The Real Blogger Status

Long ago, when Blogger blog owners were given the option to associate their Blogger account with Google+, some would try out their new identities - then change their minds. Some blog owners would upgrade to a dynamic, exciting Google+ profile - then regret their decision. Not everybody appreciated the features offered by Google+, as applied to a Blogger blog. Blogger gave us the ability to revert to a Blogger profile - within 30 days. This did not help people who took over 30 days to observe problems.

When we use Blogger Following, we create a link to our profile, from each blog that we Follow. That's the primary purpose of Following - to see, and to be seen. We also create links from our Followers profile, to each Followed blog. That's the purpose of having a profile - to describe ourselves, by the blogs that interest us. Everybody does not want other people knowing about every blog that we Follow, though. To let us Follow blogs without being seen, we can Follow anonymously - or hide a blog, from our profile on other blogs.

Some blog owners are accustomed to editing their Blogger profiles, from time to time. Publishing a blog that presents oneself to ones readers, openly, is important to some blog owners . The Blogger profile becomes a blog component that is edited, periodically, to keep the blog reader friendly. The Blogger profile editor produces content which is displayed in the "About Me" gadget, for single owner blogs. Multiple owner blogs, complementarily, display "About Us" - which provides a different display .

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.

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 .

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.

Some blog owners keep reporting problems with comment replies never posting to their blog - or being received by the comment publisher - in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . When I reply to blog comments through GMail, the reply doesn't show up on my blog. or My readers never get my replies, to their comments! This blog owner is trying to use a feature that should exist - but simply is not available.

Blog owners periodically ask about publicising their blogs, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why do my comments point to my profile - and not directly to my blog? This blog owner just wants to drive traffic straight to the blog.

Changing your Blogger account name is like changing your birth name - it can't be done, without legal complications. You can have a nickname - I have several, depending upon who's calling me. But when a cop stops you , you're going to need your government issued vehicle operator certificate - and there's no nickname there. Just your birth name. If you don't like your current Blogger account name, you transfer control of the blog - using two browsers - to an account that you like.

One of the easiest improvements, in a Blogger blog, is customising the "About Me" / "About Us" ("Contributors" / "Profile") gadget. The default gadget gets its content from the Blogger profile - and is edited, using the Blogger Profile Editor. With a team blog, the gadget changes to a list of team members - and this cannot be edited. But given 15 minutes, and some imagination, you can make your own Profile gadget.

Recently, we've noted a number of complaints about Blogger commenting, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken .My comments all use a "noreply" email address, instead of my actual email address. How do I have people email their replies to my comments? This appears to be one more way which Blogger is trying to safeguard our Blogger accounts and blogs, from malicious, technically astute blog thieves.

This week, we're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning a badly shortened dashboard Reading List. When I want to read the list of the blogs I follow, I can only see 1 blog, instead of the usual 30. When I click on "Show more", nothing happens. A brief affinity analysis , of current forum reports, suggests that the affected blog owners are using Draft Blogger.

We're seeing a new sense of frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . How do I prevent the constant offer to Mention people in your posts with Google+? in Post Editor? This is a new Blogger / Google+ feature. Like many Google+ features, this one can be refused. Many blog owners, seeing this offer, refuse it - and are never bothered by it, again. Their refusal is retained, by Blogger, in a Blogger cookie. If you refuse the offer properly, Blogger Post Editor will remember your refusal, and not bother you again - if your browser / computer does not unwisely block cookies and scripts.

Some Blogger blog owners use their Blogger blogs as the center of their peer to peer networking life. Many blog readers are expected to post comments - and to leave their email addresses, as part of their message or profile, to allow direct contact. Long ago, I used the email address of my commenters, as part of an easy "Contact Me" form , on this blog. Recently, we've been noting that Blogger comments don't always include a useful email addresses - many comments simply describe the commenter as noreply-comment@blogger.com Not all blog owners - and readers - appreciate this change. When I leave a comment using my google profile, it isn't linking my profile with my email address. How do I get my email address properly displayed? and Why do so many comments, published to my blog, show the email address of "noreply-comment@blogger.com"? How do I email my readers?

Recently, we've noted a number of complaints about Blogger commenting, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken .My comments all use a "noreply" email address, instead of my actual email address. How do I have people email their replies to my comments? These are people who have updated their Blogger accounts, to use a Google or Google+ profile. Neither Google or Google+ profiles provide the option to Show my email address

Occasionally, an oddity in our Blogger profiles will cause confusion - and offer some blog owners a opportunity to make a bad mistake. For some unknown reason, some Blogger blogs may be listed twice, in the dashboard or profile Blog List. If you are one of these blog owners, seeing the same blog listed twice in your dashboard or profile, think before you act! Check the URL behind the blog title , for each entry - you'll see an identical URL behind both.

This week, Google announced the end to its website based community building accessory, Google Friend Connect, for non Blogger based websites . We're retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. The announcement notes its replacement with Google+. We encourage affected sites to create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google+ and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch. Blogger blog owners can continue to use the Followers gadget, can use Google+, or can build their communities using both features.

A year ago, we noted a security change to BlogSend, which left many blog owners with severely deprecated ability to publicise blog updates , when using a private Google Group. At that time, the recommended workaround was to add "no-reply@blogger.com" as a Google Group member. Today, we see that the ability to add Google Group members directly is no longer offered. It appears now that the use of private Google Groups, for distribution of Blogger blog updates, is not an option.

Ever since Google+ was released, blog owners have been asking how to post blog updates to Google+. Previously, there was only the possibility of publishing from Google+ to our blogs - and that option was not well designed . Last week, Blogger released this option , in Draft Blogger. Today we’re excited to announce the first way you will be able to leverage Google+ -- by making it possible to replace your Blogger profile with your Google+ profile. In addition to giving your readers a more robust and familiar sense of who you are, your social connections will see your posts in their Google search results with an annotation that you've shared the post.