The Real Blogger Status

Most of us who publish a Blogger blog just setup a blog, and start . Some people already have a web site, and simply want to add a Blogger blog to the web site. Other people have two (or more) blogs, and want to display all blogs as one.

This is the question asked constantly. How do I get more traffic to my blog? Everybody would like lots of traffic. Duh. This is the part with lots of hard work. Put accurate, attractive, complete, relevant, and timely content into your blog. You start with the content . Get your friends to link to your blog, where your blog is relevant. Participate in forums, where your blog is relevant, and include the URL. Comment on other blogs, in relevant comments, and include the URL. When you have done all of the above, your blog will have some weight. Submit your blog to the search engines, for indexing. http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/ 2006/07/publicising-your-blog.html Remember though, none of this happens overnight. Search engines can take months to index your blog fully. And even when indexed, don't expect for a search, to some key element in your blog, to give you an entry on the first page of the search hits. http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/ 2006/08/patience.h...

for Blog*Spot being blocked by the Chinese Government . I'm afraid this problem comes from the Chinese government - it blocks all Blog*Spot pages from being shown within the country. If you'd like to purchase a hosting service from another company, though, you'll be able to continue publishing through Blogger and you'll be able to see your blog. Sorry about this, but unfortunately, there's not much we can do about it. From God's mouth, to your ears, folks. End of story. >> Top

In the process of setting up a new post in The Real Blogger Status, I encountered the archives language problem yet again. And I watched it come and go. Maybe you can too, though you will have to click on the pictures below, unless you have very good eyesight. Look for the red ellipses in the lower right corner of each picture. http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/ 2007/06/you-have-to-speak-language.html http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/ search/label/General%20Advice Now you see it ... ... Now you don't . >> Forum thread links: bX-*00038 >> Copy this tag: bX-*00038 >> Top

The Earth is a wonderful place, full of a melange of cultures and geographical regions. There's something here for everybody. But when you travel to a distant land, do you expect the residents there to acknowledge your presence, and to change their customs and language to suit your needs? If you were at home, would you expect to constantly adapt your customs and language, to accommodate every visitor from a distant land?

That's the old well known monolithic error , seen when you try to publish your blog to a Google Custom Domain , and possibly later too, when you try to setup the "www" alias of the blog to point to the root . This error is a symptom of several problems , it is not a problem in itself. You now have to research why the wizard isn't seeing the DNS addresses , that you hopefully just setup. In some cases, your DNS addresses may be incorrectly defined. Verify your DNS addresses , first. Then, proceed with the procedures below . In other cases, the problem is a bug in the Blogger database, or maybe in the "ghs.google.com" database itself. Or possibly, in the custom domain concept in general . A Problem With An Identified Service If the problem is with an identified Google Apps service, with the service explicitly showing up in an HTTP trace , simply disabling the service in question may provide a solution. The Google Sites service is a commonly see...

If you have a web site, or another interest that's discussed in a web forum, occasionally you may need help. And no matter what your problem is, if you look long enough, chances are that you'll find a forum where your problem will, or has been, discussed. That's the nature of the web. And if you find help in a web forum, it's possible that the forum posts may refer to a web site like PChuck's Network , or maybe The Real Blogger Status , for detailed instruction. And maybe you'll be so happy to have your problem solved that you'll post a link, to the web site where you found help, in your web site. Everybody benefits, in the long term, when you add a link to a web site where you found help. The other web site benefits from the inlink. You benefit, because you have a record of where you found help, should you need it again. And your readers may benefit, should they see the link, when they need help too. In the short term, though, the situation is ...

Periodically, Bloggers will see problems with blogs that have been published by FTP to external web servers . Sometimes when you look in the browser status area, you can see a hint of trouble. Maybe the contents of a given link will be odd. This is what I expect to see. Mouse over the link "... lower and upper case characters", and you see it's associated with http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/ 2007/06/your-blog-and-blogger-and-ftp_20.html . This is good. Looking at Castro Valley Boulevardier , a blog operated by a regional neighbour of mine, we see something that we don't like. Mouse over the link "Midnight Blues" under "Previous Posts", and we see "... midnight blues" in the status area. But we would really prefer to see "... midnight blues.html". And if we click on the link, we get a page full of HTML. What the heck? Well, this is what can happen (it's a brief example anyway) when FTP settings get corrupted. Correcti...

Blogger One Button Publishing is simple - you've been through the drill, I'd bet. Just choose a unique blog name , give it a title, pick a template, and you're ready to start publishing. That's because you let Blogger make a few choices for you. The name of this blog is bloggerstatusforreal ( that 's the unique part). The URL, derived from the name, was http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/ (before I migrated this blog to my custom domain "blogging.nitecruzr.net"). Simple. But what if I didn't like http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/ ? Before Blogger developed Custom Domains, which for all its shininess, is just becoming a mature and usable product , there was one other choice: FTP Publishing . You could maintain the blog in the Blogger database, and publish it to an external domain, hosted on an external server, of your choice. Like most things that are "your choice", this also means "more work for you". Plus, two...

If you have connectivity to the Internet in general, but chronic or transient problems, your computer may have an MTU problem. If you periodically lose connections with some servers, if some web sites load slowly, or if various problems come and go, you may have a problem with the size of the messages that pass between you and the web sites in question. The Maximum Transmission Unit , aka MTU, is a setting on your computer, that controls the size of the messages .

AutoSave is a great feature - if you write continuously, never delete content unexpectedly, and never edit what you just posted. Why is the last issue relevant? Because I am now editing my post, and AutoSave isn't bothering me. Because when you edit a published static page, AutoSave isn't running - and nobody but another author can see my published static page. Don't like AutoSave? Start a static page . Give it a Title (if you're using Titles). Give it a good first sentence or so. Publish the static page. Edit again, and No AutoSave. Continue editing until you're satisfied. Save or Publish, as you see fit. You control when Save ("Update") happens - and nobody can see a static page, when published. When you're satisfied with page content, copy the content to a new post, and publish. Yes, it's that simple. Just remember, AutoSave, and automatic draft generation, works best for short periods of time. You simply cannot type for ho...

In the server world, there are two dominant platforms- Microsoft (one company, one product) and Linux / Unix (many companies, different products) . There are dozens of differences between the two operating systems. One of the most obvious, and yet most easily overlooked, is case sensitivity of file names. In a Microsoft operating system, a file named "Test.Txt" is treated as the same file as "test.txt". In Unix, you can have those files, and more, in the same folder. test.txt Test.Txt TEST.txt TEST.Txt are all different files, on a Unix server. The issue of case preservation (Windows) vs case sensitivity (Unix) is a challenge, when moving files between a server of one world and a server of the other world. And one instance of this issue being relevant is - - wait for it - - Blogger publishing by FTP. Blogger FTP publishing involves moving files, from Blogger servers to third party servers. Blogger servers, being of one world, have to move files to other se...

Some folks just can't work with a Custom Domain - Custom Domains just aren't for everybody . But when they try to switch back, to publish to Blog*Spot, they have a problem. bX-gfz536 Additional information blogID: nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn host: www.blogger.com uri: /blog-publishing.do Blogger Support advises us ... we're working on the problem. >> Top

Barry the Innocent (name changed to protect) doesn't like to intentionally clear the cache in his computer. Why? Because ... it puts a strain on the computer. No Barry, Clearing cache, intentionally, deletes files. It simply deletes the files now (because the content is dirty), rather than later (when the content is aged). The only reason for having cache is to retain files , from each viewing of a given web site to the next viewing, and save on bandwidth use. Other than that, you could have cache flush constantly. For folks with fat enough pipes, that would actually be the logical thing to do. Cache retention = "0 Days" gives no out of date (dirty) files, ever. Just pull them from the web server each time. Some people do this. In short, clearing the cache does not put a strain on the computer. It will make your bandwidth jump slightly, as deleted files are refreshed. So will going to any new web site, as any new web site will always have new files for you. If y...

I renamed My Archives to "Contents". I've never liked the term "Archive", as I have always thought of "archives" as "stuff that you stashed away somewhere because it's probably useless", an intermediate trash can. The stuff in my blog isn't that. At least, I don't think so. So where is all of the stuff that I posted last month? One example. So where are all of my posts? OK, there's this months. And there's last months. A second example. The archive list, opened to June 2007. Click on the black arrow, left of "2015". See the black arrow, pointing to the right, located left of "2015"? Click on that arrow - and watch. The archive list, opened to 2015. Click on the black arrow, left of "December". The archive list, opened to December 2015. Just click on the little black arrows, and all can be seen.

If you see this, your blog is publishing on Blog*Spot. If you see this, your blog is published on your custom domain. If you're not seeing this yet, then go back and review the instructions . If you don't see either, and your blog is not "xxxxxxx.blogspot.com", then you're publishing to an external server, by FTP . You only have 3 possibilities. If it's not one of the above three, maybe you don't have a Blogger blog. Other than these details, which in reality simply involves the blog published URL , you won't find a lot of differences. A custom domain blog is simply a Blogger blog, published to a non BlogSpot URL. >> Top

Any time you transfer a blog between administrator accounts, you always have at least one administrator . You will have to have both the source and target owning accounts active, for some time. Don't start this project, if you've lost the account name, or forgotten the password , on one of the accounts. Plan this process with some care.

OK, Blogger has apparently given us the ability to transfer blogs between accounts. But is it safe? I'll find out. I take one of my less valuable blogs, Miscellaneous Musings , as my guinea pig. The blog has but one administrator. There's no "Remove" link, and "Admin" isn't clickable. I invited my second account, as a blog member. Note that you can invite anybody, GMail or any other email address. The invitee can use any existing Google account, or setup a new Google account, at his convenience. Any new account can be based on a GMail address, or any other email address. The invitee should take care to make that account, and email address, safe and secure . I accepted from the second account. Note that only the second account has any clickable links. Both accounts are now administrators. Either account can be removed ("Remove" is clickable), or made Guest ("Admin" is clickable). I clicked on the "Remove" link from m...

Weren't we told, some time ago, that the owner of a blog can't be removed from its Permissions? One of those accounts should not have a "Remove" link, nor a clickable "admin" link. I'm not testing this here though. I like this blog. But, I can test it on another blog . Is this another change made in silence ? >> Top

I see this question almost daily. I purchased my domain "xxxxxxx.net". Now, I need to know what is Blogger`s hostname and IP Address. Furthermore, I need a primary and secondary DNS server. Where can i get this information? or maybe this one The people I registered with can't give me a CNAME, and so my domain name cannot be used. I've been asking them to get this fixed for a few days now, but this is the message I get from them We cannot add a DNZ zone in our name server and point it to a NAME directly, we should first point the domain name to an IP address and then it's possible to add a CNAME record like "xxxxx.xxxxxxx.net. Help!!! These help requests were written by folks who haven't read the instructions, or who have read incomplete or misleading instructions, like How do I use a custom domain name on my blog? . ... you only need to get the domain name; you don't have to pay extra for hosting service. would be so much better written as ......

Blogger has thousands of computers that they control and support - their servers. They have millions of computers that they don't control, but still try to support - our computers. They can support, to some extent, Blogger running on our computers. Their ability to support us is greatly enhanced when we can accept the responsibility for the problems that are our own . Then there are the remote servers, to where we publish blogs by FTP. They don't own, or support those computers. Very few of them do we own or support either. When we try to FTP a blog update, and something goes wrong, what do we do? Can we check a log anywhere on the remote server? Not easily. Neither can Blogger Support. The remote servers, that host blogs published by FTP, are computers owned and supported by third parties. Blogger Support can't get even the feedback from the third parties, that they would from us if the problem was our locally published blogs running on our computers. Any problem ...

Various Bloggers have stated that the workaround of adding code to the AdSense snippet isn't helping them avoid the bX-r1buvw error. It's possible, though unconfirmed, that the folks experiencing this frustration are those with multiple AdSense entries in the blog, where they've neglected to update one or more. >> Forum thread links: bX-*00051 >> Copy this tag: bX-*00051 >> Top

When I write a post in my blogs, whether PChuck's Network , or The Real Blogger Status , or whatever, it's a challenge to get the post into a finished state. The most obvious challenge there is writing the content, but linking the content to other content is a struggle too. With a pure blog, you write a bunch of posts, related or not, and have an index to the posts in the sidebar. The reader reads the index, and select a post to read. The posts are linked through the sidebar. My blogs aren't pure blogs - they are hypertext documents, using a blog structure. Using the Blogger One Button Publishing structure allows me to concentrate on writing content, and dealing with formatting, structure, and style later, or as time permits. Some of my blog posts are linked to other blog posts, through links in the text , but with others you'll still need links in the sidebar. With Classic Blogger, the links in the sidebar were provided through the Archives. All of the posts wr...

We've been seeing reports of this problem, however vague, for some time. Bloggers complain of photos that aren't enlargable, or don't respond when you click on them. When you investigate, you find that the complete code, that provides the link to the full size photo, isn't there, or is damaged. Upon further investigation, you find that the Blogger used Post Editor Compose mode to relocate the photo, after uploading it. Additional detail is pretty hard to come by. Identifying click and drag as a causative factor is a revelation, and generally is the limit of the Blogger's observation. Today we have a well written and conducted case study , documenting one instance of the problem. Possibly relevant details: What operating system and browser (name and version please) do you use? Did you clear cache before trying your test? What add-ons do you have in your browser, and which ones were active when you were doing this? (Update 6/8): Blogger tells us that there is a k...

This may be related to an earlier symptom Template Corruption: Components Missing From Blog Posts . >> Forum thread links: bX-*00049 >> Copy this tag: bX-*00049 >> Top

Seen when uploading photos. The first thread from today is 9:55. By 10:55, there were 36 threads. >> Forum thread links: bX-dwurj8 >> Top

Google Custom Domains is a great way to combine the versatility of an externally published website (letting your blog be accessible thru a non-Blog*Spot URL), with the feature set of a Layouts template blog. But many Bloggers know the full story - - Custom Domains still needs work . For those of you who are using a custom domain, and would like for instance, "www.yourdomain.com" to be accessible as "yourdomain.com", we have a small status update. I asked Do we need more people suggesting that "www.martinezumc.org" should equal "martinezumc.org", or are you guys actually working on that issue? And was told We're working on that, too :) So, Chuck, you can't always get what you want. No, that's another issue altogether . I guess that it's another case of recommending both Patience , and Persistence . Try a mixture of both. >> Top

Every day, we see the question "How do I let my friends know when my blog is updated"? My personal preference would be to use a syndication feed (Atom or RSS) . A newsfeed reader is very convenient, and easy to use. But a newsfeed isn't universally useful. If your blog is private (requires authentication to read ), newsfeeds won't be available . Some readers can't, or won't, use a newsfeed reader.

Almost daily recently, we see folks oppressed by obnoxious commenters to their blogs. I have been receiving malicious comments from some Anonymous commentors over 2yrs now. They have cloned my ID, left abusive comments under my name confusing all my blogger friends, palgiarised my work in another blog, made a blog to ridcule me etc etc. And they are still at it at my expense. I have reported this to Blogger many times but to no avail. I don't know how to block people from commenting either. Is there any way I can track the IPs of commentors and block them from my blog for good? It's a popular request - with little chance for positive response. And the short answer, to the question, regrettably, is "No". You can install a visitor meter, and track your visitors . Once you know the IP address of a problem reader , you can install a product like IP Address Blocker (free). IP address blocking won't be effective. Blocking them, though, will never be 100% ef...

The Blogger war against spam blogs continues , and innocent Bloggers continue to be caught in the cross-fire. But finally Blogger is at least giving us a hint what's going on, and offering suggestions on how to deal with the situation . There are two possibilities here, each with its own cause and remedy. Learn the difference. Content Analysis. Your blog may look like spam, or maybe other Bloggers flagged you mistakenly. If there's a "?" beside the Captcha, you can fill out the form accessed from clicking there, and your blog will be whitelisted. Note the form that you fill out will require a working, Blogger friendly email address . Posting Behaviour. If you make an excessive amount of posts in one day, you'll have to verify each time you post, for that day. This can't be whitelisted. You may, or may not, see a "?". If you do see a "?", it probably won't be clickable. So the excessive posts trigger is bad news, since we aren...

Even as Blogger continues to add new language support to Blogger, they aren't doing it rapidly enough for everybody . I come from Vietnam and I real hope that my language would be supported at blogger soon. The information technology of Vietnam has been grown rapidly, more and more Vietnamese have internet connection and start to explore the world through it. Especially, Vietnamese youth today have a real "internet life" with their blogs. I think Vietnamese is a potential market for Blogger. This won't happen immediately, though. Jehovah's Witnesses currently identifies 310 languages worldwide , and they have been doing their work for hundreds of years. Blogger won't be providing its service in 310 languages simultaneously. As they add new languages, one by one, you'll have to expect that some languages, worthy though they be, will have to wait. Be patient, your language will be ready one day. Feel free to let Blogger know how important your language ...

It looks like this is the problem of the week. Bloggers report this when updating their template. Some publishing by FTP. Maybe another Classic templates problem? We see currently 61 threads, the oldest started 6/1, some with multiple Bloggers posting. >> (Edit 6/11) : It appears that the workaround described below isn't 100% effective . >> (Edit 6/4) : Blogger claims to know the source of the problem, and has developed a workaround . The problem is related to Ad-Sense, and is avoided by adding a line of code to your Ad-Sense snippet. (Note): If you have multiple AdSense entries in the blog, be sure to update all entries ! <div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 0px 3px 0.5em 3px;'> <script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client="ca-pub-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn"; google_ad_host="pub-1556223355139109"; <== Add this line google_ad_width=234; google_ad_height=60; google_ad_format="234...

Animated .Gifs are a cute, requiring low bandwidth, way of decorating our blogs. Some contain records of memorable events. Using one below I decorated my Musings blog, in commemoration of the death of a very bad guy. Recently, many such images stopped working, in multiple blogs all across the Blogosphere. This is the only .Gif that I have, that currently works as published natively through Blogger (using Picasa). (Compare with the version below, which will animate.) <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_pzC_7PLtN-0/ RmH1vJ_2KfI/AAAAAAAAAag/sR1MkaWHoPs/s1600-h/Mona+Lisa.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_pzC_7PLtN-0/RmH1vJ_2KfI/ AAAAAAAAAag/sR1MkaWHoPs/s320/Mona+Lisa.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5071604845882255858" /></a> I know that this was a Phot...

Recently, we get reports from Bloggers that their Comments, or Labels, are missing from the bottom of their blog posts. When instructed to go to Page Elements, edit the Blog Posts widget , and select the appropriate selection under Select Items, they say either "I did, but it was already selected", or sometimes, "I can't". In similar situations, Bloggers will complain of things in their blog posts that they don't want. Again, editing the Blog Posts widget provides no satisfaction. They may end up stuck with unwanted icons that apparently provide unwanted access to their blogs , but the unwanted access can't be easily eliminated. In other cases, the Layouts GUI doesn't let them move objects around the screen, or won't leave objects repositioned as they wish. Frequently, the reaction will be to reload the blog template ; sometimes this will help, but normally it won't. The blog template and post template are two different objects , a...