The Real Blogger Status

The ability to publish a Blogger blog to a non BlogSpot URL is becoming a known - and desired - option for many bloggers. And with the retiring of FTP Publishing, many bloggers are turning to Custom Domain Publishing. Not everybody is satisfied with the TLD choice of ""com", "net", "info", "org", or "biz"", though. Some folks would like to publish to a "vanity" TLD, like ".me", ".tv", or ".us". Others would like the country relevant TLD of their residence, like ".au", ".de", or ".in". And I have seen one or two queries about using a ".gov" TLD. Custom domains will support use of any properly registered domain that you can "buy". The limitation is with the "Buy a Domain" wizard , which lets you select only a ".biz", ".com", ".info", ".net", or "org" generic Top Level Domai...

Unsolicited redirect to a Google AdServices, Sites, or Start page is a very common cause, right now, for the well known custom domain symptom " Another blog is already hosted at this address ". And, it's a reasonably easy symptom to correct.

For over a year, many (too many) bloggers report seeing the well known monolithic error Another blog is already hosted at this address. when trying to publish their blogs to a Google Custom Domain. In the past, this condition could generally (with a bit of effort, sometimes) be reset by recycling domain settings using various Google Apps wizards . Recently, though, the Google Apps solution has become less effective. I tried doing all the trouble shooting things and it's still not working. or I started to recycle Google Apps, and after several rounds, my www domain started to work, but the naked domain still shows me 404 error. And in "Advanced Settings", I get that naked domain error. About half the times when Google Apps is not effective, we discover the blog previously published to a URL with mixed case letters . But the mixed case URLs don't seem to be the entire cause of the unrepairable situation. The naked domain error seems to be common in many domains th...

Along with the similar cry, " Why Isn't Google Solving The Server Not Found Error 404 Issue? ", this is a concern of many blog owners . Many blog owners only want to publish to their newly setup non-BlogSpot URL, and have their readers able to access their blogs. Like the answer to the latter question, the answer to this question is simple. Google is solving " the problem ". One problem, at a time.

Some bloggers, who want to publish their blog to a Google Custom Domain, elect to not purchase the domain using the " Buy A Domain " wizard, still decide to accept their domain DNS configuration from a third party - the domain registrar. Many registrars advise use of URL forwarding, and this is known to cause problems with Blogger . DaVe L, in Google Blogger Help - Publishing Trouble: 404 Error/Register.com domain issue , writes Since this past sunday, my blog www.shortandsweetnyc.com has been getting that 404 error when I enter the URL. I registered the domain name through register.com and have called them several times to try to figure out what the issue was. They have been telling me that everything is fine on their end and it looks like the problem is on blogger.com's end. And here we have yet a third incident involving Register.Com, in a single week . An HTTP access trace shows us: Sending request: GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: shortandsweetnyc.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0...

Many bloggers, who want to publish their blog to a Google Custom Domain, elect to not purchase the domain using the " Buy A Domain " wizard. Some folks decide to do so because they want a domain in a TLD that's not provided by the wizard, others just like to do it themselves. And sometimes, "doing it themselves" is where the trouble starts. KJ, in Google Blogger Help - Something Is Broken: DNS Redirect Errors , asks I've had some of the same problems as others who have posted, with the blog not showing, error messages, etc... I've tried to go through and correct the areas that I thought haderrors, but the more I read the more confused I become. Would someone be able to assist me to see if I have everything set up properly? Here's what we saw, when we checked out the blog in question. This isn't going to encourage prospective readers to read your blog. And, checking out the DNS configuration, we saw: mydomain.com. 3600 IN A 64....

Many Bloggers, currently publishing by FTP to external servers, need to plan for a somewhat immediate move of their blogs back to Blogger and Google servers. No matter how you look at it, this is a manual process. This week, an FTP Publishing Migration Tool, stated to be available 2/22 , developed to support the immediately required migration , will mitigate some of the tedium and uncertainty that's described below. Start from the Settings - Publishing screen. See the advice for "Blog URL"? "nitecruzrtestftp.blogspot.com will redirect to your FTP blog." That's the current BlogSpot alias, and soon will be the only URL. Just select "Switch to: • blogspot.com". Endure yet another CAPTCHA . You're done. You're publishing on blogspot.com. And see the Blog*Spot Address? Just don't try hitting "Save Settings" again. Home again. Now, if you like, move to a custom domain. Or not. >> Top

Setting up a Google Custom Domain, which gives us the ability to publish our Blogger blog to a non BlogSpot URL, is a reasonably simple process. That simple process, though, depends upon several not so simple factors. Our understanding of how rigidly simple the DNS setup is. Our acceptance of how rigidly simple the DNS setup is. Our use of a registrar that provides us the DNS setup that is required . Custom Domain setup is simple - but allows for no deviations.

Ever since Google Custom Domains were configured using Google Apps , allowing a combination of custom domain blogs and non custom domain services in a given domain, bloggers everywhere have gotten used to the imminent appearance of the monolithic error message Another blog is already hosted at this address. during the custom domain setup process. Initially, the problem was reset by Blogger Support, when requested by a form entry submitted by the blog owner. Later, we developed a blogger accessible reset procedure using Pages, a service controlled within Google Apps. It appears now that the latter solution is no longer usable. Custom Domains generated recently from the " Buy A Domain For Your Blog " wizard continue to have access to Google Apps, but the Pages app is no longer available. The alternative apps, Start Page and Sites, may or may not have the same effect as Pages, when used in a reset process for the mentioned symptom . Some people have stated that they got acc...

I've been writing about browser display differences for a while - known differences between Firefox and Internet Explorer are legendary. Most differences, though, are in how the blog gets rendered - simply different display appearance. Cosmetic issues, not all so minor but still cosmetic. Then we have the case of "run4istrun.blogspot.com", which is intended to be published to "run4istrun.com". The problem was originally reported as " blogspot URL not redirecting as Blogger says it should (for an FTP Published blog) ", as indeed it wasn't redirecting, when viewed in Safari. In the latter case, it was just another "404 Not Found". One intermittent problem with FTP Publishing is that blogs published using FTP are having an annoying redirect notice (called by Blogger Support, the "interstitial"), implying some degree of possible insecurity, inserted in front of the home page when the BlogSpot URL is loaded. I reported this, fir...

Long ago, when you attempted a two factor authentication (account name / password) process with a server, the normal connection procedure would verify for the existence of a given account, and verify the password against that account. If either verification failed, a properly written server based script would tell the user what he was doing wrong - either "Invalid account" or "Invalid password". Then security experts realised that if you issue an error saying "Invalid account", you were, in effect telling a possible intruder what accounts did not exist on the server in question - enough connection attempts would then tell an intruder what accounts did exist. This is a known hacking technique, called by some security experts "account name mapping". Knowing the existing accounts, the hacker can then try to guess the passwords on those accounts. Some secure servers, made resistant to mapping, don't issue any error messages, they simply ignor...

Not all problems with FTP Publishing are caused by Blogger, directly or indirectly. Sometimes, the operators of the host servers, involved in the FTP publishing process, provide subtle yet significant clues to bigger problems. You have to keep your eyes open, though. Here is an example, with a customer of Network Solutions . My host is Network Solutions - yesterday they sent an e-mail reading We are aware of an issue with FTP and UNIX packages. They will generally deny the first connection, but allow subsequent connections. We are requesting that our customers attempt to connect to their server twice until we have a resolution. Blogger isn't going to (in reality, they can't, reliably ) tweak their FTP publishing process to repeatedly attempt a connection with a host server, just because the operators can't solve their own server problems. This is a case where the customers have to get involved, and convince the server operators to fix their server problems. >> (U...

Occasionally, settings which identify the location of your blog, relative to the FTP folder on the server where your blog is hosted, may change. Some changes may be related to changes at Blogger, other changes may be related to changes in the server itself. Symptoms may vary, but will typically mention denied access, or missing content. Access is denied. Requested action not taken: file unavailable. The system cannot find the path specified. Most frequently, the change required will be the relative root designation. The change will probably involve the main publishing path ("Settings" - "Publishing" - FTP Path) and / or the archives path ("Settings" - "Archiving" - Archive Path). If the current value is ".", change it to "/". If the current value is "/", change it to ".". If the current value is, for instance, "blog", change it to "/blog". If the current value is, for instance, ...

Some time ago, I noted a technique being used by Blogger to combat the spread of spam blog referrals, which was creating some inconvenience for legitimate blogs using custom domains . That inconvenience seems to continue, even today. A prettier display, but the same inconvenience. This isn't good for your readers - nobody wants to surf to possibly malicious content - intentionally or otherwise. Nor is it good for your search engine reputation - this extra page will stop the spiders cold. Check your Google Webmaster Tools Logs if you see this one day, if you don't believe me. Let's look at the browser logs for myblog, and mydomain. 7/14/2008 09:24:54 Trying http://myblog.blogspot.com Redirect! Header: HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:24:56 GMT Expires: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:24:56 GMT Cache-Control: private, max-age=0 Content-Length: 3473 Content-Type: text/html Server: GFE/1.3 Connection: Close Redirect! Header: HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently Date:...

Publishing a Blogger blog by FTP, to a third party server, presents a challenge, may I risk making an understatement. Bloggers choosing to host their blogs externally have traditionally been subject to numerous experiences , not all good. One of the least enjoyed is possibly seeing the advice Your publish is taking longer than expected. To continue waiting for it to finish, click here. It appears that a recent server change (some time in the last 3 to 6 months) at GoDaddy may be at least partially responsible for some of the FTP Publishing experiences, such as the latter advice. GoDaddy appears to have 3 server configurations right now. Linux, "hosting configuration 1.0", PHP 4.x. Linux, "hosting configuration 2.0", PHP 5.x. Windows, ASP.Net 1.1, IIS 6.0 . In at least one case, service moved from Linux configuration 1.0 to configuration 2.0 appears to be related to the symptom discussed above. According to the Original Poster in the thread linked above, service ...

Blogger is constantly fixing problems with FTP publishing, and more problems come up at the same time. Anybody who says that there is one problem, and waits for the one problem to be fixed, is assuring that the one problem won't ever be fixed . FTP Publishing involves scripted communication with hundreds of different "servers" (with Blogger acting like a "client") all over the world. Each different server, being owned by a different company, will be different from each other server; and each server will have different problems, which make the the Blogger scripts progressively more complex . Sometimes, changes by the server owner to some, though not all servers , may make a difference. And just because you were able to publish to your blog last week, that doesn't assure that you will be able to publish this week . Nor does it assure that somebody else will be able to publish today. What all of this means is that anybody who insists that his problem has t...

Google Apps, which I originally identified in my second custom domain case study , and later in a separate article, Custom Domain Publishing, And Google Apps , is what I shall call a Web Services Aggregator. Google Apps gives us the ability to combine a Blogger blog using a non-BlogSpot URL in a domain with other Google and non-Google services. Google Apps is not the only web services aggregator that we have identifed recently. Yahoo provides a similar setup. Let's look at a Yahoo Web Services setup, using a hypothetical domain, "mydomain.net" (name changed here to protect the unfortunate). First, let's dig the DNS records for the primary domain "mydomain.net". ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;mydomain.net. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: mydomain.net. 1200 IN A 68.180.151.21 mydomain.net. 1200 IN A 68.180.151.22 mydomain.net. 1200 IN A 68.180.151.23 mydomain.net. 1200 IN A 68.180.151.24 mydomain.net. 1200 IN A 68.180.151.25 mydomain.net. 1200 IN A 68.180.1...

Periodically, someone interested but uncertain asks about the practical effects of publishing their blog to a custom domain . Will all the posts (the comments, the customised template, ...) be the same? or Will my readers be able to find my blog? or even Will I lose Page Rank, and if so, how long? These are all valid concerns. Publishing your blog to a custom domain is pretty much like publishing it to another BlogSpot URL, except you end up with two (maybe 3) URLs , each of which will work equally well. The BlogSpot URL. The primary URL for the domain. A possible secondary URL for the domain. There's no visible change to the content - it simply republishes to the new (non-BlogSpot) URL. If you want to go back to normal publishing , you republish to BlogSpot. Simple? Since the BlogSpot URL continues to work , everybody who has the BlogSpot URL bookmarked can continue to access the blog, transparently. You'll experience a brief loss of page rank , but you'll still get so...

I've been discussing FTP Publishing, and comparing it to native BlogSpot and Custom Domain publishing, for many months. Besides the functionality and style differences , there are network issues - several key differences between custom domain and FTP publishing, which cause problems. The problems will come and go, and will randomly affect a different segment of the blogger population each time. Authentication . Blogs published by FTP are copied to servers with differing, and not always appropriately maintained, authentication policies. Control . Blogs published by FTP are copied to servers that aren't owned or supported by Google . Distance . Blogs published by FTP are copied to servers that are distant from Google. Dynamics . Blogs published by FTP are published statically. Each time a post is published, the entire blog is copied to the distant server. Overall . Looking at these issues, what should we expect? Authentication Authentication, the process of establishing y...

I've been helping people set up their custom domains for over a year now. We've dealt with simple setups, and complex setups - from a domain setup in 5 minutes using "Buy A Domain For Your Blog", to ones that take much longer because the domain itself is in use and requires Google Apps configuration. Occasionally, odd questions come up Chuck, what is "3600"? or Does my blog have to be published to either "mydomain.com" or "www.mydomain.com"? or Do I have to point the blog to "ghs.google.com"? The latter question wasn't easy to answer intelligently, basically I answered You can point the DNS to any host name that you wish, but if you want a working custom domain, stick to "ghs.google.com", and lets get this done. For an answer to the first two questions, and others, let's look at the setup process . Within the setup process, let's look at how this blog, " blogging.nitecruzr.net " is defined as a...