The Real Blogger Status

The Stats "Audience" page is now showing a mysterious entry, in the "Pageviews by Countries" list, for some blogs. The list of the top 10 most active countries, for the "Now", "Day", "Week", and / or "Month" lists, for some blogs, includes a non country name - "Unknown Region". The "Unknown Region" entry appears to be associated with a second Stats oddity, a monochromatic "Pageviews by Countries" map. This oddity is causing some concern, in various forum discussions . Where one would hope to see a familiar Stats multi-shaded Audience map, with various countries displayed in differing shades of green or black, some blog owners are seeing a monochromatic pale green display. The monochromatic display appears to be accompanied by the mysterious "Unknown Region" entry, in the countries list. I am examining the Stats "Audience" page, for this blog - in different time range...

We see various problems reported, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , which may involve geographical or network relationships. Why can't I regain access to my blog, that I stopped publishing 5 years ago? and Why can't I see my blog? and Why does my dashboard show up in a language that I can't read? With questions like these, it helps to know how and where the owner and / or readers of the blog get Internet service.

We see occasional reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , from Blogger blog owners who want to share their blogs using BlogLovin. Why can't I claim my blog? BlogLovin is somewhat monolithic. They use the blog feed, and a BlogLovin URL with embedded token, to process / validate blog claims - and their diagnostics, when a claim is a problem, are not always effective. Some blog feeds can be validated, yet not be found by BlogLovin. And other feeds won't validate.

We're seeing a few problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , mentioning problems with the blog feed. I try to claim my blog in BlogLovin, but they tell me that my feed is invalid! or My subscribers stopped getting my posts by email!! Both BlogLovin, and the FeedBurner "Follow by Email" service, depend upon the blog posts newsfeed.

One of the more perplexing problems, in Blogger owner / reader life, involves layered security issues , and filter changes. Many Blogger features are vulnerable to security filters. The ability to use Blogger commenting , the EU cookie advice banner won't display or won't go away, the infamous Reading List , the Blogger Stats "Don't track ..." option - all require cookies and scripts , that are subject to filtering.

Blog owners are periodically asking themselves How do I invite my readers to leave comments? Some blog owners think of commenting as the most important way to get new readers. One of the most seemingly insignificant components of the Blogger template is the link to invite the readers to leave comments. This is not a simple feature - it varies according to where the comment form is placed, and to different language and style decisions.

Recently, we've seen signs of confusion, from people who have problems with their Internet service, which shows them moving around their geographic region. I logged in to Blogger, with no problem, yesterday. Today, after logging in successfully, I am asked for more details, to prove my identity!! This blog owner has a problem with location based security. Not all Blogger blog owners or readers understand that Country Local Domain Redirection , and the ability to access one's Blogger / Google account (and prevent others from accessing it), both depend upon the ability to determine the geographical location of each blog reader.

We're seeing reports from people who claim to be traveling, and who can't login and access their blogs. Google appears to now authenticate us using current location, as well as account name / password . We see occasional reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about new security procedures. I am traveling, and I need to access my Blogger account from another country. I know my account name and password - and I logged in successfully. But after logging in, I am still being asked to prove my identity!! This blog owner is finding a problem, with Google taking extra measures to protect our accounts and blogs.

We've recently been seeing a number of reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from blog owners having problems with the "Create a new blog" wizard. When some of my students try to create a new blog, they get an error message The page you requested is invalid. These blog owners appear to be running up against new blog creation limits, possibly caused by Blogger prevention of abusive blog creation. Blogger has apparently added new ways of preventing abusive blog creation, by use of new activity limits.

Occasionally, we see signs of confusion, from people who understand Country Code Alias Redirection , in general. I live in Hungary - but I am reading blogs with the ".sk" suffix! This blog reader knows about alias redirection - but does not understand why he is seeing redirection for Slovakia (".sk"), instead of Hungary (".hu"). Not all Blogger blog owners or readers understand that Country Code Alias Redirection depends upon the ability to determine the geographical location of each blog reader.

People who publish blogs which are relevant to a specific country may be able to focus search engine attention, for their blog - and better target readers in the country in question. Google Webmaster Tools provides the "Geographical target" setting, which lets a blog owner select a single country. The setting increases search engine attention, for their blog, in the country selected.

As Blogger / Google continue to make their services more available to the bloggers and blog readers of the world, they are separating the language affinities of the various portions of the Blogger displays, into two categories. Components most referenced by the bloggers. Components most referenced by the blog readers. Components referenced by the bloggers can be controlled by the Blogger profile language setting , so you, as you publish your blog, see many Blogger wizards in your stated language. Readers of a Blogger blog, on the other hand, won't always have a Blogger profile, as they surf the Internet and land upon your blog. To support your readers, Blogger uses Geo Location, and determines the prevalent local language where the computer is located. Blog displays that are most referenced by the blog readers will be presented in the local language. If you write your blog for your readers, this benefits you. The more portions of your blog that are available to the blog readers o...

If you're concerned about your personal health, you track your vital signs, regularly. Personally, I monitor my blood pressure and pulse every two months, courtesy of the American Red Cross (and regular blood donation). If you care about the health of your blog, you'll do the same, using one or more visitor meters . If your blog has a complete outage, you'll know that right away. You, personally, won't be able to access it. What if some readers can see the blog, and others can't? Examining your visitor logs, regularly, can help you know when your blog is offline, completely or partially. If you are in one geographic location (with a given ISP), and the majority of your readers are in another location (with another ISP), you may or may not know when your readers can't see your blog. Likewise, if the blog is offline for a couple days, when you're not looking at it, you may never know (though your readers will). A visitor meter, with its accompanyin...

Danasoft - Free Signs For Your Blog How scared should you be - did I just hack your computer?? Highlight from here, ==> Advice from the makers of the sign: These signs are created and served by our webserver in real-time for each person that views them. Your IP address and other information are only visible to YOU, not to others, but because people see their own IP address and computer information displayed on a blog, they think that their information can be seen by everyone! Get back to work!! <== to here, and find out. See Geolocation: Where Are My Readers Located? for more advice. Better, spend your time publishing informative and interesting content - make your readers feel genuinely welcome.

Free visitor meters, like SiteMeter and Statcounter, are great for telling you who looks at your web site. You can find out details like how they get there, how long they look, and many other useful details . One useful detail, not always completely understood, is where your readers are located. The process of determining this is called Geolocation .

Almost daily recently, we see folks oppressed by obnoxious commenters to their blogs. I have been receiving malicious comments from some Anonymous commentors over 2yrs now. They have cloned my ID, left abusive comments under my name confusing all my blogger friends, palgiarised my work in another blog, made a blog to ridcule me etc etc. And they are still at it at my expense. I have reported this to Blogger many times but to no avail. I don't know how to block people from commenting either. Is there any way I can track the IPs of commentors and block them from my blog for good? It's a popular request - with little chance for positive response. And the short answer, to the question, regrettably, is "No". You can install a visitor meter, and track your visitors . Once you know the IP address of a problem reader , you can install a product like IP Address Blocker (free). IP address blocking won't be effective. Blocking them, though, will never be 100% ef...