs, the blogs recently identified are generally privately published, and contain genuinely intended material. The owners have added code, provided by third parties, that contain the malicious code or links to other web sites which contain the malicious code.

A Google Custom Domain is an elegant and simple way to have a Blogger blog published to a non BlogSpot URL - if you get the DNS addresses setup properly. Setting up the addresses was very simple, using the " Buy A Domain " wizard. Some bloggers spurn the wizard, and roll their own - and that is where many custom domain problems start .

Recently, we are getting reports from bloggers, anxious to publish their blogs on paper, that Blurb and BookSmart are no longer able to retrieve blog content . TypePad, WordPress.com, and Blogger are all bugged out on BookSmart. For some reason, these platforms made changes in their APIs, in essence how their code talks to our code, and BookSmart can’t recognize those changes. and These problems have been escalated to the dev teams at TypePad, WordPress.com, and Blogger. It sounds like BookSmart is a typical third party product , with the vendor unwilling to make changes at their end, to support changes made by Blogger. Now they want Blogger (TypePad, WordPress) to support their code, so they can continue to extract data ("slurp"?) using their own code, unchanged. If BookSmart, a third party product, uses Blogger APIs to retrieve content, and Blogger changes their APIs, Blurb then should update their code which uses the APIs. Almost surely, Blogger's support for Blurb i...

Third party accessories are a big part of many blogs. As Blogger proceeds to command a larger and larger share of the free online web site market, they encourage (directly or indirectly) the development of third party templates, and accessories. This lets us make our blogs more personal to our desires, and shinier to our egos. Layouts Blogger is more mature, and commands an ever growing share of Blogger. And so, the the selection of Layouts compatible templates and accessories, again provided by third parties, will grow. And as the selection grows, so does the possible risk, from installing what's available on our blogs. As I wrote long ago, what better way to hack somebody's blog (or computer) than by conning the victim into installing the hack , on his own?

One of the neatest features of Layouts Blogger is the ability to backup and restore your template , using a wizard - without having to copy and paste code. You use a single link to download the code, and a two step procedure to choose then upload a template backup. If you're getting a template from an external source, you can upload what you get using the restore procedure, too. If you get a template as text, you'll install using the "Edit Template" window. If the blog uses a Classic template, the "Edit Template" window will, of course, be the only choice.

This week, a few bloggers are complaining about their blogs having lost formatting . For some reason my blog is only showing up as text and pictures I posted- the whole template is gone and it's just black text on a white background. This blog, like the others, is using a GoogleLite template . When you use a standard Blogger template, you include it statically in your blog, and you use the Template wizards to select your template. Many people, who use GoogleLite templates, include theirs dynamically. <style type="text/css"> @import url('http://googlelite.free.fr/stevenson.css'); This is a kewl idea. Why have a plain old static template, which never changes? Why not use something fresh, that changes periodically, without me having to do anything? Well, this week is one example why this isn't a good idea. Apparently, GoogleLite has stopped serving some templates from their servers. Bloggers who have their blogs using their templates, dynamically, are ...

Since migrating to New Blogger, various Bloggers have been lamenting the lack of 3 column templates . Many efforts - such as long threads in some forums - have sprung up, discussing the oversight. Eventually, hacked versions, of the standard Blogger templates, were made available by various template providers. The hacked templates, nice though they are, have several shortcomings. You can't load them using the "Pick New Template" wizard in Templates. When you do load them, you may lose your custom widgets. Blogger doesn't support them. Since Blogger doesn't support the third party products, when Blogger makes changes, it's doubtful that they test any changes against blogs that use them. And the Bloggers using them will occasionally experience problems. In one case, the problem was related to the server hosting the blog components; the template in question was apparently a victim of its popularity, which caused the creators bandwidth limits to be exceeded. T...