The Real Blogger Status

For a long time, the natural way for finding multiple, random blogs was "Next Blog" surfing. After a while, spammers found out about this, and "Next\\\\Porn Blog" surfing became the norm. A couple months ago, Blogger developed a new "Next Blog" link which has turned out to be safer - and boring. Fortunately, "Next Blog" surfing isn't the only way to see what's out there in the Blogosphere.

One monolithic complaint, frequently seen in Blogger Help Forum , is My readers can't comment on my blog. This complaint, as with many like it, could benefit from some structured diagnostic practice . Start by observing the complaint level that's currently endemic in the forums. Sometimes, Blogger will cause their own problems (yes, this is known to happen), and you'll see a flood of complaints. Here, it is helpful to be familiar with the normal complaint level .

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...

To further answer the regularly asked question "How do I let my friends know when my blog is updated?", we have FeedBurner. Properly setup, a FeedBurner feed will provide a neat subscription form for your blog, and help you maintain your subscription list, for any publicly accessible blog which publishes a feed.

Occasionally, you see bloggers becoming confused about what access they have to their blog. I can look at the Edit Posts menu, but there are no posts listed. or I can't access the Template Designer (edit the template, add users to the blog, ...). These are bloggers who are confused over a blog where they are an Administrator, vs a blog where they are an Author. Let's look at my dashboard , and at a pair of blogs which we see there. Here's my dashboard. Among the many entries, you'll see one blog listed where I am an Author, and a second where I am an Administrator. Let's first look at a blog where I am an Author. Let's look at "Edit Posts". I'm an Author in this blog, and I haven't created any posts. There are plenty of posts in the blog, just none that I've created. I have no access to any posts that I haven't created. Let's look at "Settings". I'm an Author in this blog, so all of the Settings that I...

Every week, we see questions I have friends posting in my blog, so it looks like a team blog. But it's my blog, and I want to show only my profile. or I want to list a friends profile, even though she's not technically a blog member. or maybe I want to add my birthdate (my city, the colour of my hair, whatever...) to my profile. How do I make it look good? and questions about tweaking the blog template, to accomplish this need, abound.

One of the neatest features of Blogger "One Button Publishing" is the "one button" design. Don't like the layout of the blog? Change the template! Don't like the colour of the background (the post area, the sidebar, ...)? Change the colour! Don't like the Title, don't like the URL, ... Whoa. Slow down. The URL, that is the Universal Resource Locator, is known all over the Internet. Or should be, if you're publicising the blog properly . That's your public name - don't be changing that on the spur of the moment.

Most of us who publish a Blogger blog just setup a blog, and start . Some people already have a web site, and simply want to add a Blogger blog to the web site. Other people have two (or more) blogs, and want to display all blogs as one.

Every day, we see the question "How do I let my friends know when my blog is updated"? My personal preference would be to use a syndication feed (Atom or RSS) . A newsfeed reader is very convenient, and easy to use. But a newsfeed isn't universally useful. If your blog is private (requires authentication to read ), newsfeeds won't be available . Some readers can't, or won't, use a newsfeed reader.

If you're a fan of the classical rock group Rolling Stones, you may remember their 1960's hit You Can't Always Get What You Want . Regardless, many Bloggers may decide to setup a blog based upon their favourite rock star (porn star, TV show, whatever). But when they select the URL of their choice, they see Oh noooooo! What do I do now?? So what to do now? Well, the obvious solution, for many, is to get into the Blogger Help Forum, and whine . there are tooo many users who sign up with blogger, and chose some url, which i wanted to use, and yet, they left the pages blank.. this led me to the final resort of choosing a very silly url for myself. Unfortunately, they are wasting time, as Blogger has explicitly stated in the Google Blogger Help database . Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. and again in Google Blogger Help online forum FAQ People claim blogs after years without use more often than you would think. That's whether any given blog was crea...

Blogger Blogs, and similar online and other IT products, use peer support to help their customers. Blogger, similar to other companies, provides Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , where Bloggers with various problems can write in and say I have a problem [My Problem]. Can anybody help me? If you properly compose your problem report in Blogger Help Forum, and state your version of [My Problem], one of several things may happen. A solution will be known, and will be instantly provided by one of the many helpers. A solution will be derived, from subsequent questions by one of the many helpers. You will be advised to report your problem, to Blogger Support . Now, if you are so fortunate to have scenario 1 or 2 apply in your case, it is possible that the solution can be found in either Beta Known Issues , Blogger Help , or Blogger Status . It's possible - but not too likely - if it was, you (or someone like you) would have found it, and publicised it, long ago. If...

In every Blogger forum I read, you see occasional complaints I just made changes to my blog. Other folks can see my changes, but I can't. What is the problem? The buttons on my Post Edit toolbar / my Navbar won't do anything. Help!! The problem is quite simple. Portions of your blog, and of every other website that you've accesed recently, are stored locally, on your computer . The next time you access that blog or website, your computer won't have to waste your bandwidth downloading the same files. Have you ever noticed that the first time you visit a new website, you computer seems to run slower than subsequent times accessing that same website? This is not your imagination. In some cases, as when you make changes and can't see those changes immediately, this is not a good thing. Until a file reaches a certain age (sits locally on your computer for a while), your computer won't even bother to check for its update. Your friends will see the changes, ...

OK, you now have a kick ass blog. Congrats. But nobody's looking at it. So what now? Now, you have work to do.

Most Blogger blog owners, and publishers of various websites, shouldn't just write content, blindly. Blog and website owners need to know who reads the content, too. Some folks learn about their readers from the comments left by them. If the website is a blog, and if comments have been enabled, then some readers will feel moved to leave comments about specific posts. Both Blogger and WordPress, and probably other blogging services, provide for comments. For regular websites, and for blogs without comments activated, you may be able to use Disqus . Disqus provides commenting on non-blog websites, and on blogs where more control (and separate from Blogger connections) is desired.

By adding a Google sitemap to your blog, you can more easily submit your site for indexing, to the Google search engine spider. You get better coverage by the spider, than by simply submitting your blog to the Google search engine . You'll also get detailed statistics about how Google sends traffic your way, and how the Google spider sees your blog.

There are several ways to instinctively ask for help , in an online forum like Blogger Help Forum , don't allow the helpers to help you as effectively as they should. Let's see if we can identify some problem areas.