The Real Blogger Status

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.

Sometimes, we see odd confusion in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I deleted my blog - can somebody help me restore it? I worked so many days writing it! or alternately I am trying to write a new blog, but it says my url has already been taken (by me). If the first owner is kind enough to include the URL of the deleted "blog", we may use our favourite online diagnostic tool - and discover that the blog is still online, and not deleted! In the second case, we may find a new blog, with one post. Investigating further, we discover that the problem here involves terminology. This article that I am writing, "Blogger Terminology - Blogs Vs Posts", is a post, which is part of my blog, "The REAL Blogger Status" (which right now is actually The ONLY Blogger Status - but that is another tale ). The terminology here is pedantic, to us - but it's very real, to the blog owner who has just deleted an important post. Or to the owner who has publi...

We've recently been seeing a number of reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from blog owners having problems with the "Create a new blog" wizard. When some of my students try to create a new blog, they get an error message The page you requested is invalid. These blog owners appear to be running up against new blog creation limits, possibly caused by Blogger prevention of abusive blog creation. Blogger has apparently added new ways of preventing abusive blog creation, by use of new activity limits.

Recently, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , we've seen reports of problems using "Create a new blog". I can't create another blog! It worked fine, earlier today - but now, it tells me that I'm not allowed!! Some would be blog owners are apparently running into a new Blogger limit - daily blog creation. Apparently, Blogger is now limiting creation of new blogs. Similar to the legendary daily posting limit in our blogs, the daily new blog limit appears to be fuzzy - possibly, intentionally so, to adjust for ongoing spam activity.

The first task in starting a new blog involves taking an available blog name (aka "URL"). The rules for picking a blog name are reasonably simple. Pick a blog name. If "Create a blog" gives you that name, it's yours . Continue with #4. If "Create a blog" shows "Sorry!", pick another name, and continue with #2. Setup your new blog. Some folks need even simpler rules. If "Create a blog" gives you the name of your choice, it's yours. If "Create a blog" does not give you that name, you have to pick another. Which ever rules you wish to go by, the "Create a blog" wizard has the final say .

We're seeing some odd problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about blog creation . I entered just the first letter of the name which I wanted, and I immediately saw Sorry, this blog address is not available. How am I supposed to create a blog, if all the names are taken? What intrigues me here is not that people see Sorry, this blog address is not available. It's that people don't ask the next question. How did it know what name I was typing, before I finished? How do you explain that you have to type the entire name, and have that name checked, before giving up, disappointed?

Some Blogger blog owners, trying to setup a new blog, discover the hard way that other people are trying to do the same thing. When I try to use "Create a blog", I keep seeing This name is not available. or Blogger is saying it's available - but as I begin to register, it says that it has already received a request for this name. Other blog owners discover that the competition between Blogger blog owners, when using " Create a blog ", also applies to "Buy a domain". And worse yet, "Buy a domain" involves competition with would be website owners outside Blogger / Google.

Like creating a blog , the task of renaming your blog involves one very important step - choosing an available blog name. When you rename your blog - as in change the blog address - you have to pick a name (address) that's not in use . Both creating a blog, and renaming a blog, suffer from one key detail - you can't identify an available address before you get started.

Too many would be blog owners are unable to create a blog, because they don't understand how to check for availability. I can't seem to type in a URL, without it saying it's not available. Some people don't understand that you do not type a URL - you just type a blog name , when checking for availability.

We are currently seeing frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about new blog creation. Would be new blog owners have various concerns I can't create a blog - the "Create" button is grey (inoperative)! or It keeps saying Verifying availability when I enter a blog name!! or even It said This blog address is available. until I hit "Create blog!" - then it changed to Sorry, this blog address is not available.

We are seeing a small but steadily increasing stream of problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from Blogger blog owners, wondering where these mysterious blogs, being added to their dashboard "My blogs" list, are coming from. Is anyone else experiencing random blogs being added to their dashboard? I login, and I notice that many blogs have been made - and they're all with names that are just a jumble of letters and numbers, but no posts. All of them lead to the same blog though. Here's a random list of the names of 7 such blogs, which were recently created in the "blogspot.com" name space. If you wish to examine these blogs, and these have not yet been deleted by the Blogger anti spam processes, I strongly advise that you use a proxy server , or similar isolation technique. Never examine any hacking / spam attack component, unprotected. yyxfkfgpiy x24xd2wtu1 4o4fq0rqp9 26djmc3xyh m9s5tdor2l h62wo5uthr bsojvu43gk

In terms of questions which seem, to me, to be on the level as the legendary question Who is buried in Grant's Tomb? the question, asked by some folks in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? How do I setup a new blog? would seem to be at the top of the list. But, it's not necessarily so, for everybody.

The issue of URL availability has been a subject of intense debate, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , for several years. Many would be blog owners URLs learn that neither "dormant" blogs , nor deleted blogs , nor spam locked blogs , are automatically available for the curious nor desperate. Those denied the URL of their choice ask How do I find an available URL? All of the good ones are taken - and picking one that's available is way too much work! I'm moving my blog to WordPress! And that complaint is somewhat valid . Under the Classic GUI, picking an available URL was a pretty painful process.

When you create a new blog, the first essential task is to decide upon the BlogSpot URL. You want to do this right, because this is one of the most challenging changes, successfully , after the blog becomes mature and gets a reputation. What is the one most important characteristic that your new blog URL has to have? Uniqueness. The blog name has to be available - not in use, in any way, by another blog. Many bloggers start their new blog by picking a name. How do you find out if the name of your choice is available? And there is really only one way to tell, and it's not obvious. Here are three blog names. anavailableurl perryfx anavailableurl2 Only one of these three is available. Which one is that? "anavailableurl.blogspot.com" was apparently deleted by Blogger or by its owner. The URL is not available. "perryfx.blogspot.com" was possibly deleted by Blogger, as a suspected spam blog. Review and restoration is (was) pending. The URL is not ava...

Possibly as a way of emphasising Blogger as a personal, simple blogging platform, Blogger recently imposed a 100 blog limit on new blogs. This is a limit that has not yet been documented . Number of Blogs: You can have as many blogs as you like on one account. Apparently, the limit is against starting new blogs, not owning blogs. If you're like me, you'll note the limit when you try to Create a Blog. D'ohh! But this limit, like many others, can be bypassed. You can setup more than one Blogger account, create more blogs under multiple accounts, and make team memberships of the blogs created. Setting up and teaming multiple blogs, of course, will be a tedious activity if you are going to setup 100+ blogs at one time, so plan the process and allow lots of time. Using multiple browsers or computers is highly recommended. Just creating 100+ blogs, if you publish to "xxxxxxx.blogspot.com", won't be easy - remember each blog will require an available a...