The Real Blogger Status

One interesting question, that we see from time to time in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , is about owner activity and "dormant" blogs. Many people would like to publish to an inactive Blogger address - but Blogger supports the current owner right to anonymity and privacy - and to keep their blog, until they want to give it up . One of the challenges, in this case, may be identifying dormant blogs.

Too frequently, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we try to advise blog recovery for a legitimate blog, unrighteously deleted by Blogger. Occasionally, when advised to Find a dashboard link labeled "Deleted blogs" / "Locked blogs". then Having found the link, you submit a Review request. The response is There is no dashboard link, referencing 'deleted blogs / locked blogs'. There are several causes of this condition - but there is only one real solution. The (would be) owner has to login with the right Blogger account , and find the necessary "Deleted" / "Locked" blogs section, of "My blogs".

Many blog owners would like to retrieve deleted blogs - or contents of deleted blogs - or contents of live blogs, deleted. Some folks just deleted their blog, and immediately realised a mistake. Others deleted a blog, long ago. Some had their blog, deleted by Blogger - and just want the content back, so they can "start over". Some may delete a post, and realise that mistake. Others make a mistake with content, and find Blogger deleted the blog. And some get a new job, graduate from school, get a new ISP - and realise, too late, that they forgot to update their Blogger account to use the new email address for account recovery.

The question of disposition of blogs, left behind by deceased blog owners, comes up in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , from time to time. As Blogger blogs - and similar Google products - become mature, and as more people who publish Blogger blogs become susceptible to old age and death, this problem will become more critical. As recently as 2010, in order to assume control (or request deletion) of such a blog, Blogger required only a faxed copy of the death certificate. In 2013, Google refined the recovery process, and added additional requirements for account recovery.

Some supposed blog owners, unable to login to their Blogger accounts because they forgot the Blogger account name or password (or never bothered to remember either ), try to compromise. They figure that, if they can't regain access to the blog, then Blogger will be willing to simply delete the blog - and everybody will be happy. They appear to have overlooked the repeatedly stated policy , which promises us that our blogs will be ours, as long as we wish to own them. The problem is, blog deletions are as sensitive to illegal action as account recovery - and illegal actions are a very real threat to our blogs .

As I've written a few times, your blog is yours - forever . Generally, "forever" is equivalent to eternity, or as long as Google stays in business. In some cases, when a blogger passes on to the next life, the survivors left behind may decide that it would be best, for all concerned, that one or more blog(s) left behind should be discontinued. In other cases, the survivors may wish to continue the blog, as a memoriam. Blogger will support this need, as long as the survivors can prove their close relationship with the deceased blog owner. This is most easily done, by providing a proper copy of a legally issued death certificate. With the death certificate available, post a question in BHF: How Do I? , and wait for contact with a Blogger Support person. Blogger Support will inform you how to transmit the death certificate to them, using a legally recognised medium. (Update 2012/07): Blogger has enhanced these requirements , to allow them to exercise both compassio...

Blogger gives us our blogs, and our Blogger accounts, for eternity - should we wish to retain them . Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Independently of what choices Blogger allows us, we do change. This, too, shall pass. We will want to occasionally remove ourselves as Followers, from some blogs. Maybe we have reached the limit for blogs simultaneously Followed. Maybe we have lost interest in a blog that we are Following. Maybe a blog that we are Following becomes dormant, or even deleted. Should we feel the need to stop Following any blog, there are two wizards, equally useful. The dashboard "Manage Blogs I'm Following" wizard. The Following "Sites I've joined" wizard. At the bottom of your Blogger dashboard , you'll find a blue "Manage" button (Classic GUI) or the familiar "Gear" icon (New GUI). This lets you manage Following, for all blogs that you are Following using this Blogger / Google account. Cli...

Long ago, Blogger blogs had a very simple membership permissions policy. Each blog had an owner, and members. The owner was the administrator of the blog, and ownership could not be transferred. This simple policy was a problem, because some blog owners would eventually lose interest in a blog, and want to cede ownership to someone else. In other cases, people were known to die suddenly, leaving blogs with no live owners. In both cases, Blogger Support would become involved, and would manually transfer ownership. Later, Blogger developed the Permissions wizard, and added a class of member called "Administrator". The original publisher of a blog becomes the first administrator, who may, at his / her discretion, designate additional administrators.

The process of "bidding" determines who is best suited to take on a given task, in some multi party games and relationships. In the game of Contract Bridge , the players of the game get a chance to assess their personal holdings of the cards dealt to them, and the probable holdings of their prospective partner and opponents - and predict the number of rounds ("tricks") that they expect to win, in the game to come. In the "game" of construction bidding , contractor firms get the chance to predict how much funds they will require, to perform a given project, given the chance by the firm bidding the project. In both cases, different parties bid for the right to perform a task. Some would be blog owners think that procedure should apply to blog ownership. I want this URL - It's the perfect URL for my needs - for my blog. The URL is in use, but it hasn't been updated, recently. Why can't Blogger give me that URL?

This week, we have a question asked, in Blogger Help Forum , which has been on my mind, in various formats, for some time Does anyone know what Google does with it's residual copies of blogs after deletion? What's in the search engines may stay there forever. There is more than Google Search (really, there is), and the various search engines feed on each other . Replacing content with a stub may remove cached content selectively . Fuzzing / smokescreening your data may get rid of your personal data, or may make it less visible at least. You can't get rid of everything that says something "bad" about you . People have opinions, you will always have some enemies, and your enemies will always have something bad to say about you . Even Mother Teresa probably had somebody who said bad stuff about her. Look at social scrapbooking, like Yahoo Glue . Something added to a Glue page, true or not, will be indexed by the search engines. Even if a Glue page is scrubbed, th...

If your blog is published to a Google custom domain, you may be happily updating your blog one day, and get a panicked email from a friend What happened to your blog? I'm seeing a GoDaddy advertisement! or I'm getting 404 Not Found when I try to view your blog! What's the problem now? and if that's the case for you, then you need to act, now. Not long ago, I got an odd email. Hi Chuck, I'm Nagarajan from India. I bought your domain Nitecruzr.Net through a GoDaddy auction. I just want to make sure that whether you sold your domain to GoDaddy, or by any chance it went for auction ? Also, I would like to know about your willingness to get back your domain Nitecruzr.Net. Long story short, I had thought that I placed the renewal last month, and omitted to verify that the payment went through. And I was very lucky that Jasa Nagarajan, who buys and sells domains, had noticed the auction, and that he picked up the domain.

Many Bloggers are considering the pros and cons of the Blogger eternal blog policy Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. If you setup a Custom Domain, things are a bit more complicated. If you don't pay the periodic DNS hosting, or the name registration, fees, the domain will expire, and eventually go out of service. Google for "Black Viper", if you want an example of what the readers go through, when that happens. Your blog will continue on BlogSpot, but won't be accessible. Both "www.yourblog.blogspot.com" and "www.yourblog.blogspot.com" will be forwarded to "yourdomain.com". With no DNS entry to forward "yourdomain.com" to "ghs.google.com", all 4 aliases ("www.yourblog.blogspot.com", "yourblog.blogspot.com", "www.yourdomain.com", and "yourdomain.com"), will be discontinued. You'll need to have your blog switched back to publishing to BlogSpot , when D...

Years ago, when blogging was just being started, a blog would be purely personal, and purely ephemeral. You start a blog, it's yours, and who cares if you stop publishing? Today, that's not the case at all. Google for "BlackViper", if you want an example of what can happen. I started a blog for my church, Martinez United Methodist Church , 2 years ago. As blogs go, it's kind of small, but so is the church. But, as Jesus said in Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. So I continue to develop this blog, and the church members seem to appreciate it. But I occasionally wonder What will happen after I'm gone? Well, for one thing, if someone else in the church isn't a blog administrator, or doesn't have access to the blog administrative account, nothing. And I'm sure that I don't maintain the only blog in the Blogosphere where this is (should be) a concern. From reading the Blogger H...

According to Blogger Help This blog looks abandoned, can I have its address? Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. That's good news - if you're the blog owner. Short of your blog being hacked , what you publish will remain online - and your property, forever . Of course, your ability to maintain your blog and URL will be subject to your ability to maintain the account that administers the blog. And the future online status of the blog will be subject to how it's published, and its future after you're gone .