The Real Blogger Status

The controversial nature of Stats and the "Don't track ..." option , which requires a third party cookie to enable the option to work, continues. Even with all possible cookie filter properly set, and a consistent cookie clearing policy established, some blog owners persist in reporting that there are problems with Stats inconsistently observing the setting to not track their pageviews.

Now that the new required custom domain publishing ownership verification feature has been out for several months, we are seeing it used in domains with multiple virtual hosts. A few blog owners are even publishing their blogs to non root virtual hosts - and here we are seeing a new reason for a persistent Error 12 / 32, which just can't be solved. I have followed all of the instructions, and I am still seeing Error 12. Help! The "Advanced settings" Error 12 instructions - now provided on screen instead of requiring the blog owner to open an external "Settings instructions" document - require careful examination.

We are currently seeing frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about new blog creation. Would be new blog owners have various concerns I can't create a blog - the "Create" button is grey (inoperative)! or It keeps saying Verifying availability when I enter a blog name!! or even It said This blog address is available. until I hit "Create blog!" - then it changed to Sorry, this blog address is not available.

Ever since Blogger added the "Next Blog" link to the Blogger Navbar, blog owner and readers alike have periodically asked one question, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I remove the "Next Blog" link, from the Navbar? The "Next Blog" link, long ago added to generate random traffic for new blogs, is occasionally perceived as leading unwary readers to blogs where they should not wish to go. Some "adults" of various intention have asked this question, quite seriously, in fear of their blogs being inadvertently linked to blogs with unsavoury content. The navbar coded as it is, there is no known ability to customise it, and to remove specific elements such as the "Next Blog" link. Generally, we simply advise people, when they have the need, to remove the Navbar. Use the Layout wizard, Edit the "Navbar" gadget, and select "Off".

Recently, we've been seeing a few problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning problems publishing comments on Blogger blogs, when using mobile computers. My readers tell me that they can't comment on my blog, using an iPad. Comments disappear, when they try to publish them. As with a previously explored problem with comments on a non mobile computer, this problem may involve unfamiliarity with the publishing sequence. The dialogue involved in publishing a comment, when using a desktop computer with a full size display and a non mobile Blogger template, is not simple. Depending upon the various commenting options selected by the owner, the publishing sequence may be even more complex. Blog owners may need to consider the additional details involved in comment publishing, when using a mobile computer.

For several weeks, we're been seeing various reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning problems with template updates, being made using the Template Designer wizard. The reports are not so widespread to indicate a complete malfunction - but neither can we dismiss the problem, as being unique to one browser, one template type, or one particular update pattern. It's likely that we are looking at a number of problems, aggregated and compounded, into one common symptom. I cannot Save changes in Template Designer. With a problem report like this, some examining of the details may be appropriate.

Over a year ago, Blogger introduced a useful template option for our blogs - mobile templates . Blogger mobile templates are mobile-optimized versions of our Template Designer templates. If you are using one of these templates, when you enable the mobile template option your blog will begin rendering using the mobile version of the same variant. Even if you are not using a Template Designer template, or using a heavily-customized version of one, you can still enable this feature to have your blog start rendering in a generic default mobile template that we have created. The mobile templates let computers with lower display size / resolution - aka PDAs, mobile phones, and smart phones - display the content of our blogs, without the unnecessary overhead which may be a part of our normal blog formatting. If you are viewing this post on your smart phone, it's likely that you are viewing it using a mobile template. As exciting as the mobile templates are, however, they will not repla...

We see periodic concern, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , over apparent visitor access to blog maintenance wizards, using the Quick Edit icons. I found this entry, in my StatCounter log. How did this person get access to my blog? http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7834826019588534175&postID=890014875501476492&from=pencil Was my blog hacked? This may not be a justified reason to panic, however. One may first wish to check that Stats (or whatever visitor log is in use , in this case) is properly configured, to not track your own activity . The link that you see may reflect your activity. Even if the visitor log entry in question does not appear to reflect your own activity - even when allowing for the vagaries of geo location , you may still do well to remain calm.

One constant activity in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken involves blog owners whose blogs were deleted - either righteously or spuriously - as part of the ongoing battle against spam , in Blogger blogs. Generally, the problem comes directly from the blog content . Sometimes, the problem is more subtle. When I tried to login to Blogger, I got a screen that said my account needed to be verified, due to "unusual activity on my account". Having verified my account, I see that my blogs have been deleted. This is part of one of the more intriguing episodes, in the never ending fight against hacking and spam , in Blogger.

Periodically, we have discussions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about issues, that absolutely cannot be resolved in a forum problem discussion. These issues will vary, by relationship to a given blog, as well as by nature of the offense perceived. Some blog owners have lost control of their Blogger account, and lack ability to recover control . Some people are offended by a Blogger blog, but an offense which may not constitute a Google TOS violation . Some people may believe that a Blogger blog name, in use by someone else, may reflect badly upon their hard earned business identity . Some people may be the survivor, in a relationship where the owner of a given blog is now deceased . Some of these complaints may have been reported to Google, in an ongoing effort, for years.

Ever since Google ended its free Google Apps accounts , we've been seeing reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about problems encountered when setting up a new Google Apps account, to administer a newly purchased custom domain. Every time I try to login to Google Apps, using instructions in the email message, I get Server Error: We could not process your request at this time, please try again later.

Everything has its limits - even Blogger features. For a while, we've been seeing hints that mobile templates don't support a redirected Home page. How do I disable the Blogger mobile redirect "/?m=1"? Some blog owners would prefer their readers, using a mobile computer, see a redirected Home page, with a desktop template - instead of a mobile display with a dynamic Home page. Apparently, the mobile redirect /?m=1 overrides the Home page redirect / Actually, this makes sense. " /?m=1 " (the redirected mobile template URL snippet) is not equal to " / " (the redirected Home page URL snippet).

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.

Occasionally, we see an odd problem report about Reading List content, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . How did this blog get into my Reading List? I did not Follow this blog! Most people will not, knowingly, Follow a spam blog. This is one reason why Following is so popular - each blog owner, and blog reader can easily bypass, and actively block - spam . Spammers have, however, found devious ways to convince people to Follow them .

One of the neatest - and easiest - techniques, to make your blog available to a larger audience, uses a replica of the blog posts - the blog newsfeed. Most blogs, when new, have the feed activated by default. Oddly enough, some blogs - even published publicly - do not publish a newsfeed. Some blog owners, wondering why their blogs are not being indexed by the search engines, are perplexed. Why isn't my blog publishing a feed? If you want full visibility, activate the blog newsfeeds.

In late 2011, Blogger Engineering gave us a new Blogger feature - the ability to redirect any URL in a blog, to any other URL in the blog . Like any feature, we found an immediate use for it - something much requested, for a good while. Other people have found more uses for the redirection feature - and still others have found confusion. The syntax used in the redirection "From" and "To" values is not always obvious - and occasionally there is confusion about what can - and can't - be done with redirection .

Look at the Audience display, in Stats. How many different entries do you see, in "Pageviews by Browser" and "Pageviews by Operating System"? Stats lists are limited to 10 entries, each. Do you ever wonder if those lists, like the other Stats lists, should be longer? How do we ever hope to observe our blogs, and see what they look like, for our many different readers? One of the challenges of publishing a Blogger blog is developing a blog that looks good, on every reader's browser and computer . The number of combinations of operating system times browser brand times browser version - any of which can create a display oddity, when viewing any blog or website - is staggering.

Last week, Google dropped a bombshell on many small client developers. Starting on December 6, 2012 , Google will no longer offer new accounts for the free edition of Google Apps. Google Apps free edition is sometimes referred to as "Standard Edition." This announcement will bring changes to Blogger, and to custom domain publishing. Many owners of Blogger blogs published using the Google Custom Domain feature have learned to use various Google Apps wizards, to setup and to maintain their domains.

Periodically, we see evidence of confusion about Stats and the pageview counts, as provided in the various displays and time ranges, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . My pageview counts keep going down! or My counts go up during the day - but in the afternoon, they drop to zero!! or My counts keep going down! There's no end to the drop!! All of these complaints - and more - involve blog owners, who don't understand the relationships between the displays and time ranges.

Occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , we see a curious question, which is repeated. My blog Stats display is missing a complete year. The problem is actually right there, in front of all of us - if we look. We showed this last year - for 2010 .

For several months, we've been seeing reports from various Blogger blog owners, about yet another possible source of spurious spam classification. I just received the email: Hello, Your blog at http://yourblog.blogspot.com/ has been reviewed and confirmed as in violation of our Terms of Service for: MALICIOUS_JAVASCRIPT. In accordance to these terms, we've removed the blog and the URL is no longer accessible. For more information, please review the following resources: Blogger Terms of Service: http://blogger.com/terms.g Blogger Content Policy: http://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy -The Blogger Team This happened almost immediately after I added HTML script recommended to me from AdBrite.

Some owners of newer Blogger blogs spend time reading their Stats logs, and worry that their "All time" pageview counts don't always go up - they go down, too. Why do the counts go down? Is there one number, that I can believe? They don't understand that with Stats, you need to look for trends - not absolute readings. In the beginning, fluctuations are more obvious, and trends are less obvious. Thanks to the referer spam war , and to normal visitor activity , even the "All time" numbers will go up and down - for newer blogs, which have less genuine and constant visitor traffic. And the constant rise and fall is scary - until you get used to it.

As mobile computing becomes more popular, we're starting to see questions about use of the Blogger dashboard on mobile computers (iPhone / iPod, PDA, smart phone), in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Most recently, we're seeing people trying to use Stats, and the "Don't track my own pageviews" option, with Blogger on mobile computers. Problems with Stats and the "Don't track ..." option are not unknown, in the past. We've helped many blog owners with this setting, which is sensitive to cookie and script filtering in general - and to "third party cookies" in particular. "Third party cookies" may be filtered in any of several places, any which will interfere with "Don't track ..." .

Recently, Blogger added an improvement in the spam review process , to help shorten the review cycle. Blogs that are deleted or locked, as suspected spam hosts, are now listed on the dashboard, behind a "Deleted blogs" / "Locked blogs" button or link. Each blog, deleted or locked by Blogger, can be submitted for an automated review, by using the "Restore" button next to any blog listed. Not all blog owners see the benefit of the new option. Some owners think this represents yet one more hurdle, in the endless protocol. I just want my blog restored! Can you please just forward my review request, without the red tape?

Most physical threats used to require physical proximity, to be seriously considered by the authorities. Before the Internet became a reality, if you were to report a crime which involved a physical threat to you or some one whom you knew, chances are that you would be reporting a friend or relative - or at least a neighbour or somebody geographically close to you. Now that the Internet is part of our daily lives, many Blogger blog owners, readers, and comment publishers - all of who use the Internet for various networking activities - have no idea of the possible international challenges involved in their activities. With the Internet involved, these dangers can come from somebody in another city, state, or country, who is a complete stranger to the potential victim.

Occasionally, a blog owner wants to add the Pages Index gadget to the blog, but just can't. I go to add it - and I see "Already Added" - but where is it? The first thing to check, when this happens, is the "Show pages as" option in the dashboard Pages display. Sometimes, you'll find "Don't show" selected. Other times, you'll find "Top tabs" - but the template may lack the code which houses the "Top tabs" gadget. This will be a problem for older templates, installed before the Pages index gadget was offered - as well as some third party templates. Try selecting "Side links" (or change from "Side links", to "Top tabs", and back to "Side links") - and see if the gadget shows up, in the sidebar. Each time you change the setting, hit "Save arrangement". After each change, view the blog, to verify success. Remember to clear cache , and restart the browser, each time yo...

One interesting question, which comes up from time to time in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , is about Custom Domain Publishing - and what to do, after Transition completes. Now that my blog is successfully transitioned to the domain URL, should I update the internal blog links, in the post contents? This is a question that deserves some thought. From an aesthetic sense, it makes sense to do this - hoping that you will be paying for the domain, for eternity. But, is it worth the effort?

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , we see signs of people who don't understand the concept of unique Blogger identities - or contrarily, Blogger identities which won't be unique. I can't publish my blog to the name that I want. or Another blog is using the same name as mine! or Someone is impersonating me!!

It's a fairly simple matter to determine the newsfeed URL, for any given blog, by examining the blog template code . Besides the base feed, a blog may publish an extensive array of additional feeds, which won't be listed directly in the blog template code. You may use any given feed , in networking your blog, with any Google or non Google service. Starting with any feed URL, what do I do? I could just open my favourite feed reader, or social networking web site, and paste the URL in place. But what if the feed reader or web site wasn't working properly, or I misunderstood the instructions? What if I see Invalid URL or the like, what do I do?

One of the challenges of using Blogger involves following the instructions. Blogger / Google personnel provide Help instructions which are not always updated - sometimes they simply write a new Help instructions document, leaving the old Help instructions in place. The policy of leaving old Help instructions in place - and sometimes conflicting with new displays and procedures - occasionally causes confusion. One scenario where this causes a problem is in publishing or re publishing a blog to a custom domain . I've seen instructions that when you buy a domain from Blogger / Google, using "Buy a domain", you won't need to create a CNAME record. One of the advantages of using "Buy a domain" is the ease of setup. If you use "Buy a domain", you don't have to bother with any of the details. This is generally - but not always - true. (Update 2013/09): The second "CNAME" won't be required, in all cases. If you don't see i...

Some Blogger blog owners are confused about their ability to redirect traffic to, or from, their blogs. Sometimes this leads to problems, as in the need to report a problem with spam classification, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken Why was my blog just deleted, for "Malicious JavaScript"? Other people will want to know why, after renaming their blog, all the search engine references now point to a dead URL . Still others may want to rename specific posts, and yet have the post URLs match the new titles. Blog URLs, and Post URLs, are complex details, for Blogger blogs. By default, both are managed for you. Not everybody understands how to manage blog and post URLs , when necessary.

Regularly, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , we advise people about problem code or gadgets in their blogs. Generally, this follows reports by blog owners, that their readers are being redirected to unexpected and unwanted blogs and websites, from their blogs. Sometimes, we get the reply I can't remove the code. Every time I login to Blogger, I am redirected, just as my readers are being treated! When we see the latter complaint, we recognise yet one more blog owner who does not know how to properly protect himself, from malicious code and websites. Most people, who know about Layered Security, know that proper browser security is an essential complement to a properly chosen and maintained anti malware filter.

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.

One of the more positive changes in the "New GUI" involves an improved ability to find, and correct, deleted and locked blogs. Finding deleted / locked blogs, under earlier versions of Blogger, was always a challenge - both for the person looking for the necessary display - and for the people trying to instruct how to find the necessary dashboard display. In the current Blogger dashboard, one simply logs in and looks for the "Deleted Blogs" button - right beneath "New Blog", when the blog owner has any self deleted blogs, or any blogs deleted or locked by the Blogger abusive blogs classifier. Clicking on "Deleted Blogs", we see a list of blogs - with either an "Un delete" button (for self deleted blogs), or a "Restore" button (for spam classifier locked / deleted blogs).

Recently, Google Apps added a setting to the domain administrator desktop GUI, which controls the redirect of the domain root (aka "naked domain"). We initially observed this setting, as an option in working around the problem of setting the domain root redirect , in the Blogger Publishing "Advanced Settings" wizard. It's also possible that this setting should be used in recycling the domain settings , when faced with the "dreaded "Another blog ..." error. Use of the Google Apps Domain Redirect setting is not complicated. It starts with setup of the domain administrator account. For any newly purchased domain - as well as for domains purchased directly from a registrar , it's a fairly simple matter to setup a Google Apps domain administrator account - then to set (or reset) the redirect.

We're seeing a small but steady flood of reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from blog owners attempting to publish their blogs using a custom domain URL. I am not able to redirect my blog from blogspot to my own domain! Blogger is giving me the error We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain. Error 14. This specific problem has been observed numerous times in the past, ever since Blogger added the domain ownership verification process to the custom domain publishing feature. Problem reports require careful diagnosis, involving examination of the basic DNS addresses setup with the registrar, to verify the "Error 14" as the primary problem.

Some Blogger blog owners, trying to save a few dollars while publishing their blogs to a non BlogSpot URL, have used the free service "co.cc" for registering their domains. As "co.cc" increased its base of "customers", their reputation for providing free registration grew - and they became popular with scammers and spammers. Last year, Google, weary of the overall poor search engine reputation of co.cc customers, de indexed all websites registered by co.cc . This week, co.cc apparently stopped serving DNS information for its "customer domains".

We are seeing a small but steadily increasing stream of problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from Blogger blog owners, wondering where these mysterious blogs, being added to their dashboard "My blogs" list, are coming from. Is anyone else experiencing random blogs being added to their dashboard? I login, and I notice that many blogs have been made - and they're all with names that are just a jumble of letters and numbers, but no posts. All of them lead to the same blog though. Here's a random list of the names of 7 such blogs, which were recently created in the "blogspot.com" name space. If you wish to examine these blogs, and these have not yet been deleted by the Blogger anti spam processes, I strongly advise that you use a proxy server , or similar isolation technique. Never examine any hacking / spam attack component, unprotected. yyxfkfgpiy x24xd2wtu1 4o4fq0rqp9 26djmc3xyh m9s5tdor2l h62wo5uthr bsojvu43gk

Some Blogger blog owners use their Blogger blogs as the center of their peer to peer networking life. Many blog readers are expected to post comments - and to leave their email addresses, as part of their message or profile, to allow direct contact. Long ago, I used the email address of my commenters, as part of an easy "Contact Me" form , on this blog. Recently, we've been noting that Blogger comments don't always include a useful email addresses - many comments simply describe the commenter as noreply-comment@blogger.com Not all blog owners - and readers - appreciate this change. When I leave a comment using my google profile, it isn't linking my profile with my email address. How do I get my email address properly displayed? and Why do so many comments, published to my blog, show the email address of "noreply-comment@blogger.com"? How do I email my readers?

We have seen this question, periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? When will Blogger provide me with the option to block an abusive commenter, from my blog? This is a request that simply cannot be fulfilled. The issue of blocking individual commenters won't be solved by a new Blogger feature. It's technically impossible. It's contrary to Blogger policy.

One of the more frustrating steps involved in setting up a custom domain comes with entry of the DNS addresses , into the domain host or registrar's DNS dashboard aka zone editor. Whether you are setting up a new domain , just purchased directly from a registrar - or re publishing an existing domain , purchased using "Buy a domain" - the addition of the proper DNS addresses is essential to successful custom domain publishing.

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 .

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Setting up a custom domain, and publishing a blog to a non BlogSpot URL, is a simple enough task - when we are able to use the "Buy a domain for your blog" wizard . Sometimes, after using "Buy a domain ...", we may still have to access the registrar's Domain Manager wizard - maybe to setup additional hosts, or to use the domain with non Blogger services . When we use "Buy a domain", along with setting up the domain for us, the Blogger / Google wizard sets up a new eNom or GoDaddy domain owner account. To let us later login to eNom or GoDaddy, the "Buy a domain" wizard saves the login information, for our new account - in a Google Apps desktop wizard. Here is yet one more reason why we absolutely must setup the provided Google Apps account , after receiving the Google Apps email. Be aware of the oddities of the Google One Login wizard, and Google Apps , when logging in.

Not all registrars are able to support the new Blogger domain ownership verification requirement. Some registrars won't allow a second "CNAME" in the same subdomain - and others can't handle the excessively long target address. Ever since Blogger added domain ownership verification, we've been seeing complaints from some blog owners, who have purchased domains directly from registrars who can't provide the required DNS addresses on their servers. Even though not all registrars have DNS servers that will provide the right DNS address entries, most registrars will allow us to use third party DNS servers. The use of publicly available DNS servers, which can provide the required DNS addresses, will eliminate the need to transfer domain registration - when the registrar is unable to provide the right DNS addresses , using their own servers.

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.

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...

We're seeing evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forums, from blog owners who read the out of date instructions, about using "Buy a domain". We see considerable confusion, where people using that feature insist that they don't have to add a "CNAME" . In other cases, people using the Blogger / GoDaddy DNS Configuration wizard will think that the second "CNAME" is being added for them. (Update 2013/09): The second "CNAME" won't be required, in all cases. If you don't see instructions for adding a second "CNAME", focus your efforts on getting the domain working, with righteous base DNS addresses ,

One oddity, observed by a few blog owners, is that even after adding the "CNAME" to verify domain ownership, not every blog owner is able to see theirs successfully verified. I added both "CNAME"s - and I'm still getting "Error 12" when I try to publish. There are several "common sense" rules , that not everybody observes. The new "CNAME" can't use the example values. The new "CNAME" has to be a "CNAME". Don't let your registrar add a "TXT" instead. The new "CNAME" has to be specific to the URL in question. Enter your published URL precisely, into "Advanced settings". The new "CNAME" has to be added with attention to domain manager address entry convention . Even with these rules observed, there are still a small handful of unsuccessful blog owners, seeing "Error 12" - or "Error 32". One of the possible reasons for these last few hold outs, I...

Ever since Blogger finally restored the custom domain publishing feature , blog owners have been asking about the addition to the domain setup process - the new "CNAME". Do I really need this? My old blogs don't have it, and they are fine. and My registrar won't let me add a second "CNAME" - they allow one "CNAME" / domain (my "www"). and My registrar won't allow long addresses, such as what you have for "Destination" / "Target" / "Points To". And we are learning that this requirement is going to be a problem for blog owners using some registrars, who can't provide this "CNAME" in their customers domains.

As we sift through the wreckage of the blogs damaged by the recent Blogger custom domain security issue, we note a significant omission. The " Buy a Domain For Your Blog " wizard is conspicuous in its absence. When I click on the Settings - Publishing options, I don't even have the option to check availability or purchase a domain name. Where is the "Buy a domain" display? Right now, it appears that "Buy a domain" was sacrificed, so that the general custom domain publishing feature could be restored more promptly (though not promptly enough , for many blog owners). There are several tasks that must be completed by "Buy a domain", which are complex - and the necessary coding simply could not be completed by Tuesday of this week. I saw one message of hope. We will be restoring the ability to purchase a custom domain from Blogger soon. We'll simply have to have faith, that they are working on this feature as we lament its current abs...

Several people are reporting seeing the New Blogger GUI in their dashboard - even when they did not intentionally upgrade. Possibly, this was forced by the necessary Custom Domain Authentication Feature , which is now operational - on the New GUI only. I am expecting my Blogger account to change, soon. Let's see if I get a "Your blog post published successfully!" display. So far, I am in Virginia - though I am thinking of a procedural workaround for that shortcoming. I realise that everybody won't have a workaround for their dislikes - though we have to be contemplative, and accept the changes . If you wish to make your feelings known, please post in the latest Problem Rollup: V4 I do not like the New Blogger Interface because ... >> Top

After a very stressful week , Blogger Engineering has restored the custom domain publishing option . Last week we encountered an issue that could affect Blogger users in the process of configuring a custom domain, during the verification of ownership of domains between the provider and Blogger. Blogs with previously configured custom domains were not affected. With the reason for disabling custom domain publishing being security, Blogger Engineering has added a step in the publishing process , to add a random token as a "CNAME", and verify your right to publish to your domain, from Blogger. You get the random token from the "settings instructions" document, " How do I use a custom domain name for my blog? ".

Last week, we saw a fairly large number of reports from blog owners, reporting that their blogs had been apparently classified as spam hosts - but with a new symptom. Possible Blogger Terms of Service Violations This blog is currently under review due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations. If you're a regular reader of this blog and are confident that the content is appropriate, feel free to click "Proceed" to proceed to the blog. We apologize for the inconvenience. If you're an author of this blog, please follow the instructions on your dashboard for removing this warning page. When the problem was forwarded to Blogger Support, they identified a recent change in the spam classifier as a cause - and suggested that they could review and reverse all such false classifications, en masse. Later that same day, Blogger Support declared that the problem was resolved .

We're seeing problem reports from some confused blog owners, who are apparently customers of ISPs who have made the switch, from using a private email infrastructure, to using GMail based email (administered using Google Apps). When I try to sign in I get this message. Blogger has not been enabled by the administrator of the domain How do I administer my blog? We've known, for a while, that having a Blogger account based on a Google Apps provided GMail account may not be a good long term strategy - particularly if the Apps account is based on a domain which you own, and the domain was purchased to host one of your blogs . Possibly considering the latter scenario, Blogger / Google now requires that you enable the Blogger service , for any new Google Apps controlled domain - if you wish to use email addresses in that domain to host Blogger accounts. This is a safety measure, helping to prevent you from having a Blogger account that you can't control - or can't recove...

Many owners of Blogger blogs - and most owners of Blogger blogs published to non BlogSpot URLs - know the sad truth . Mapping a blogspot domain to a custom domain is currently disabled. It's been this way, for several long days. If you are the owner of a Blogger blog, currently published to a non BlogSpot URL, you have probably seen the problem, when trying to view your blog - even after setting up righteous DNS addresses , and having published the blog to the domain . 404 . That’s an error. The requested URL / was not found on this server. That’s all we know.

Blog owners have been asking, for years, how to protect their blogs against viewing by undesired or unknown readers. How do I password protect my blog? When told that Blogger password protection involves membership invitations, accepted using a Blogger Google account , some would be private blog owners decline the suggestion. That's too complicated for my readers! Can't I just give everybody a password? But Blogger does not use common passwords. Some blog owners, who are technically astute, find add on template code, provided by third parties - which demands a password, in a popup window, to continue. This is where their problems start .

Recently, we've seen a few reports from unhappy blog owners who used to publish blogs using FTP, who tried to delete the FTP published blogs from their Blogger account, and now can't access their dashboard bloglist - or even login to their Blogger accounts successfully. I recently tried to delete an old FTP published blog from our account, I hit the "delete blog" button, and I get error code bX-dm6o9e. When I try to access my dashboard, I get the same error. The option to publish a Blogger blog to remote, non Google hosted, server space - known as FTP Publishing - ended several years ago . Now, people attempting to clean up their blog list, and trying to remove old, FTP published blogs will find a problem. We note that the dashboard utilities, in general, can still be accessed, using the navbar links - or the quick edit post links.

This month, we are seeing a sign of the end of The Classic Blogger GUI, coming soon. The old Blogger interface will be removed in the coming days. We've made many improvements to the new Blogger interface. Learn more You can upgrade to the new interface at any time. We've all been expecting this, for a while - but it's still a shock. Some of us are concerned that forced use of the New GUI will cause problems in productivity, if not blog functionality.

Every week, in Blogger Help, we see the cries of frustration. Many years ago I had a Google account with a "gmail.com" e-mail address. But I deleted this account, because I didn't need it anymore. Later, I wasn't able to login to Blogger, to delete my blog. And I also wasn't able to remove it by contacting Blogger. Why doesn't Blogger support their customers? The point being overlooked here is that both Blogger and Google do support their customers. Blogger / Google, like every commercial enterprise worldwide, simply supports their active customers more than their not-so-active customers. They have millions of customers, who spend much time maintaining and publishing their blogs. They also have some customers, who start blogs, and leave them dormant for many years - then require assistance recovering access to their Blogger accounts, because they have forgotten the account name or password, and the backup email address can't be used. Considering that...

Recently, people who use the popular Multiply blogging platform were given bad news . From December 1st, we will unfortunately no longer be able to support Multiply in its current form - notably we will be removing the social networking and content sharing part of Multiply (photos, videos, blogs, social messaging, etc.). We have decided to discontinue providing and hosting these services, as we have concluded that other Internet sites who are committed to social networking services will do a better job serving you than we can. They are, right now, unsure what options they can offer, to help existing Multiply blogs be transitioned to alternatives such as Blogger. We're still finalising the exact list of formats and platforms that we'll export to, but users will be able to download all their original media and data, (in some flexible formats) and also able to migrate directly to alternative blogging platforms. So, let's see what options Blogger Engineering can offer. Watc...

This afternoon, we started seeing some frantic problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . My custom domain published blog is not loading today. What is going on with your servers??? The numbers, of concerned blog owners, are relatively small, compared to normal custom domain publishing problems - but the concern is very real. When we look at the DNS addresses for the domains involved, we see one common factor - a custom domain, relying solely on the Google Apps DNS server "216.239.32.21".

Some time ago, I pointed out that our readers should provide the final voice , in deciding how to view our blogs. Not everybody seems to agree with me. I have been told by my readers, having viewed my blog, that they have the option to change which dynamic setting - because the drop down menu is accessible to them. I have tried this myself when not logged in, and it completely messes up the view I want. How can I fix this so only I can change the settings? This blog owner believes that only he knows how his readers should see his blog.

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Blogger / Google provides two forms, for us to use when reporting unacceptable content, in Blogger blogs. Blogger Help: Report inappropriate content Google Help: Removing Content From Google Each form has a different use - and both forms have their stated limits. You'd be wise to look at both forms - and read the instructions, for each, carefully. Neither form will produce an absolute, nor immediate, result. Google has to consider that either form may be intentionally misused, for various reasons , when evaluating any claim made.

We've know, for a while, of the downsides of having a Blogger account that's based on an email address that's provided by a Google Apps based domain . Some people are unknowingly using email that is based on Google Apps administered service - and they are not even the administrators. A few would be blog owners - or members (of a private or team blog) - are using Google Apps administered domains for their email. The dangers of using this ( obscure ) option never becomes relevant to them, until they try to join or setup a Blogger blog. When I click on the invite link, and try to set up a new Google account, I get the message. Blogger has not been enabled by the administrator of the domain xxxxxxx.edu. What do I do, now?

The use of Google Apps, for resetting the domain settings, frequently requires much repetition - yet seldom produces consistent results. Some blog owners are able to disable a single service to get their domain working, others must recycle the service settings repeatedly - and still others must spend time anxiously recycling one service after another, then looking for more, unnamed services to recycle. Some blog owners look for shortcuts in the recommended process - such as deleting the Apps account , which simply wastes time. Unfortunately, very few shortcuts, when identified, are consistently effective for other blog owners later. This lack of consistency leads to various comments mentioning lack of useful advice, in the forum discussions.

The ability to publish a Blogger blog to a non BlogSpot URL - also known as "Custom Domain Publishing" - has been a Blogger option for over 5 years . We have, similarly, observed the problem which is collectively described as "Another blog ..." for almost that long . Every week, we see the signs of frustration in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why does Blogger never fix the "Another blog" problem? or Why can I never get a straight answer here, about my inability to make my custom domain work? Both of these questions ignore the reality - that "Another blog ..." is actually a symptom, with many different causes .

We have known, for a while, that every Blogger blog has to have at least one administrator . That rule is enforced by the Permissions wizard, which gives any administrator the choice to demote or remove any administrator, from the Permissions list - but only when there is at least one other administrator in the list. When the Permissions list is displayed, if there are at least two members with administrative authority, each administrator entry, in the list, has a link to demote or remove that member. If there is only one member with administrative authority, there is no such link - and that member can be neither demoted or removed from the list. As long as only the Permissions wizard is used, to demote or remove administrators, this article would be meaningless (see the above link). But, there is another way for administrators to be removed - and this occasionally leaves blogs with no administrator.

Periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see a hopeful query. How do I claim the brand name URL for my clients blog? Many merchandisers are unaware of the simple Blogger / Google policy Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Another way of saying that would possibly be first come, first served .

Recently, we've noted a number of complaints about Blogger commenting, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken .My comments all use a "noreply" email address, instead of my actual email address. How do I have people email their replies to my comments? These are people who have updated their Blogger accounts, to use a Google or Google+ profile. Neither Google or Google+ profiles provide the option to Show my email address

Of the many problem reports that we see in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , possibly the most ambiguous might be My blog was deleted. How do I get my blog back? The confusion, evidenced here, is normal - but overlooking the reason for the deletion can waste time - and delay or prevent getting the blog restored.

One sign of panic, seen regularly in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , comes from people who spend a lot of time viewing their Stats logs. My pageview counts are always going up and down. Why is Stats so flaky? It's good to monitor your reader activity - sometimes this will warn you of a major problem in the Internet, or with Blogger. But keep a proper perspective .

One sign of confusion, seen occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , involves the use of FTP - and options for updating our blogs. How do I publish my posts using an FTP desktop program? and How do I upload a custom home page (sitemap, .htaccess, etc)? People who are used to publishing a website see these options as a normal feature in any website maintenance process. Blogger, however, is a blogging platform - and provides none of these options.

One of the benefits of custom domain publishing, for a properly setup domain, is that the BlogSpot URL is automatically redirected to the domain. Not all blog owners realise that the BlogSpot to domain URL redirect includes the blog feed - once the Transition period ends, and the blog is republished to the domain. Some blog owners think that the Post Feed Redirect setting needs to be used when re publishing their blog to a custom domain . This is not true, however. Use of the custom domain redirect, plus the post feed redirect, can only result in one of two problems. A feed redirect loop. A feed URL that points to invalid content. In neither case will any newsfeed client, such as a Dynamic Template, Google Reader, Reading List, or any third party feed service, find a feed that can be used.

We have seen a significant number of reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , again mentioning inability to post to our blogs using EMail / Phone / SMS. The problem appears to have started several days ago - but was quiet for a while, and has been rather noticeable today.

The sport of ocean surfing has been described as something like "constantly falling down an ever advancing wall of water", while trying to stay upright and ahead of the wall of water (aka the "wave"). Publishing a Blogger blog, and dealing with hijackers, pirates, and spammers, is similar to surfing. I am frequently advising people, who complain about the constant waves of spurious spam classifications, blog clones (aka "content thieves"), and referer spam, to keep looking ahead - and keep publishing their blogs. Like ocean surfing, you want to keep looking ahead and remain standing - don't fall down, and let the wave behind wash over you. The latter leads to drowning.

One of the odder examples of naivete, seen occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , involves the custom domain purchase. How do I buy a domain from Blogger? or alternately How do I have Google host my domain? The immediate answer, properly stated, is simple. You cannot buy a domain from Blogger. Neither Blogger, nor Google, is a registrar. The full answer, however, is a bit more complex.

We've been asking for the ability to have post URLs that differ from the post titles , for some time. Now, we have the Custom Permalinks feature, available in the New Blogger GUI Posts Editor, for new posts. Some people would like to use custom permalinks for existing posts - and for pages. We can do that, too - but not by using Custom Permalinks. Custom Permalinks only works for new posts - and not for pages.

We've been asking for the ability to have post URLs that differ from the post titles , for some time. Up to now, we had a workaround, to do this. Publish a post, with a title worded to give the desired URL. Edit the previously published post, and change the title. That was a clumsy procedure - and it had side effects.

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 question of disposition of blogs, left behind by deceased blog owners, comes up in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , from time to time. As Blogger blogs - and similar Google products - become mature, and as more people who publish Blogger blogs become susceptible to old age and death, this problem will become more critical. As recently as 2010, in order to assume control (or request deletion) of such a blog, Blogger required only a faxed copy of the death certificate. In 2013, Google refined the recovery process, and added additional requirements for account recovery.

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're seeing a few reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from owners of blogs which publish in languages that don't use Roman characters, about problems publishing static pages in their blogs. Supposedly, with the affected blogs containing multiple static pages, the pages are all being published with the same URL.

We have recently seen a few reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , concerning the New GUI display, which is broken for some blog owners. When I login to Blogger, the interface doesn't display properly. Everything is shifted and some buttons appear to be missing. The reporting volume, mentioning this symptom, is low - but it's not random, or zero.

Today, I was advising the latest legacy Blogger account holdout. I got the email that says You are receiving this message because your email address is associated with an unmigrated legacy Blogger account. As we announced in April of last year, legacy accounts will no longer be accessible after May 30th, 2012 unless they are updated to the Google Account system. Any blog content associated with this account will also be unmodifiable after that date. Upon reporting this latest support need to Blogger, I was advised of the sad reality, by a Blogger Engineer. Legacy support has been deprecated. We have seen this coming, for a long time - and it has finally arrived.

Next to its immediate cousin error Another blog is already hosted at this address I don't know of too many more frustrating Blogger error states than seeing 403 Forbidden Most cases of "403 Forbidden", seen and discussed recently in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , have geographical affinity - and are typically transient - and apply to blogs published to "blogspot.com". Some cases of "403 Forbidden" however, will involve custom domain publishing , where the blog owner should - but most likely will not - see Another blog is already hosted at this address When publishing the blog to the domain.

For a few years, I have been making jokes about some Blogger blog owners, and their (perceived) need to keep a Classic (HTML based) template , on their blogs. Some blog owners continue to ask naive questions in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I let my readers view 'Older Posts'? or How do I add a Pages menu? or How do I use Following, with the "Follow" link recently removed from the navbar? Recently, in musing about some of the recent Blogger policy changes, such as the end to the Blogger FTP Publishing option , a formalised browser support policy, and the end of pre-Google (aka "legacy") Blogger accounts , I realised that one of the next changes, logically, would be a phasing out of support for HTML based templates. I think that this idea is probably long over due.

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see various queries about our blogs, and how to gain or regain control. How do I get a blog, which is attacking me (impersonating me, insulting me, publishing my secrets), removed from Blogger? How do I claim a dormant URL? How do I recover control of my blog? My blog is now under somebody else's control! How do I get my blog back? Any of these queries may be simply one more attempt to gain control of someone else's blog, or URL. As we gain experience in reading between the lines in Blogger Help Forum, and as Blogger Support gains experience in researching blog histories, we can start to see patterns, and signs of multiple attempts to assume control of the blog - or the URL - in question.

For over 2 months, we've been seeing reports from blog owners who published their blogs to custom domains, with domain DNS hosted by eNom , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I bought my domain name through Blogger,last week. It is being hosted by eNom. Ever since I bought it some of my followers, and sometimes myself, can't access my site. There is either a DNS search or a "Ooops, Google Chrome can't find..." I tried contacting eNom, and they said they can see my site and that all of my settings are correct. They say it must be Google's problem. The keyword here is "sometimes". Ever since I bought it some of my followers, and sometimes myself, can't access my site.

As custom domain publishing becomes simply one more feature to add to your Blogger blog, some blog owners decide that the domain that they are using, right now, is not to their liking. Fortunately, with a Blogger blog, the process of changing your domain to another is not complicated - hoping that you have the right tools, and make the right decisions. Buy (as required), and setup , a new domain URL. Publish the blog back to BlogSpot. Publish the blog to the new domain. All that considered, there is a fourth step which many blog owners manage to overlook - until long after they have completed the third.

To better explain the process of setting up a blog with a static home page, I have produced a new video demonstration (somewhat improved, from the attempt earlier today). This is experimental, so be kind. This is intentionally a silent video, because the recording process, used for displaying the screen, is very heavy on computer resources. Audio doesn't improve the experience. See the How To page, in the demo blog, first: My Static Home Page Demonstration Blog And now, the video: Nitecruzr Video: Setting Up A Blog With A Static Home Page >> Top

Since Blogger gave us The New Blogger GUI, in 2012, complaints about the New GUI have been numerous, and impassioned. One complaint, seen occasionally, mentions the date / time setting wizard, in the Post Editor "Post settings" Schedule. In the new blogger interface, it is very hard to backdate content. You have to use the calendar GUI, you can't just type a date it. I have content going back 13 years, do you know how hard it is to click the left-arrow on the calendar 144 times to get to the proper date??? It's a nightmare! This is one person who needs a more flexible date setting wizard, in The New GUI. In criticising the new date setting wizard, we need to understand the reasons for the design. I don't think that Blogger designed the new wizard, and removed the ability to just type the date, simply because they wanted the new wizard to look shiny.

We are seeing a small amount of blog owners who report that their blogs appear to be publishing new posts without individual URLs. The latest posts, when indexed in the Archive gadget, or in the post titles, simply link to the main page of the blog. Some reports mention that links in the "Edit Posts" / "Posts" menu also link to the main page, while other reports explicitly state that the links in "Edit Posts" / "Posts" are fine.

A few blog owners become confused over the various community building options offered for our blogs. We see the queries in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . How do I get a list of my Followers email addresses? and Why don't my email subscribers show up in my Followers gadget? and How do I know how many people subscribe to my feed? These questions all come from people who don't understand the differences between blog feed subscribers, email subscribers, and Followers.

As you pack up your personal belongings, and close down your various student activities related to your college / university life, you're probably spending some time creating various traces, to point to your new life, which is now starting. One such activity would involve filing various "change of address" notifications, for people / services who communicate with you through postal mail, addressed to the college postal address which you use. Similar to postal mail, you probably have a college email address, issued to you when you registered as a student. Hopefully by now, you have setup a non college email account, and are busy filling out change of address "notifications" for the many services which communicate with you through email. As you do this, you should think of your Blogger account, which owns your Blogger blogs.

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.

Many people have a yearly ritual, called "spring cleaning", where the entire house gets a complete cleaning, from top to bottom. When one does spring cleaning, one does not tear the house down, however - one only cleans what is there. Some blog owners seem to think that "spring cleaning" of a post starts with tearing the post down, as in deleting it and starting anew. We get an occasional query, from a perplexed blog owner, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . I rewrote a bunch of posts, and now all of the URLs have weird numbers at the end. How do I clean up the URLs? and the only way to clean up the URLs is to start over, and re publish the original posts, with the non suffixed URLs.