The Real Blogger Status

We see the frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , almost daily. My blog has disappeared from my dashboard, and my subscribers are getting spam! How do I get my blog returned to me? and I got a new computer, and now I can't access my blog. Who can I call at Google, to get this fixed?? These are two blog owners who have the same problem, but do not understand the connection.

Along with consistently using Jump Break, properly sizing and wording of important post sections can make the blog pages neater, and easier to read. You see my opening paragraph, above. Sizing and wording of important post sections, such as the opening paragraph, helps make the main page layout more consistent - and gives a slightly more professional look to the blog. And, a cleaner and more consistent page layout, to complement a carefully structured blog , encourages readers to read more of the blog.

Free "Domains" may be worth exactly what you pay. A "free domains" registrar won't be a charity - nor are registrars, in general, non profit organisations. There will be differences - between a "free domain" - and a properly purchased domain, from a full service, reliable registrar. Features cost money - and even "free domains" have to be paid for. Google " free domains for blogs ", and see what you get. What they offer may not be what you need, for Blogger custom domain publishing.

Too many blog owners continue to trust their efforts to Page / Post Editor, over long periods of time, without backup. We see the agony, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , too often. How do I get my post back? I have been working on it for months. I accidentally cleared the screen - and seconds later, the empty post was saved by post editor! Help meeee!! This blog owner is now in for some bad news.

Every domain, to be visible to the world - has to be visible to the root name servers . Your registrar adds your domain to their servers - then sets up a series of linkages, between the root name servers, and their own name servers. Your job, as the domain purchaser, is to connect the registrar name servers, and the Google servers .

Not all blog owners are willing to accept their blog being accessed behind a reader applied Content Warning. We see occasional signs of lack of understanding, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why is my blog blocked, by Google? It is a legitimate blog, with a serious subject!! This blog owner considers the needs of his blog above the general Blogger reader population. For best results, the desire to display, without the warning, needs to be accompanied by a willingness to remove content, when necessary. Right now, the readers have spoken .

We see frequent evidence of confusion, about abuse classification etiquette , in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . My blog was deleted, as spam - but I received no notice or warning! How could Blogger do such a thing? This indignation may be provided, in the hopes that Blogger would relent. Sorry, here's your blog! But such reaction is seldom seen - and when seen, is not a result of attitude, but of content.

We see occasional evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about reading newsfeed content. I click on the link at the bottom of the page, and I get a screen full of gibberish. When we check the problem report, and verify browser involved, it will almost always be for users of the Chrome browser .

Blogger is rewriting the Followers gadget, and removing some lesser used features. One of the features seeing some change is Followers Authentication and Profiles. Long ago, I wrote about Community Accounts , and later about Community Profiles - both features letting you (or someone Following you) provide a blog to Follow and / or Follow other blogs. At the time, Following (aka Google Friend Connect) was part of a complex network of different Followers services - with some Google users, and others non Google users. The ability to use non Google services, to Follow Blogger blogs, made a Blogger blog accessible to more people.

Adding a FaceBook developed gadget is - or should be - just like adding any HTML / JavaScript gadget . Sometime, though, adding a FaceBook gadget just does not produce hoped for results. We see the problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . The gadget is blank! or The gadget does not update anything! The problems will typically involve gadget code - and the FaceBook Debugger wizard is unlikely to provide any help.

We see occasional evidence still of confusion about blog ownership, and dashboard access, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can find my blogs on my profile page, and by Googling them - but I can't update them, post in them or access them in any way - even though the system says I'm logged in. This blog owner is logged in to the wrong account - but has no way to recover, because the blog is offline.

Last week, Blogger Engineering announced their latest feature, "Featured Post" . Whether you’d like to re-share that delicious holiday recipe from a few years back, spotlight a can’t-miss promotion you’re running, or just revive something quirky from the archives, the Featured Post gadget is a simple way to show off the content that matters most. This is a quick and easy way to highlight a specific post in your blog, that will be enjoyable or useful for your readers. I hope to use mine to provide useful advice, as "Read, and Learn" - once the Followers gadget has been updated , and is fully operational.

In a separate project, I was updating this blog - and in previewing my changes, I observed the familiar demur We're sorry. This gadget is configured incorrectly. ... In the sidebar, underneath "Follow Me". That sight made me wonder if the Followers gadget, when viewed in the live blog, would again work properly - when recently, I had begun wondering if the gadget would ever work, again . And, when I investigated, I found my musings were correct.

Country specific domains were launched by Blogger almost 3 years ago . Even this month, we see people with doubts about their benefits. Is using a script, to prevent blogger country redirection, a violation of Blogger or Google TOS? And the proposed script is the same one that is being used by spammers, to abuse the Blogger service .

We have a number of problem reports, from various blog owners and readers, about email from Blogger, posted daily in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Some email, from different Blogger features and services, simply is not being delivered. The normal advice given is for the person reporting the problem to look in the "Bulk" / "Spam" folders, in the email client. Not all non delivered email is dropped into "Bulk" / "Spam". Some email is simply "bounced" - ie, returned to the sender. Since most Blogger email is sent from a "no-reply" email address (ie, "no-reply@blogger.com"), bounced email vanishes - and nothing is done to analyse its non delivery.

Last week, Blogger turned off their workaround from June 2015 , that was allowing Windows Live Writer, and other third party editors and auxiliary Blogger services, to access Blogger. All week, we saw various reports of problems, reminiscent of the problems that we saw in June 2015, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Yesterday, Blogger Engineering provided a status announcement . We would like to let all users of Windows Live Writer know that Microsoft has made the application open source and it’s now a different application called Open Live Writer ( you will need to download it here ). A few months ago, the Windows Live Writer and Blogger integration stopped working for a few days due to improvements in Google’s authentication systems. We agreed to keep the old authentication systems for a few more months but starting December 11th, they will be retired and Windows Live Writer will stop working. The Open Live Writer team is now working on making OLW use ClientLogin a...

We've been exploring bogus redirection of reader traffic , for a few years. Similar to dubious awards and web rings , we have "traffic exchanges". Traffic exchanges are similar to "affiliate marketing", where readers of one blog are randomly shuffled to another blog , then to another - all the while, lighting up ads on each blog.

We see many complaints, worded in various ways, about "missing" blogs, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . My blog is not on my dashboard! or I logged in this morning, and I see Create your blog now You are not an author on any blogs yet ... Help! There are many reasons for these reports - and not all may be what they seem . The causes of "missing" blogs vary widely, from blogs deleted by Blogger (or the owner) to blogs owned under another account (the claimant or a third party). Chances for recovery may vary, similarly.

Some blog owners are very anxious to have their blogs accessible, using SSL protocol. We see the occasional impassioned query, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . I added JavaScript code in my blog, to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS, since I want my users to view the blog in HTTPS. I am concerned about indexing and Webmaster Tools. How do I move from HTTP to HTTPS? I would like my posts to be indexed, using HTTPS.

We see an occasional question about search indexing, and visitor activity, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I find out what search queries are used, to bring my new readers, to my blog? This owner is thinking about how to get more traffic - the right way. You can use the Stats - Traffic sources dashboard page, and examine the top 10 Search Keywords, used to find your blog. Depending upon how large and popular your blog is - and what browser your readers use - you may or may not find out as much as you would think, however.

We see the occasional hopeful yet naive request, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about a common mistake. I deleted my post, that I've been working on, for a week. How do I get it back? Here, the blog owner is asking about a feature that has been requested, several times. If you delete your blog, you can recover it - within 90 days, using the same Blogger account . There are no "do overs" for a deleted page or post, however.

Last week, Google turned off the long deprecated Google Feed API . Among many Blogger features that were affected , were 4 identified gadgets. Feed Newsreel Slideshow Video Bar Several days after the API was turned off, Google realised their mistake, and turned it back on again. The Newsreel gadget, unfortunately, remains out of service - and we have seen many reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue .

Every time I carry this computer with me, and login to Blogger or Google from another location - and get the repeated demand that I Insert my USB key, and touch the button. I growl just a bit. Then, I consider what using Google 2-Step Verification means, to me. Many blog owners become unhappy, when they use Blogger. I tried using Blogger from my friends computer - and I have to tell them when I setup my Blogger account! or I need to recover control of my blog - and even though I supplied the right phone, and got the recovery email message, I have to check off which Google services I have used, in the last month!! WTF?? These are simply people who do not use Google 2-Step Verification - and have to prove their identity, in a different way.

Some blog owners, filing a complaint against another blog owner, don't understand the delays involved, in a DMCA Violation. I have just recently filed a DMCA notice on this blog for copyright infringement of my blog. So far nothing has been done except receiving an automatic reply from Google. When will the other blog be taken down? This blog owner does not understand that not all legal actions can be executed immediately - and some, never.

Last month, Blogger launched an improved Page / Post Editor image uploader - Image Drag and Drop . Today, we are happy to announce that users will be able to drag and drop images directly into posts drafts. In the past, users had to click on “Insert image” to upload the file from the posts drafts. However, with the new drag and drop feature, users will have an easier way to add pictures into post drafts. Like many Blogger major improvements, this one comes with challenges.

Google makes changes to their software environment, constantly. This week, they deprecated the Google Feed API . Unfortunately, many Blogger gadgets require that feature to display feed content, on our blogs. This week, numerous reports about broken feeds, in various gadgets, are being seen, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . The broken feeds are a direct result of the deprecated API.

When you have a Google+ profile, and you use it with your Blogger blog, it replaces your Blogger profile - and becomes the public part of your Blogger identity. Google+ displays your profile more transparently than Blogger displays your Blogger profile . Your Google+ profile is clearly and consistently linked to your Google+ comments and posts, for your readers to view - and it's part of the Google+ desktop, for you to view and to edit. And Google+ lets you display or hide sensitive portions of your profile, with more options than Blogger provides. As a Blogger blog owner, you can probably find your Google+ profile , as attached to your Blogger dashboard. All that aside, Google+ is not completely obvious, in letting you view and edit all profile content. One of the challenges of Google+, and showing and editing your profile, is that Google+ is being updated, right now - and there are now two Google+ desktops.

We see the occasional query, about name changes, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . I just got married, and now I have a new email address, and a new name. How do I change my Blogger identity? And the usual advice was You can change youe email address, and / or change the display name (not the account name) - and you can transfer control of the blog to a new Blogger account, which bears your new name. But old posts will remain, with your old name. And there, we would have one more disappointed blog owner. But that does not have to be the final answer.

Occasionally, we have a would be blog owner, becoming confused about blog access, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can look at the dashboard Posts page - but there are no posts listed. or I can't access the Template Designer (edit the template, add users to the blog, ... ). or maybe Why is Settings so small? These are bloggers who are confused over a blog where they are an Author , or have no access - as opposed to a blog where they are an Administrator . Along with knowing how to identify yourself , knowing what access you have to a given blog can be a key detail, when you are dealing with identity confusion - such as inadvertently created duplicate accounts , or possibly duplicated blogs .

Sometimes, you have to start over. If you edit your post too enthusiastically - or if you switch between Compose and HTML modes too much, while editing - you can corrupt the formatting. You can cause a cornucopia of symptoms, from messed up index pages, with dropped sidebars , to unreadable posts (and yes, pages). Even the old trick of doing nothing but toggling between Compose and HTML modes may not work, every time.

Several owners of large blogs (500 posts and up) are reporting problems with indexing, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I have over 2500 posts, in my blog. Each sitemap page, which should contain 500 posts, shows only 150 posts. This reduces my indexed posts tremendously! This blog owner did nothing to cause this problem. Upon investigation, we have discovered that both blogs using the classic feed based sitemap , and the current automatically generated sitemap , are missing sitemap contents, equally.

One of the more intriguing questions, seen occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , is about blog accessories, and template antiquity. I feel the customization with HTML templates is a lot more unique - but I wanted a certain gadget, on my blog. I upgraded my template in order to add the gadget, and copy its coding. After reverting back to the Classic template, I placed the gadget into my HTML. How do I get the gadget to work? This blog owner does not understand the differences between HTML and XML.

Some blog owners - weary of the restrictions, and lack of options and features, decide that WordPress is not part of their future - and are moving to Blogger. An important part of changing from WordPress to Blogger publishing is the process of moving the existing blog content. You can import WordPress content into a new Blogger blog - or use an existing Blogger blog. If you are migrating a WordPress domain to Blogger , you'll want to transfer the content, first.

We see cautious blog owners, asking that question periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . Many home based, and small, businesses use Blogger blogs for selling various goods and services. Apparently, you're permitted to sell stuff, using your blog. That said, there are some common sense rules which you should consider, before you setup a blog to sell stuff.

Blog owners use many techniques for getting new readers - and for keeping existing readers happy. Some blog owners use techniques which work inconsistently, because they are not designed to work the way they are being used. Some blog owners becomes concerned when their blogs, listed in blogrolls on other peoples blogs, don't seem to be updated as regularly as they would expect. Blogrolls are good tools for getting new readers, in a casual manner. They may not be as good, for predictable, scheduled visitor activity.

Most of us who compose pages and posts in HTML mode are accustomed to the annoyance of the (Page / Post) Editor HTML syntax checker. Proper HTML syntax depends upon correctly paired HTML tags. You enter an opening tag, without a closing tag - and within seconds, the syntax checker pops up and alerts you to your mistake. You then enter a closing tag, and all is well. This might be a normal event, when formatting the page / post title . Until this week, the syntax checker gave us a brief one or two line advice, at the top of the page. Now, we see a full screen page of random text - and in some cases, no way to continue. The error message fills the screen, and we can't see the editor window - so we can't finish what we were doing.

Some blog owners, complaining of unfair spam classification, are still not considering the need for original, quality content. I have not broken any Blogger rules. Why was my blog deleted, as a spam host? Copied content, legal or not, is not quality content. Blogger blogs need original content, that's informative and interesting.

Occasionally, someone reports a problem with disappearing blog content, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . My posts disappeared, right after I changed my email address! This blog owner does not realise the problems caused by changing ones email address (but not the account name ), without thinking.

Your Blogger profile is the public part of your Blogger identity , that can be seen by others. You will want your profile to provide the best representation of you - but do not display too many details. Revealing account names and email addresses , for instance, can put your blogs at risk of theft.

Not all blog owners appreciate the effort by Blogger, to make anonymous comments a usable feature, in our blogs. Anonymous comments have a complicated form - and people don't want to comment. They have to select certain pictures, related to a subject. When using a mobile template, they don't see all the buttons needed - and there are many steps until you finally publish a comment. Could is be simpler? With no checking pictures, with just typing few numbers, or without any security question at all? This blog owner would prefer Blogger commenting, before 2015, when anonymous comments meant unending waves of spam.

If you like to multi task when using Blogger, you probably keep a few windows and tabs open, in the browser. If you have lots of tasks running simultaneously, and you try to Share to Google+ from the dashboard Posts page, you may click on the "Share" link, the "Share on Google+" window pops up, you watch the window load - and just as the window is almost complete, it vanishes.

Sometimes, in the progress of integrating a FaceBook Wall with our blog , we may face a problem which involves FaceBook Open Graph code . FaceBook error displays can be as mysterious as Blogger error displays . But, there is hope - provided by FaceBook Developers.

Repentant spammers are not frequently seen, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . When a truly repentant spammer reports a problem, it is difficult to know how to treat one appropriately. They are so rare, we have little experience. This is totally unfair. Actually, life is totally unfair.

We see questions of naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about blog ownership recovery. I accidentally deleted my administrative access. How do I get my access back? There is only one legal answer. Have another administrator restore your access. But this story does not end well. The other administrator is on long term vacation! I really need to have my access back!! There is no easy answer here .

Periodically, we see complaints about "Next Blog" content, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . When I click on the "Next Blog" link, I get sent to blogs from many, many different languages. Can I set this to send me to primarily blogs published in English? or "Next Blog" sends me to blogs about "xxxxxxx". My blog is about "yyyyyyy". Why can't I get more blogs about "yyyyyyy"? What these blog owners do not understand is that using "Next Blog" involves compromise.

Recently, in advising a blog owner of a (probably) unrelated problem, I discovered an unknown (to me) option, in both page and post editor. Pages and posts can apparently use bold and italic characters, in titles. This interesting option does not work transparently, however.

We see daily reports, in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / Host Partners , about blogs with blank or empty ads. My AdSense was approved weeks ago! Why no ads, on my blog, even now?? The owners are certain that their blogs are mature and righteous - and that they received final approval for ad content. Looking at the blog - when the blog name is provided - we see one unfortunate detail, in many blogs. Blogs published to dynamic templates.

We see new blog owners ask the obvious question, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I help people Follow my blog? There are several tools for community building , or Following - and different people will make different choices, which to use. The choices depend upon the community that any blog serves - and the purposes for following .

Some blog owners, needing to take large amounts of post content offline, unsuccessfully try to use the Posts menu to "Revert to draft" posts, in quantity. Selecting all posts displayed, they click on "Revert to draft", and are given the bad news. You cannot modify more than 50 entries at once. This is annoying - but does not have to be terminal, to whatever project was underway.

One of the most versatile ways to improve your blog is by adding CSS rules. CSS stands for " Cascading Style Sheet ". The term "style sheet" refers to the template sections which contain style rules, which affect the appearance of the blog. The term "cascading" refers to how you manage the rules. With CSS, you have no need to edit existing style rules, to make a change. If you define your rules properly, you make higher level rules specific enough so they cascade over lower level rules .

I've been seeing the Pinterest "Pin It" hover icons, in various blogs, for a few weeks. Today I decided to try adding an icon to this blog. I spent more time reading the instructions, then installing the icon.

Google Domains describes their view of the domain transfer process, in Google Domains Help: Transfer a domain out . The transfer process supports different transfers. From a person with an account at one registrar, to another account at that same registrar. From a person with an account at one registrar, to an account at a different registrar. From one person, to a different person, at that same registrar. From one person, to a different person, at a different registrar. As a project, I found it best to define, size, and assign the complete transfer process in 6 tasks. The project can be adjusted for a domain served by any sending registrar - and targeting any receiving registrar - based upon formalities required by each registrar.

Last month, we observed that SSL, though generally available for blogs published to "blogspot.com", did not work for all such blogs . Owners of blogs who used the "www" alias of "blogspot.com", such as my BlogSpot mirror blog " https://blogger-status-for-real.blogspot.com/ ", reported annoying error messages, when trying to access the "www" alias of the blog, using SSL. Your connection is not private For my BlogSpot mirror blog, you'll see the problem, when viewing " https://www.blogger-status-for-real.blogspot.com/ ". The problem apparently involves the SSL certificate for "blogspot.com", which does not include the "www" aliase for the subdomains (such as "blogger-status-for-real.blogspot.com").

For blog owners who have forgotten the Blogger account name or the password, the "Forgot your username or password?" wizard is an essential tool. You can try to recover account or blog control, by using either a BlogSpot URL or an email address. Both options work only under specific circumstances. Both options are blind recoveries. You enter a blog name or email address, with no assurance that what you enter will lead to a blog. Only when you enter a valid blog name or email address will you receive a recovery email.

We've had the Google CookieChoices banner in our blogs - thanks to the European Union cookie privacy issue - since April 2015. Not all blog owners - even those in Europe, where its presence may be required by law - appreciate what Google provided for us. The banner clutters up many templates, making our blogs more busy looking. In some cases, it may hide - or be hidden by - important blog components. There are several ways of customising the banner, to make it more acceptable - that are not too difficult to use.

If you have a malicious or misbehaving gadget in your blog, one of the easiest blog cleanups is removal of a malicious HTML gadget . Unfortunately, this does not work, for every gadget on every blog. Depending upon how a gadget is installed, malicious code may, or may not, be visible - and if visible, may, or may not, be easily removable.

Long ago, Google provided Google BlogSearch, as one a way of surfing the blogosphere . One of the challenges of using BlogSearch was that we were never sure what we were surfing. Some people wanted to see only "blogspot.com" published Blogger blogs - and other people wanted to see all Blogger blogs, including those not published to "blogspot.com". Some ingenious blog owners published "Blogger blogs" of doubtful integrity, simply using the URL of "blogspot.com" - and people accepted such blogs as righteous, simply because Blog Search would list them in a search page.

A few folks have asked me about my social media toolbar, that I added a couple months ago. It took very little work, to develop and install this gadget. I just went to the AddThis website , registered, selected the options, and got the code. Then, I added one more HTML gadget, to my blogs.

Sometimes, blog owners need complicated and conflicting feed setups, for multiple uses. One blog owner asks I want a email blog posts feed, using snippets of the posts, so my email subscribers will click on the snippets and read the blog itself. I would prefer that newsfeed readers have the option to read the entire post, in their readers. At first glance, this is an impossible request. FeedBurner can't do two things, with one feed. Fortunately, FeedBurner, like most Google services, is free - and there's no limit to the number of feeds that you can make.

Blog owners ask about Followers activity, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can't Follow my Followers! They appear to be referring to the Followers gadget, which is currently useless for surfing.

We see the potential for self induced stress, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , every week. How do I publish a blog, without identifying myself? Then later I forgot my account name / password, and I am not getting any email from "Forgot?"! These are two hypothetical problem reports, that are all too real, for many blog owners.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Some blog owners keep reporting problems with comment replies never posting to their blog - or being received by the comment publisher - in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . When I reply to blog comments through GMail, the reply doesn't show up on my blog. or My readers never get my replies, to their comments! This blog owner is trying to use a feature that should exist - but simply is not available.

Many blog owners rely upon FeedBurner, for publicising blog updates . Feed delivery in general - and FeedBurner feed delivery in particular - are all subject to problems. FeedBurner provides the "TroubleShootize" tab, with common sense diagnostics.

Blog owners periodically ask about publicising their blogs, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why do my comments point to my profile - and not directly to my blog? This blog owner just wants to drive traffic straight to the blog.

One interesting question, that we see from time to time in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , is about owner activity and "dormant" blogs. Many people would like to publish to an inactive Blogger address - but Blogger supports the current owner right to anonymity and privacy - and to keep their blog, until they want to give it up . One of the challenges, in this case, may be identifying dormant blogs.

Blog owners occasionally delete blog content, and later change their mind. How do I recover a post, after I deleted it from my blog? Sometimes, knowing the URL - or at least the title - of a post, we can retrieve the post from the Blogger database . In other cases, it may be possible to retrieve post content from a cached newsfeed . Some blog owners like to construct a blog using static pages - and this presents a bit more of a challenge, when a static page is deleted.

People ask, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about problems with post formatting. Why don't all of my posts allow comments? or Why are my posts a mess of code, in one huge paragraph? Both of these problems can involve post editor Options settings - and in many cases, Options settings from a previous post.

We see an occasional query about Followers, and the ever varying Followers count in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why is my Followers count always going up, then down? Even when I see new Followers, the count is lower today, than yesterday! This blog owner does not know about churn, and reciprocal Following.

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , we see a blog owner who wishes to use static pages for blog content - and wants the blog visible, in search hit lists. I set up search gadgets for my blog - but have noticed that the search only seems to work with posts. How do I make my pages searchable? The blog owner does not understand the original reason for having static pages . Many blog owners use static pages for content viewable by visitors - but intentionally not indexed, by search engines.

Every day, we see a complaint, problem report, or suggestion about making Blogger better, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . If you want direct communication (one way) with the Blogger Developers, Blogger Support has suggested that we use "Report a problem".

A blog, published to a custom domain, is like magic. It involves smoke and mirrors - and a bit of redirection . And, it helps to follow directions.

In order to make the Pages gadget "Pages to show" useful, you need to add one or more static pages. Without entries under "Pages to show", you've nothing to do but add dynamic pages , using "Add external link". There is one way to access Page Editor - though several ways to access Post Editor . You use the Page Editor, to publish static pages - which then are listed under "Pages to show", in " Configure Page List ".

One of the most intriguing subjects, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , is about account access - and the dashboard menu. My menu only gives me Posts, and Settings! How do I manage my blog? This blog member (owner?) may be simply logged in to the wrong Google account.

Some blog owners are not going to be able to provide SSL access to their blogs - even with SSL enabled . Blog owners who prefer to use the "www" alias of "blogspot.com" - and who have chosen to enable SSL access for their blogs - report "Invalid Certificate" errors, when trying to access. And other blog owners report problems, when they have photos, hosted by Google and Picasa, using "http:".

Every month in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we see another blog owner, trying to import and publish. Why is it taking so dang long? I started yesterday - it's just spinning, and getting nowhere! This blog owner is not having a good time, importing posts.

Occasionally, we see the question My domain is expiring soon. Will the blog be visible, after the domain expires? And this answer is not so obvious. If the blog remains "published" to the domain, the blog will redirect to a dead domain. Your readers may see a screen full of ads - or they may see Site not found. What they see will depend upon ISP / registrar policy.

Some blog owners like Blogger One Button Publishing - but they don't like the restrictions . Possibly observing the chaotic freedom of WordPress self hosted blogs, they wonder if custom domain publishing provides the same freedom. If I pay for my domain, can I host porn with ads? Unfortunately, custom domain publishing, unlike WordPress self hosted blogs, still uses the Blogger dashboard - and still publishes content which is accessible using "blogspot.com".

Some blog owners, who publish their blogs using a dynamic template, prefer the "Magazine" view. A few owners observe that there's a problem with the "Read More" function, in the "Magazine" post summary display. How do I let my readers know that there's more to read? There's no caption to indicate "Read more ..."! This is an odd omission, too. With Dynamic Templates involving 7 different views, though, it's not difficult to imagine 1 or 2 details dropping through the cracks - and we are here.

This question comes up, almost daily, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger - and continues into AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / YouTube How do I activate AdSense, on my blog? The activation process does not require a lot of additional work, by the blog owner - but it does require a mature, well written blog - and some patience. And you do need to understand the rules of AdSense accounts .

Blog guests and owners who wish to use OpenID, for posting comments, may need to logout from Blogger, before commenting. It appears that when commenting, someone logged in to Blogger or Google will use the Blogger / Google account for authentication, automatically - instead of an OpenID account - even when preferring to use OpenID, and the blog permits use of OpenID.

One challenging question, that we see from time to time in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , is about one of the neatest Blogger social networking features, Following. How do I find blogs to Follow? And that is a simple question, with not such a simple answer. What came first - the chicken, or the egg?

Some blog owners use Blogger, as a lightweight website platform. A normal Blogger blog consists of posts, which are published as dynamic pages. Static pages, used in a normal blog, are extra content - that's typically hidden from direct view, and intentionally not indexed by the search engines . A website, on the other hand, will typically use static pages as content. Static pages, by default, are not used as blog content.

Today, Blogger / Google made a major announcement which has been coming, for a long time. Today we're expanding on the HTTPS Everywhere mission and beginning an initial rollout of HTTPS support for Blogspot. HTTPS is a cornerstone of internet security as it provides several important benefits: it makes it harder for bad actors to steal information or track the activities of blog authors and visitors, it helps check that visitors open the correct website and aren’t being redirected to a malicious location, and it helps detect if a bad actor tries to change any data sent from Blogger to a blog visitor. SSL access to Blogger blogs has been requested, by many blog owners, for years. The initial offer, which will roll out gradually, will only affect BlogSpot published blogs. It will be voluntary, to give blog owners a chance to upgrade the various accessories and applications.

Almost 2 years ago, motion picture actor Paul Walker and Roger Rojas decided to joyride, take a spin , in suburban Los Angeles California. What followed was $500,000 + destruction, at speed exceeding twice the posted 45 MPH. Driven in an industrial / office complex , the street legal race car - his buddy Roger at the wheel - left the road, and wrapped itself around a tree. It takes money to own, and to race, a super car - like a Porsche Carrera GT, that took Paul's life. It takes no money, however, to own a super web application - like a Blogger blog.

Too frequently, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we try to advise blog recovery for a legitimate blog, unrighteously deleted by Blogger. Occasionally, when advised to Find a dashboard link labeled "Deleted blogs" / "Locked blogs". then Having found the link, you submit a Review request. The response is There is no dashboard link, referencing 'deleted blogs / locked blogs'. There are several causes of this condition - but there is only one real solution. The (would be) owner has to login with the right Blogger account , and find the necessary "Deleted" / "Locked" blogs section, of "My blogs".

Recently, Google publicised advice about a new type of abuse that may be reportable, when present in a Blogger blog. Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web. But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women. So going forward, we’ll honor requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without their consent from Google Search results. This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal requests for other highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may surface in our search results. Supposedly, "revenge porn" mitigation is limited to removal from Google Search. In one forum discussion , however, the new classification appears to have successfully resulted in an offensive blog being removed from Blogger.

We see an occasional would be blog member, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , bemoaning lack of private blog access . I used to follow a certain blogger - but found out, recently, that now his blog is blocked & only open to invited readers. I do not know the author and would like an invite. How do I contact the author? Lack of access to the fancy clubs and parties, in any city, is a disappointment to many - except the lucky members of the "AAA" list. Private blogs have the same exclusivity. Life is not fair.

An occasional blog owner reports frustration with various "Advanced" Template Designer wizards, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I have entered my new colour palette under "template>advanced>" - and the colours will not show up on the blog. I even checked that the colour values were right under "Edit HTML". This blog owner wants different background colours, than are provided as defaults - and does not understand why the wizards, that advise Template applied. simply don't work.

Every week, we get some hopeful blog owner, with more than half a dozen blogs, naively asks, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger How do I sort the dashboard blog list? And there is no answer, other than You can't. This is one feature that Blogger just won't provide.

We occasionally see a confused content thief / spammer, unsure why the blog was deleted. I removed all of the content that I was told to remove. Why was my blog deleted? or Why was my blog restored, then deleted the following week? Some blog owners do not understand the consequences of repeated review. The more times your blog is reviewed, the more completely and carefully the content will be examined .

The "Blog Archive" gadget is used, by some blog owners, to provide a date sequenced post index . Some blog owners, with smaller blogs, would like their readers to index their blogs by post title - but without the date being involved. They would like a straight alphabetically ordered list of post titles. Blogger does not have a "Title Index" gadget. It's not hard to make one, however, for smaller blogs.

Some spammers do not appreciate the subtle details of the Blogger anti-spam policies . Spam: Spam takes several forms in Blogger, all of which can result in deletion of your account or blog. Some examples include creating blogs designed to drive traffic to your site or to move it up in search listings, posting comments on other people's blogs just to promote your site or product, and scraping existing content from other sources for the primary purpose of generating revenue or other personal gains.

Blogger recently expanded a key feature in their infrastructure - country local domain redirection . Like all Blogger features, every time they expand the scope of aliasing, they cause problems. Some of the problems that were caused by the recent expansion of country local domain redirection - where they added over 2 dozen countries , in one project - are damaging vulnerable Blogger blogs. Incidental damage to any blogs, however, should not justify stopping - or impeding - the implementation of redirections, on a worldwide basis.

Not every blog owner, who likes the dynamic templates, likes the docked sidebar - which pops out, only with the cursor properly positioned. How do I get the sidebar to remain visible? Nobody knows where it is, with it hidden! This blog owner is ignoring the need to use all horizontal screen space, effectively, when viewing the blog in some dynamic views. However, if you really want the sidebar to always be visible, it's easy enough to make it do that.

We're seeing a few blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , reporting new custom domains that don't work - or that worked for a while, then stopped working. Domains purchased through Google Domains, and other registrars, need ownership email verification. When you buy a domain, you get various email messages - from your registrar, and your bank, for instance. Some, you file without opening.

One useful alternative to the "Archives" gadget , when you want to help your readers index your blog by Title, is a LinkList. You can make a LinkList in 5 minutes - and you can add a new entry, when you publish a post, in 10 seconds - and index your blog by Post Title. Just don't confuse the terms "linklist" and "list", when you add a Title index.

We see evidence of naivete, about responsibilities of Blogger custom domain publishing, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why does Google not support the blog owners properly, with a telephone number to call, so they can fix domain publishing problems? Some blog owners don't understand the concept of third party products, and Blogger. Just as your Blogger (and Google) account is your own property , so is your domain manager account.

We've been using FeedBurner Email Distribution for years, to provide a turnkey email based publication distribution . With any email distribution system, the most essential function, in list management, is to add and remove subscriber entries. FeedBurner gives you that ability - if you look, carefully.

My Blogger account, and my blogs, are my property. Your Blogger account, and blogs, are your property. This is a concept that not everybody seems to understand. Just as you cannot login to my account, I cannot login to your account - nor can Blogger Support or Google Security login to your account. If you have a problem with your account, we will do our best to advise you how to resolve your problem - if at all possible. You have to do the work, though.

Having spent time during July 2015, setting up the EU Cookie Notice Banner - and more time during August 2015, verifying operation of the banner , some blog owners are curious about banner regulation. Would the cookie notice have to be visible to the visitor as soon as they click onto the blog? or Since I don't live in Europe, should I care about the notice? Both are valid concerns, from blog owners who don't blindly follow the leader, with no reason.

At any given time, we can see a small sample of the Blogger blog universe, as reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . One sample, that we may see, is composed of the blogs which have been deleted / locked, by the Blogger spam classifier - which the owners want restored.

Every week, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we see signs of improperly managed company blogs . The person who developed our company blog left our employment - and did not give us access to the blog. How do we recover our blog? If the former employee published the blog from a Blogger account that uses cloud based email, such as GMail, the blog may be legally his property. A Blogger blog is owned by the person who controls it . If your company uses company owned email, however, you may be able to take control of the Blogger account, and the blog.

FeedBurner Email Distribution takes any Atom / RSS newsfeed, and sends it out, as email , to all subscribed recipients. One FeedBurner feed is generated, when you add The "Follow by Email" gadget, to your blog. Like all FeedBurner Email accessories, email is distributed once daily, as selected by the feed owner.

We are seeing an increasing number of reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about problems accessing various dashboard features. Recently I have faced a problem on my blogs dashboard. The problem is Invalid Security Token Error 403 How do I solve this? This blog owner faces the latest variant of the long feared monolithic error, "403 Forbidden".

Besides the problems discussed, when trying to research ownership or retrieve content from deleted and private blogs , we have problems researching ownership and retrieving content for blogs published behind an interstitial warning. The interstitial warning is actually one reason why private blogs are so hard to research and to retrieve. Any blog, published behind an interstitial warning, becomes a challenge - both for ownership research, and for content retrieval.

We see discussions, in other forums - between a blog owner and an expert, discussing the necessity for unique content. When advised that his blog is a problem because it is simply copy and pasted material, the response from some blog owners focuses on the term "copy and paste". I type everything by hand, word by word! I do not copy, then paste! But hand typed or not, the text can be easily Googled, and found in larger and better written websites. Neither AdSense, Blogger, or Google Search care whether you use the keyboard or the mouse, to add content into post editor. You can type an article by hand - or you can highlight, then select "Copy" from the right click context menu, and finally select "Paste" from the right click context menu - and get the same result.

Too often , we see the report, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can't login to my Blogger account! or My blog was just deleted!! Neither of these problem reports are unusual - and generally, there are various control and diagnostic options which may be available, to help us recover control of the account or blog in question.

Too often , we see the report, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can't login to my Blogger account! or My blog was just deleted!! Neither of these problem reports are unusual - and generally, there are various control and diagnostic options which may be available, to help us recover control of the account or blog in question.

Google has been playing games with their online products, so much, that some people seem to ignore the seriousness of the issues. We see the occasional naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I feel like Google has gone over some sort of security event horizon -- trying so hard to evade hackers that too many authentic account holders are getting locked out, irreparably. This would be blog owner (or possibly, blog thief) feels that she should not be responsible for remembering the necessary details , to login to her Blogger account. Alternately, she should cruise through account recovery, with no challenges.

One of the more challenging limitations of Classic (HTML based) templates involved the template packaging. Each template provided a combination of background, colours, fonts, and layout. If you wanted any different combination - a different background, for a set of colours and fonts, you would have to compromise on the layout. Or a specific layout meant a compromise on the colours and fonts. Surely, somebody remembers the "Minima" vs "Minima Black" choice? And settling for the serif fonts, to get the right layout? With the Layout class templates (XML based), Blogger introduced the "Fonts and Colours" wizard - and a beginning to making the packaging more modular.

One intriguing blog theft technique is tried also by people who have recently lost control of their blogs. I recently changed my email address (and forgot my password) . Can Blogger please send a password reset to my new address "xxxxxxx", instead of "yyyyyyy"? The blog owner is overlooking the obvious - that this is exactly what any blog thief might try, too. Too many blog thefts start with the owner unwisely advertising the email address .

Occasionally, we see signs of confusion, in in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Where are the buttons, in the toolbar? or Why don't I have a Colour / Font / Jump Break / Video Upload / whatever selection, in my post editor? The reason is very subtle - and not easy to spot. Blogger page / post editor is very elegant, with no feature being colourfully different. Most people compose their posts in Compose mode - and don't use HTML Mode, except for specific needs - or maybe by accident. And the people who don't use HTML mode, intentionally, can't always spot the difference, in the mode selector buttons.

People like to customise their blogs - and some want to use a favourite photo - not one of the stock Blogger background images. The problem, too frequently, involves file size. I found a background image I really like (or at least I think it would work OK) - but when I resized it to the upload specs detailed in customizing your template, it said the file was too big! Blogger limits background images, as supported by the Template Designer, to 300K.

Occasionally, we see real confusion, involving the email address. I can login to Blogger - but I can only change my email address, or remove myself from the blog. This is a blog owner who is logged in as a blog author, who now sees just two dashboard menu pages. Posts Settings In many cases, this will be a blog owner who is trying to recover access to the blog , having forgotten the account name - or who is inadvertently using a second Blogger account . Running afoul of the Blogger / Google blind login , the would be owner has just managed to login - but sees a very empty dashboard. And, the confusion may not end there.

Many problems with the Blogger dashboard are caused by the account / profile in use. If the wrong account or profile is in use, the simplest solution - in many cases - is simply to logout from Blogger / Google , then login using the correct Blogger / Google account. This is less disruptive then advice to " clear cache, cookies, and sessions , then restart the browser" - when the latter sequence can be avoided. A simpler solution is to use the Google multi account login menu properly, so you will not need to logout.

Setting up the ability to post to your blog, using email, is quite simple. In Blogger - you just have one essential setting - the password. You setup the password as the "secretWords", in the dashboard page at Settings - Email. You can use any "secretWords" that you like - though if you have any concern about keeping spam out of the blog , you really should make the "secretWords" hard to guess .

An interesting attitude is seen, from some owners of large and unfocused blogs. It's normal, with so many articles in a blog, to have some reports (DMCA / TOS complaints). It's normal, yes. That does not make it acceptable - or beneficial. If you want to publish a large blog - and make lots of money - you have to focus or limit your efforts. You need to spend as much time - if not more time - reviewing content for legality, than owners of comparable, smaller blogs. You can't take time away from reviewing, to create and publish more content - then justify your failure to stay within the limits, by implying that it's normal to have posts that push the limits .