The Real Blogger Status

Both the historically infamous "Another blog ..", and the currently infamous "Error 12", are part of the custom domain publishing process. Similar to the mysterious "bX" codes being an enhanced version of "We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.", "Error 12" (and variants) is an enhanced version of the monolithic "Another blog or Google Site is already using this address.". "Another blog" (which was generally seen during use of the Blogger Publishing wizard) is complemented by the equally annoying "Not found" (which is generally seen after Publishing is used).

One of the most popular third party image hosting services, for Blogger blogs, recently changed their photo hosting service . Photobcket no longer allows embedding of their hosted photos on third party websites, for free accounts. They now require a $399 / year membership, for accounts with photos shared outside their website .

A few blog owners are concerned about blog network performance - and spend time validating and tweaking the template, based on advice from various third party services. I don't know how to use W3C Validation, there are always errors displayed for my blog! And we see periodic questions about validation - and sometimes reports about broken templates , with blog owners following the validation advice, blindly.

Very few registrars allow multiple "CNAME" addresses, for a single DNS host. When I diagnose DNS address problems, I generally recommend Add the addresses highlighted in green . Remove the addresses highlighted in red . I find that it helps to have the old address visible, while the new address is being composed. This does not always produce the desired result, unfortunately.

Earlier this year, Blogger upgraded their dashboard - and eliminated the opening "My blogs" / "Reading List" page . They changed from a dashboard home page, listing all blogs owned by a given Blogger account - to a home page, showing the dashboard for the most recently updated blog. To the dashboard menu for the blog displayed, they added a pulldown blog selector list. If you want the dashboard for a different blog, or need a different important "My blogs" function, you use the selector list.

Ever since 2009, when Blogger introduced the Stats visitor activity counter , blog owners have been reporting inconsistencies between Stats and other visitor activity counters . Recently, Google+ changed their +1 counter. Now, we wait for Blogger Engineering to update their +1 per post display counters, which use the +1 counts from Google+. Blog owners continue to report various Stats inaccuracies - such as discrepancies between Stats pageview counts, and the various social sharing counters. They fail to observe the functional differences between the various activity counters - and similarly, between Stats counts and social sharing metrics, such as Google+ +1 counts.

With the pre 2016 Followers gadget, the Followers population for a blog was managed through an Options link on the Followers gadget . This required the blog owner to sign into the Followers gadget, to access the Options link. Authentication - and an owner specific Options menu - is no longer a pert of the Followers gadget. It is possible to Block Followers, from a blog - the option is just not part of the Followers gadget, any more.

We're seeing a problem with Blogger Hosted Comments - and "Bad Request Error 400", following the use of the comment "Preview" feature. When a blog owner or reader composes a long or important comment, use of the Preview feature is normal. Right now, after hitting "Publish", following a successful Preview, one frequently sees the bad news. Bad Request Error 400 There is a workaround for this annoyance - and it's not difficult to use.

One of the most obscure Blogger error messages - next to "Another blog ..." - is the monolithic advice seen on main page display of some blogs. No posts. or maybe There's nothing here! What can you say, to a blog owner who has started a new blog, and spent days publishing blog content - only to view the blog, and see "No posts." - or "There's nothing here!"?

Many blog owners want the legendary wealth, from publishing a Blogger blog, and adding AdSense ads. Not everybody understands the AdSense review process - and the fact that "Congratulations!" is only the beginning .