This week, a few blog owners who use BlogSend to distribute notices of new posts to various readers noted a change - and not a change that they appreciated. Various reports were noted in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.
Blogger Support informed us that they recently changed the address that notifications get sent to - from the users' address, to "no-reply@blogger.com". This was changed as a quick fix, for a security vulnerability that they found.
This change will cause two issues of confusion.
For the latter concern, there is a solution. Go to "Invite members", then to "Add members directly", and add "no-reply@blogger.com" as a member of the group. Note the warning
(Update 2011/11/14): It appears that Google has disabled the option to add members directly, possibly to encourage us to use Google+ for blog publicity updates.
And having added "no-reply@blogger.com" as a member, go into "Management tasks" - "Manage members", and edit the entry for "no-reply@blogger.com". Ensure that "Member is allowed to post" is selected, if you don't want to have to approve each message - even though each message is from you.
Blogger Support has told us that adding "no-reply@blogger.com" as a group member will not present a problem. Let's hope that's correct.
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The email notification about my blogs new post is not in my spam, nor is it "pending approval" in my Google Groups management. It appears that the notifications are just not going out via BlogSend.and
I wrote a new post today and then hit publish. I checked my email and it had arrived, but the sender was not my name, it was "blogger.com".
Blogger Support informed us that they recently changed the address that notifications get sent to - from the users' address, to "no-reply@blogger.com". This was changed as a quick fix, for a security vulnerability that they found.
This change will cause two issues of confusion.
- For blogs which depend upon direct email from BlogSend to your readers, the recipients of BlogSend will see email from "no-reply@blogger.com", for the new post notifications.
- For blogs which use BlogSend to a Google Group, if the group is private ("Members only" for "Who can post messages?"), BlogSend messages will simply stop posting to the group, and blog members will stop receiving notifications.
For the latter concern, there is a solution. Go to "Invite members", then to "Add members directly", and add "no-reply@blogger.com" as a member of the group. Note the warning
Note: Please use this feature carefully. Only add people you know. Using this feature for sending unwanted email can result in account deactivation.
(Update 2011/11/14): It appears that Google has disabled the option to add members directly, possibly to encourage us to use Google+ for blog publicity updates.
And having added "no-reply@blogger.com" as a member, go into "Management tasks" - "Manage members", and edit the entry for "no-reply@blogger.com". Ensure that "Member is allowed to post" is selected, if you don't want to have to approve each message - even though each message is from you.
Blogger Support has told us that adding "no-reply@blogger.com" as a group member will not present a problem. Let's hope that's correct.
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Comments
If you have an "announcement" blog, and "Managers only" for "Who can post messages?", then yes that requires "no-reply@blogger.com" to be a manager. Here, we have to believe that nobody at Blogger can use that account for nefarious purposes.
Though, the outgoing blogsend is signed with my gmail account, its return path is not a "noreply": it's rather a "axcvwcxfsrstre-etc-craps@blogger.bounces.google.com", and what's before the "@" is never the same.
I tried to make a manager of an e-mail adress "*@blogger.bounces.google.com", but didn't work either... (I tested just in case... Though I could subscribe this adress as a manager in my group)
What's left for me is a workaround: route blogsend to an e-mail adress, then route the incoming blogsends from this e-mail account to the group.
Will have to try tomorrow.