The Real Blogger Status

Anxious blog owners ask the question periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Is affiliate marketing allowed, in Blogger? And the truth is that there is no prohibition against affiliate marketing, by name. If the blog content is legal, you can do anything. The question is, can you make a Blogger blog, and use affiliate marketing, and not run afoul of Spam and TOS guidelines?

How many of you have used your favourite Internet application recently - and received a convenience login suggestion? To continue, please tell us who you are! Login with your FaceBook, Google, or Twitter account. Many small business Internet services, instead of making you setup one more unknown account, are letting you login, and use their product, based on your FaceBook, Google, or Twitter account. This is not a magical concept. It requires a lot of work, to make this happen.

Some blog owners use email, to distribute blog content - and like the post summarisation technique, Jump Break. We see occasional hopeful questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , about Jump Break, in emailed post content. How do I use Jump Break, in my posts email subscriptions? This is one need that probably won't be solved, precisely as requested.

We see occasional queries, from blog owners who require separation of their blog ownership from their real lives, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . I want to have myself anonymous, so that people do not know who I am when I blog. i think it will contribute to a more exciting blog! An air of mystery is OK, as long as it's not being used to mask criminal activity.

If you did not use a Blogger / Google account when you Followed this blog, years ago, you are probably not Following now . During the past month or so, this blog has gone from 5,300 to 4,800 Followers . Owners of other blogs have reported similar reductions. Look at the Reading List, in the Blogger dashboard - if you use Blogger. Is this blog listed? If so, you are Following this blog, using a Blogger account. If not, you may want to add this blog to your Reading List .

Some blog owners delete or rename a blog, without proper planning - and later regret their action. Some spammers track blog name availability - particularly with blog names that contain "English" (and some non English) language words. If a spammer discovers that a given blog name has recently become available, he will publish a stub blog to that name - and later, add spammy content. Why is a spammer interested in recently available names?

We periodically see the query, from confused blog owners, in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / Host Partners , or maybe in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why does my blog not show ads, any more? It worked fine, until I changed my blog to my private domain! The blog owner does not know about the rules of Hosted AdSense accounts, vs AdSense for Content.

We have several blog owners, trying to use Blogger - and seeing warnings from McAfee WebAdvisor. When I try to log out, I am getting a risky connection warning. Whoa! Are you sure you want to go there? I cannot log out of blogger.

One of the most basic - and yet obscure - tasks in publishing a blog, for some blog owners, is adding posts (and sometimes, pages). Some blog owners may be confused, about blogs, pages, and posts . And the Blogger anti-spam efforts, aka the "broken robot", also confuse people. And, not all dashboard components (and links) are visible , for all blogs, for all blog owners. Creating a post (or page) is not difficult - when you know where to click. Sometimes, though, you need very good eyesight.

Some blogs can't be easily upgraded, from a Classic to Layouts / Designer template. The Classic to Layouts / Designer upgrade can't process all classic templates. Some HTML tweaks, made by the blog owners, just can't be easily translated into CSS / HTML / XML, in the Layout / Designer templates. Remember that before Layouts templates, all accessories and decorations were installed by editing the template. It's likely that some people created some tricky code, to provide interesting features - and some of the tweaks, that are known by the owners, may cause the delay in upgrading.

Blog owners periodically report seeing "their" blog online - but not being able to access Blogger, to control it. It's my blog - but when I login, I'm forced to an older blog, that I don't care about! The person reporting this discrepancy may or may not own the blog in question - and we need to diagnose the reason for the discrepancy . Similar to spam review , we employ a diagnostic technique known as triage. Triage starts with standard diagnoses.

We're seeing a number of problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , from blog owners unable to use the dashboard. I can't write a new post, view my Stats, or posts on the Blogger dashboard. Whenever I open these pages, it keeps loading like forever - and now I've been unable to update my blog or view my Stats. The Blogger dashboard is simply not loading, for these blog owners.

We've seen a few reports, recently, in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / Host Partners - and in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , that refer to a mysterious error condition. Error 500 "Internal Server Error". Blogger Support has been diagnosing this problem, for a while, using a series of bX codes - and the codes thrown by this condition seem to change, from day to day. The last time Blogger Support provided any description of the problem - or guidance how to solve the problem, they made general mention of "corrupt templates".

One of the more mysterious causes of blog loss involves deleted blogs, with the owner being forced to recover account access because of "suspicious" / "unusual" account activity . In general, with the report made in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we may dismiss the owner as a "hacking victim". We may suspect just one more botnet in operation, stealing peoples accounts and blogs - and the victim unwisely revealed his email address. Sometimes, the story is more bizarre.

We deal with a lot of "lost blog control" complaints, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Lost blog control complaints, that involve blogs published using a dynamic template, are not easily resolved.

If you've been publishing a Blogger blog for any amount of time, you'll eventually discover the need to use a second (third, ...) Blogger account. Maybe you want the benefit of publishing blog posts using two different names, or maybe you need to obscure your identity and publish a new blog - the reason is not relevant. The need for a second account is what matters. And you start new account creation, as any Blogger session, from Google "One account" login .

Some blog owners setup a blog - then a social media account or two - and immediately, start advertising each new blog post in social media. Later checking Google and other search engines, they find that the blog is now indexed - but the index entries point through the FaceBook, Google+, and / or Twitter posts. The blog, under "blogspot.com", is nowhere to be found, in any SERP entry . Not everybody realises that Blogger promises anonymity , when properly setup - and that anonymity comes with a price .

Besides optimizing post content , to make the blog easier to read and encourage readers to remain. you have a similar task in optimizing the blog structure. The posts content is what people read, when they are in the blog. The blog structure is what you similarly need to optimize, to get people into the blog.

We see an occasional sign of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I let my readers search my entire blog? or Why does my Search not find all of my posts? Both of these questions - and more - are seen, because not every blog owner is aware of the limitations, and possibilities, of each search technique.

Too many blog owners start a blog, then post in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger, YouTube, Partner sites , or maybe in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , a bit of naivete. What is required, to be eligible for AdSense? And someone who has to ask is probably wasting time asking.

We have a small number of blog owners reporting problems using Blogger. My Blogger dashboard shows Oops! You don't seem to have a suitable Google+ Profile. You can go to Google+ to configure your profile, or switch to a limited Blogger Profile for use with Blogger. If you use a Google+ Profile, please ensure that it meets the Google+ Community Standards . I have a very active Google+ Following, Why is my profile not acceptable?

One of the more interesting details about Blogger is the way Page / Post Editor generates URLs. Long ago, I wrote my post Blogging - The Directory and URL Structure . Blogging - The Directory and URL Structure http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2009/08/blogging-directory-and-url-structure.html See the differences, between the title, and the URL? This difference bothers some blog owners, who want the Title and URL to match, word for word.

Some new blog owners put a lot of effort into designing a shiny template with lots of features, but omit blog content - or spend time carefully tuning their blogs. Eventually, they will add content, to the blog. Later, they may discover reality. This looks like crap! or Why do I have no readers? Different blogs, with differing content, may look better using different templates. And some sections of the dashboard should be left alone.

The "Forgot?" blog control recovery wizard is sensitive to team blogs - and to the access level owned by the existing members in the team blogs. If the team has only one administrator, that one administrator cannot delete or demote himself , using the dashboard Permissions wizard. If the one administrator deletes his Blogger / Google account, on the other hand, a team blog is left with no administrator. You can't have a blog for long, without an administrator. So when a team blog member requests recovery, "Forgot?" checks the team blog members - and if no administrator is found, sends recovery email to all of the authors .

Any time you have to research a blog access / control / ownership issue, knowing how to identify how you are currently logged in to Blogger is a very useful ability. If your blog has an "About Me" / "Profile" gadget, you can generally click on the gadget, and see the profile of the blog owner. But what if you are not sure why you don't seem to have ownership access for "your" blog? Either the blog in question is not on the dashboard - or it's there, but you only have author control .

We see odd abuse issues reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue - like blog owners reporting a blog with recycling abuse status. My blog was locked one day, unlocked the next, then locked again the following day. Help! Generally, this will be a simple case of borderline abuse / spam content or techniques . Sometimes, the cause of the recycling status is more subtle, than being solely the fault of the owner.

One of the painful experiences, with Blogger blogs, involves people who make blogs based on photo albums. Photos are, historically, a cherished souvenir of lifes passages - even in this modern age where a dozen photos might be taken, as opposed to one or two, 20 to 30 years ago. Sometimes, the souvenirs, part of a Blogger blog, are lost. Even if deleted photos can be restored, a blog may have to be rebuilt - one photo at a time. When restored, photos frequently have a different URL - and the code in the blog post must be updated, to reflect the new URL. For many blog owners, it is simpler to just upload each photo again.

We're seeing some signs of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about the current rewrite of Blogger Followers / Google Friend Connect . When it says that ' non-Google accounts and profiles will be removed ' does that mean my blog will be deleted - since I use a non GMail based Blogger account? There are two bits of confusion here. I've explained a few times that a Blogger account, GMail based or not, is still a Google account . That detail does not change. Next, we should recall how Blogger provided login to the Followers gadget, for those surfing the web without using a Google account.

Some blog owners can't figure out how to add the Blogger Followers gadget, to their blogs. We see occasional confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about installation and use of Followers. After typing https://www.google.com/friendconnect/ into my browser, I am redirected to Blogger Help: Manage blogs you follow How do I install Followers?

Over half of the problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , which mention custom domain URLs, start with improperly setup domains. A handful of the domain setup problems involve improperly chosen registrars - either registrars who can't provide the necessary services, or registrars who won't do their job properly. The vast majority of the setup problems start with bogus DNS addresses. And bogus DNS addresses start with the blog owners.