The Real Blogger Status

This month, we have a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about problems Following some blogs. Why am I being blocked, from Following? Some would be Followers are taking this personally. Please, don''t do that.

We periodically see hopeful - yet naive - requests from blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , asking about comment moderation improvement. How do I add a disruptive commenter to a killfile list - and never see his/her nonsense ever again, without moderating every comment, being published? This would be a popular feature - if it could be provided, in any way that would achieve results .

Blog owners do not always understand the reasons behind the mysterious blog security check (following "suspicious" / "unusual" activity account lock). We see periodic complaints about deleted blogs and locked accounts - and the inconvenience involved, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I get the security and all - but I don't get how a blog is just deleted. This blog owner, like so many, does not understand how Blogger is trying to keep our blogs under our control - even after detection of "suspicious" / "unusual" activity.

We see too many problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about locked accounts and deleted blogs. My Google account was suspended because of 'suspicious activities'. Last month, I realized that my two connected blogs, to that account, were also put offline! Somebody else was unable to use the supplied account / blog recovery tools - and tried guessing what could not be remembered .

We see regular queries about deleting a Blogger account, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . A Blogger account is simply a Google account, used to publish or read blogs. If you want to delete a Blogger account, you need to delete the Google account. If you are using your Google account for other services, maybe GMail, Google+, and / or YouTube, you won't want to delete your Google account. But you can make the Blogger portion of your Google account invisible, to the public.

We're seeing a few questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about new Blogger / Google accounts - and choice of profile. Do I have a Limited account? This account owner just setup a new Blogger / Google account - and wants to avoid the confusion of Google+ - but sees his only alternate choice involving creation of a "Limited" account.

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 .

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 .

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?

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 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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In 2012, Blogger ended support for legacy accounts . This year, we see that account recovery does not support legacy accounts , any more. People who don't remember their legacy account names / passwords are now unable to migrate - and are unable to recover account access, so they can migrate. Every year, any account which remains unmigrated is less likely to be accessible, by the owner. As that happens, and with account recovery not working for legacy accounts, migration won't be possible - and the account will be unusable.