The Real Blogger Status

We see an occasional blog owner, having renamed a blog to a new BlogSpot URL, reporting in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue that the Pages gadget stopped working. I changed the URL of my blog, from "myoldblogspoturl.blogspot.com" to "mynewblogspoturl.blogspot.com". All of the links are working fine - except when I click on a pages link, I get Blog not found. Sorry, the blog you were looking for does not exist. However, the name myoldblogspoturl is available to register! Long ago, we observed this to be a problem with static pages . It appears that this is a problem with both dynamic and static pages, for some blogs, when renamed.

We are seeing a few blog owners reporting, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , of inability to use various dashboard functions. I am seeing "This Connection Is Untrusted" - You have asked Firefox to connect securely to 7749195048983246407_73be54cd6d1c58526e719a5edd6d94a945570409.blogspot.com, but we can't confirm that your connection is secure. This prevents me from using various preview features. We suspect that the problem involves the Firefox browser, possibly following the latest update .

We see some blog owners reporting loss of photos, when used in their blogs, and added using Post Editor. Some blog owners take photos using their camera / phone, upload them to Google+ Photos, and publish their blog posts. Having published their post, they remove the photos from their phones, to save storage space. And once deleted from their cameras / phones, their photos vanish from their blog .

With Google Domains registered custom domains becoming more normal, we are seeing one odd attention to detail, expressed as confusion in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . My website uses "ghs.google.com" - am I supposed to use "ghs.googlehosted.com", instead? It's good to be attentive to detail, particularly with custom domain publishing . This is one detail that may not require immediate attention, however.

We're seeing an increasing number of problem reports, mentioning Google Domains. Google Domains is becoming a popular registrar for new custom domains - and this leads to more problems, reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Many reports look like timing problems, from long ago . The most common symptom is the mysterious Redirect Warning. I purchased a Google Domains site, and connected it to Blogger so it redirects my blog to my domain, no problem. The problem is now when accessing the BlogSpot URL, it now shows a redirect warning message, which is killing my web traffic. This blog is not hosted by Blogger and has not been checked for spam, viruses and other forms of malware. How do I publish my blog, and keep my readers, with this confusion?

Some blog owners install an email based "Contact Me" form on their blogs - then worry if the contact attempts are getting to them, when sent by their readers. Occasionally, blog readers may wonder if their contact forms, which they submit, are actually being read. In both cases, besides the chance that the messages are not being read because of a full email Inbox, there is the chance that the messages just are not getting to the email Inboxes. The Blogger supplied "Contact" form uses email for contact delivery - and this is where many contact delivery problems start. Whether you are a blog owner, or reader, these are issues which involve you.

We see a few spam blogs, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , that are classified for having scraped content . Some nervous blog owners, who routinely copy content as part of their blog posts, want to know if their blogs are vulnerable to "scraped content" spam classifications . I suspect that there are several issues to consider, regarding use of copied content in your blog .

We've been discussing the problem of email filtering , and missing email, for some time. Some blog members / owners are certain that their missing email isn't caused by filters. I looked in "Bulk" / "Spam"! The email isn't there, either - it simply does not get delivered!! These people are certain that Blogger just is not sending the email. In some cases, the problem is not with "Bulk" / "Spam" filters - it is with anti-spoofing filters - and email detected as spoofed, generally, is "bounced".

One devious way of attacking people, before the Internet, was to drown them in mail, such as unwanted magazines. Long ago, people with too much available time would fill out forms in their victims name - and subscribe her / him to assorted unwanted magazines. Nowadays, one might do that with email, to people unwise enough to publicise their account name or email address . Blogger has similar options that may let us annoy people, also - possibly, inadvertently .

One naive attitude, about publishing a Blogger blog, involves adding features to one's blog - and the observation that every Blogger feature or modification is not uniformly available, with entry level instructions. We see the complaints, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , too frequently. I can't get this feature to work! Why is Blogger so complicated? and I have no idea what I need to do. Please guide me, in simple language - as if I were 6 years old! Both attitudes show lack of understanding about technical projects in general - and Blogger features, and modifications, in particular.

The ability to copy comments and posts into a blog - and even between blogs - is a useful option in Blogger. Some blog owners take the "Export Blog" / "Import Blog" wizards too casually. Most computer owners enjoy multitasking - and multitasking, between various online activities which involve your personal involvement, can increase productivity. The process of importing comments and posts, into a Blogger blog, does not involve your personal involvement - and does not work well during multitasking. Multitasking will actually slow the import process down - and what might take mere minutes can take hours, or days.

We continue to see complaints, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , from people not receiving acceptable help in recovering account / blog control . Some supposed blog owners accuse Blogger of unlawfully denying them access to their blogs , when refused personal attention.

The dynamic templates, magical as they may be, may not suit everybody . Some blog owners eagerly publish a blog to a dynamic template - then ask WHere are all of the sidebar gadgets? One of the downsides of the dynamic templates is that gadgets have to be specifically written to work with them. Not all of the accessories, available in "Add a Gadget", have been re written to support dynamic templates - and some may likely not ever be re written.

Some blogs offend their readers - and the readers are legitimately concerned about viewing inappropriate content. Instructed in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , to report offensive blogs using the right complaint form , they may reply I did - several times, but with no result! In some cases, the blogs in question may be offensive only to a local audience. Though distasteful, blogs should not be unfairly censored.

Blogger blog owners, like everybody else, like to save money. Some blog owners prefer to save money when registering a custom domain, for their blogs. We've seen several free domain registration services, providing what is claimed to be a two level Top Level Domain "co.xx" (where "xx" == various country codes). The latest in this ongoing story appears to be "co.vu".

We see occasional reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about the "Next Blog" link in the navbar, and undesirable behaviour. Long ago, "Next Blog" was used to link to the most recently published blogs, to encourage blog publishing, using the now dead "Recently Updated Blogs" database . Since multiple Blogger blogs are published each second, this gave a pseudo random effect to "Next Blog". Blog owners disliked the pseudo random effect. Some wanted to view blogs only published in their language, others wanted blogs geographically similar - and some demanded relevant subjects. The pseudo random effect was abused by spammers, who would setup spam blog farms , then publish each spam blog repeatedly, to attract victims. "Next Blog" hacking was a popular spammer technique.

In 2009 , Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue had various reports about blogs mysteriously redirecting to " blogoholic.info ". Later that year, and into 2010 , we saw new reports mentioning " smashingfeeds.com ", then " sendptp.com ". When we investigated the redirections, we found people with blogs that used a picturesque animated decoration known as "falling snow" - and later, as Valentines Day 2010 approached, "falling hearts". The victimised blog owners, too frequently, admitted to having installed various gadgets provided by helpful non Blogger website owners. Diagnosing the problem, however, was frequently obscured by the claims. But I installed that gadget months ago! In some cases, diagnosed in December 2009 - February 2010, the misbehaving gadgets had been installed as far back as Summer of 2009.

A few blog owners become concerned about how their blogs are indexed - and why the search hit lists, that point to their posts, point to archive or main pages - instead of the individual post pages. "www.mydomain.com/2015_01_01_archive.html" , "www.mydomain.com/2014_12_01_archive.html", and similar URLs are part of the same URL structure as "www.mydomain.com" - and as "www.mydomain.com/2015/02/whatever.html". They aren't harmful to the blog search engine reputation. They are annoying, though. When I setup this blog, long ago - and would find my posts listed in index pages, they used to annoy me, too.

The Google Domains feature, possibly developed as a replacement for the long discontinued and well missed "Buy a domain for your blog", appears to have problems similar to "Buy a domain" when first developed. We're seeing a small, but steadily increasing, flow of problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Problems being reported look similar to those typically seen with domains purchased long ago using "Buy a domain", before the "Transition" period was introduced to Blogger custom domain publishing.

We see occasional reports of people unable to accept membership in a private or team blog. Even when an invitation is sent repeatedly, and accepted properly, some prospective blog members can't achieve membership. This blog is open to invited readers only http://myownbloggerblog.blogspot.com/ It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. We see this periodically, when trying to view a private blog - or access a team blog as an administrator. Even after accepting membership, some people may see this message.

Some blog owners want to emphasise the nature of the blog content, to the search engines. Given a properly developed blog , you can add meta tags, on a per blog, per page, and per post basis. The tags can indicate, to your prospective readers, what the blog - and each page and post - is about.

We've been providing advice for blog owners, unhappy about unfair spam classification, for a few years, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Some blog owners have similar questions about unfair objectionable content classification. Content Warning Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable. In general, Google does not review nor do we endorse the content of this or any blog. For more information about our content policies, please visit the Blogger  Terms of Service . These blog owners, seeing how objectively we are able to evaluate spam classifications, request similar service for content classifications.