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Use A Blogger Blog As An OpenID Host

We see an occasional request, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, about commenting and the profile used when authenticated.
How do I have my comments linked directly to my blog? I don't want my comments linked to my profile, with people having to hunt for my blog links!
This person does not understand why we have Bogger / Google / Google+ profiles, linked from our comments.

Even if we can't provide direct links to our blogs, when commenting using a Blogger or Google account - we can do that, if we can comment, using an OpenID account. An OpenID account links directly to our designated blog - when we specify the right blog URL, while logged in using OpenID, to publish a comment.

Your Blogger blog will provide an OpenID account, just as well as a FaceBook or WordPress account will do, for any Blogger blog using Blogger hosted commenting. Blogs using third party commenting systems may, or may not, support OpenID.

Blogger has been providing, OpenID authentication, for comments, for some time.

Getting OpenID to work - to allow comments using a Blogger based OpenID "account", is not automatic, however. The OpenID V1 tags, which are part of the standard Blogger blog header, don't work. You'll need to replace them, with OpenID V2 - and you will need a Blogger account, with a Google / Google+ profile.

Here, as always, I'll advise you to backup the template - before and after tweaking it.

You'll add 3 lines of code. Copy and paste 3 lines (which may display here as up to 6 lines, wrapped), below.
<link href='https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud?source=profiles' rel='openid2.provider'/>
<link href='http://www.google.com/profiles/nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn' rel='openid2.local_id'/>
<link href='http://www.blogger.com/openid-server.g' rel='openid.server'/>


Access the dashboard Template wizard, and use "Edit HTML". At the top of the header section, look for the "all-head-content" tag.

Change
<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
To
<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>
<link href='https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud?source=profiles' rel='openid2.provider'/>
<link href='http://www.google.com/profiles/nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn' rel='openid2.local_id'/>
<link href='http://www.blogger.com/openid-server.g' rel='openid.server'/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
Then, replace
nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
with your Google or Google+ profile id. And hit "Save template".

The next time you are preparing to comment, on a blog that supports OpenID based comments, select OpenID, and provide the URL of your blog.

You will have to login, using your Blogger account with the right Google / Google+ profile, and accept the comment. Other than that, it's pretty straightforward.

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