The Real Blogger Status

Occasionally, we see signs of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Where is the "Deleted blogs" link? or How can I recover my blog, if there's no link on the dashboard?? These blog owners don't understand that "Deleted blogs" only appears, when there are deleted blogs that can be recovered.

The new Template HTML Editor has been with us for just under 2 weeks . Not every blog owner sees the new editor as an improvement. Some folks don't understand how to find the code sections, where they need to apply changes - and would probably be happier if "Expand All Widgets" were an option.

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

A few blog owners, eagerly opting to use the latest Blogger enhancement , Google+ Comments, are seeing some changes which they did not anticipate. Even after checking all of the settings, some blogs, with Google+ Comments enabled, may not show the comment form - or may show the form, but comments may not be visible. Besides the visibility of the form, there are other changes which some blog owners don't appreciate.

Some Blogger blog owners, trying to setup a new blog, discover the hard way that other people are trying to do the same thing. When I try to use "Create a blog", I keep seeing This name is not available. or Blogger is saying it's available - but as I begin to register, it says that it has already received a request for this name. Other blog owners discover that the competition between Blogger blog owners, when using " Create a blog ", also applies to "Buy a domain". And worse yet, "Buy a domain" involves competition with would be website owners outside Blogger / Google.

Today, Blogger announced the most innovative step in integrating Blogger and Google+, since sharing of Blogger posts to Google+. The December 2011 sharing option lets us publish our blog posts to Google+. Today, Blogger added the ability to do the same - and more - with our blog comments. Like basic Google+ post sharing, Google+ Comments will be shared, and be visible, on a Circle by Circle basis.

We see occasional evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from blog owners who are using a dynamic template. Why does the Jump Break not show up, in the blog display? or Why can't I see the entire post? Not all blog owners understand the limited options , in the dynamic templates.

We see the occasional optimistic suggestion in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from blog owners tired of the referer spam, in their Stats logs . Why can't we just tell them which Stats entries are spam? This is, admittedly, such a simple suggestion - it surely must present part of the final solution. If one considers the purposes behind referer spam, one can see a problem with having individual blog owners designate specific pageview entries, in their Stats logs, as referer spam.

I installed the Google auto translator - using a custom front end, which I helped develop - on this blog, 5 years ago . I installed it originally because of the February 2008 Kaspersky problem with Blogger blogs - and hastily, because of the magnitude of the problem. I knew, at the time, that the Google auto translator was not 100% accurate. No auto translator will ever be 100% accurate. Every language in the world is always developing, as society and technology develops. There will always be nuances in every language, which are not yet detected by any one person - or by any one computer. That said, I think that it's obvious to many people, that auto translation is a legitimate feature on the Internet.

Some blog owners are never quite sure how to manage all characteristics of the Pages, in their blog. From time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see evidence of the confusion. How do I hide the Home tab? or I can't rename my pages! Some blog owners may know of one Pages management wizard, but not another. To the untrained eye, it may all seem like one big magic show.

Not all blog owners appreciate the differences between using the various template wizards, and what they will actually see, once the blog is published. The confusion about the various template wizards, and what is actually seen, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , is numerous. Why aren't my changes to the template being saved? This question is expressed in a number of ways - and has a number of causes.

As custom domain publishing becomes more popular with Blogger blog owners, it's inevitable that people outside the USA would start using it, routinely. Questions about payment options are seen regularly, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How much does a domain cost? This used to have a simple answer . $10 US, charged against a major bank issued credit card. With the internationalisation of Blogger, the answer becomes significantly more complex.

One of the more confusing features of the Blogger Template "Edit HTML" wizard , used to be the option to Expand Widget Templates With the new "Edit HTML" wizard , that option is not needed. Given the choice to "Expand Widget Templates", the typical blog owner was frequently caught between a rock, and a hard place, when editing gadgets. Don't use the option - and the gadget code section, which was to be edited, remained concealed. Use the option - and all gadget code sections were expanded, revealing all gadget code. This frequently left the owner with either no information - or too much information, from which to work. Broken templates, caused by improper template HTML edits, were common.

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

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

We see evidence of confusion, from time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I move an established blog to WordPress (or any other platform), while retaining the history, reader interest, search engine reputation? Some blog owners think blog readers are cattle (to be herded from blog to blog) - or monkeys (to be attracted by shiny things). We've known for some time, that Blogger blogs cannot be used as gateways, with traffic automatically redirected from one blog to another - or from a blog to a non Google website . Use of traffic redirection scripts is a known cause of blogs classified as malware hosts .

Sometimes, you have to step outside the box, to complete a Blogger blog task. The task of adding domain ownership verification, to a custom domain purchased using "Buy a domain", is one example of stepping outside the box. I advise people that tweaking DNS settings, in general, is a task best undertaken by someone with "Advanced" experience with Blogger custom domain publishing. Unfortunately, domains purchased using "Buy a domain" are occasionally subject to incomplete setup - and correction of an incomplete setup involves republishing the domain . And republishing the domain requires verification of domain ownership .

Blogger blog owners, who are accustomed to recovering deleted files on a personal computer, will find Blogger Comments to lack useful protection. If you accidentally delete a file on your personal computer, no worry - just look in the Trash Can, find the file in question, and recover the file. Just do this before you empty the Trash Can. Comments, published on our blogs, cannot be recovered once deleted. I deleted a comment - but now realise that I acted in haste. How do I recover the comment that I deleted? To this person, there is no useful answer.

I constantly advise Blogger blog owners to avoid forwarding, when setting up custom domain publishing . In the rare cases where forwarding is actually required , not every blog owner reports success. My blog now displays a non Google search page! or worse My blog now displays 404 Not Found What did I do wrong?? Depending upon what setup work was done by the blog / domain owner, and what effort is required by the registrar, one may expect to see, quite predictably, either of the above errors.

I constantly advise Blogger blog owners to avoid forwarding, when setting up custom domain publishing . In the rare cases where forwarding is actually required , not every blog owner reports success. My blog now displays a non Google search page! or worse My blog now displays 404 Not Found What did I do wrong?? Depending upon what setup work was done by the blog / domain owner, and what effort is required by the registrar, one may expect to see, quite predictably, either of the above errors.