The process of "bidding" determines who is best suited to take on a given task, in some multi party games and relationships.
In the game of Contract Bridge, the players of the game get a chance to assess their personal holdings of the cards dealt to them, and the probable holdings of their prospective partner and opponents - and predict the number of rounds ("tricks") that they expect to win, in the game to come.
In the "game" of construction bidding, contractor firms get the chance to predict how much funds they will require, to perform a given project, given the chance by the firm bidding the project.
In both cases, different parties bid for the right to perform a task. Some would be blog owners think that procedure should apply to blog ownership.
In the Blogger Name Availability "game", the implication is
Unfortunately, there is no bidding process here. Blogger, in This blog has been abandoned and I want its address says simply
Blogger isn't going to setup a bidding process, or a courts system, to decide whether a given URL should be reassigned to you, or to some other hopeful party. If the URL is in use, it's not going to be available. The current owner of a blog has the right and responsibility to decide upon blog contents, including how often and how many updates should be made to the blog.
Not so long ago, with the owner given the latter choice to make, my advice for getting the blog well known would be to "publish, publish, publish" - because the more publishing that was done to a blog, the more random "Next Blog" traffic would be directed to the blog. In November, 2009, that changed. Now, your blog has an equal chance of getting random "Next Blog" traffic if you publish daily, as if you published once, 5 years ago - and never again.
The frequency and volume of updates, to your blog, are irrelevant to the validity of that blog. If you believe that your readers will be happier with you publishing daily, fine. If you believe that your blog is just as good as it's ever going to get, that's fine too. It's your blog, and it's your decision.
And somebody else's blog is their decision - and Blogger supports that decision.
If you need a URL for your blog, pick one that's available, and make the contents of your new blog valuable. Value comes from the blog contents, not from the URL.
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Some would be #Blogger blog owners would like Blogger to accept bids, for assigning the right to publish blogs to popular URLs. I've even seen the suggestion that bidding should be a paid feature, for Blogger URL assignment, with owner contact information for each blog being required.
Blogger provides blog names, on a "first come, first served" basis - payment is irrelevant. Blog names are available for eternity, poor or rich. And anonymous ownership is part of the promise.
In the game of Contract Bridge, the players of the game get a chance to assess their personal holdings of the cards dealt to them, and the probable holdings of their prospective partner and opponents - and predict the number of rounds ("tricks") that they expect to win, in the game to come.
In the "game" of construction bidding, contractor firms get the chance to predict how much funds they will require, to perform a given project, given the chance by the firm bidding the project.
In both cases, different parties bid for the right to perform a task. Some would be blog owners think that procedure should apply to blog ownership.
I want this URL - It's the perfect URL for my needs - for my blog. The URL is in use, but it hasn't been updated, recently. Why can't Blogger give me that URL?
In the Blogger Name Availability "game", the implication is
The current owner isn't using that URL properly, and I know that I can do a better job!
Unfortunately, there is no bidding process here. Blogger, in This blog has been abandoned and I want its address says simply
Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Therefore, we can't take away somebody's blog address to give to you.
Blogger isn't going to setup a bidding process, or a courts system, to decide whether a given URL should be reassigned to you, or to some other hopeful party. If the URL is in use, it's not going to be available. The current owner of a blog has the right and responsibility to decide upon blog contents, including how often and how many updates should be made to the blog.
Not so long ago, with the owner given the latter choice to make, my advice for getting the blog well known would be to "publish, publish, publish" - because the more publishing that was done to a blog, the more random "Next Blog" traffic would be directed to the blog. In November, 2009, that changed. Now, your blog has an equal chance of getting random "Next Blog" traffic if you publish daily, as if you published once, 5 years ago - and never again.
The frequency and volume of updates, to your blog, are irrelevant to the validity of that blog. If you believe that your readers will be happier with you publishing daily, fine. If you believe that your blog is just as good as it's ever going to get, that's fine too. It's your blog, and it's your decision.
And somebody else's blog is their decision - and Blogger supports that decision.
Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Therefore, we can't take away somebody's blog address to give to you.
If you need a URL for your blog, pick one that's available, and make the contents of your new blog valuable. Value comes from the blog contents, not from the URL.
---
Some would be #Blogger blog owners would like Blogger to accept bids, for assigning the right to publish blogs to popular URLs. I've even seen the suggestion that bidding should be a paid feature, for Blogger URL assignment, with owner contact information for each blog being required.
Blogger provides blog names, on a "first come, first served" basis - payment is irrelevant. Blog names are available for eternity, poor or rich. And anonymous ownership is part of the promise.
Comments
You're competing against everybody - basically the entire Blogosphere - equally. You just can't tilt the competition, by multiposting.
And that is why I am here learning more and also doing other things to draw people to my blog.
Unfortunately, we are allowed to publish our blogs anonymously. So no, Blogger isn't going to harass somebody because other people want their URL. No posts in 1 week, 1 year, or 10 years, no contact.
That's an interesting theory, Michelle.
How many blogs have you seen out there labeled "This blog name is for sale"?
If someone was going to squat on a name, and plan to make money, wouldn't he update the blog periodically, as part of the squatting technique? It's no work at all to make bogus posts, and stay well ahead of any inactivity classification bots. With the prospect of making some money in 5 or 10 years, and with no initial outlay, I'd do it in a second.
You wouldn't be one of the wanna bee squatters, would you?
What about all the one-post-wonder blogs that are, or will eventually be, owned by dead people? Does Blogger really intend to preserve their, for the most part meaningless, 'Hello, World!' posts forever?
Blogger doesn't have the popularity of the domain name system, and therefore doesn't have the problems they have with almost every intelligible URL being taken (Googling for 'Blogger + squat' gets only a handful of hits currently.) But Blogger also has no safety valve due to turnover from people being forced to payup or shutup. Eventually all these people are going to die, and I have a hard time believing that more than a tiny fraction of them are ever going to come back and free up their blog name. I would imagine that the vast majority don't even remember they ever had a blog.
Eventually, something will have to give. As old bloggers fall away, and new bloggers are discouraged from starting by the ever longer and more nonsensical names they have to choose from, eventually Google will start to feel it on their bottom line. And then we'll see just how highly they value blogs like pasta.blogspot.com.
200 years from now, neither you nor I will care.
If you have a blog to start, pick an available URL, and start - today.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2009/05/value-of-your-blog-is-based-upon.html