The Real Blogger Status

We're seeing a number of reports from blog owners, claiming their blogs are now subject to security alerts - and blocked when sharing. Frequently, the reports involve blogs published to "blogspot.com" (not custom domains) - and using the "www" alias. Some services, such as FaceBook, are now requiring "https" for shared URLs - and the "www" alias of "blogspot.com" ("www.whatever.blogspot.com") can't be used, with the "https" protocol.

Your blog depends upon traffic for its success - and similar to custom domain migration, will suffer a period of lower search related traffic, while being upgraded to HTTPS. Larger blogs get better search reputation, all other details being equal. While your blog is being reindexed, after you enable "HTTPS Redirect", you will have a blog with two different base URLs - and both URLs will reference two smaller blogs, and have lower search reputation. All posts in your blog will not be reindexed under an HTTPS URL, immediately. Some posts will remain indexed under the HTTP URL, as others are re indexed under the HTTPS URL, one by one. While being reindexed, your blog will look like two smaller blogs - and both URLs will suffer from lowered search reputation.

One of the advantages of custom domain publishing, and the domain root to published URL redirection, used to be transparent redirection of the URLs. As Blogger blog owners become more sophisticated with their blogs, and custom home pages (aka "landing pages"), become more popular, we have blog owners with concerns about home page access and domain root redirection. We are also seeing concern with direct access to specific posts - with posts advertised, using the domain root URL. In some cases, redirection only shows the reader the blog home page, as the first view of the blog - even with a specific post being linked in the advertised URL.

URL redirection is a Blogger magic trick, similar to a common sleight of hand trick in stage magic performances. The Blogger HTTPS Redirection , a recently added feature in Blogger security, may be a similar Blogger magic trick - and a possible problem. Some browsers treat websites with multiple redirects as possibly malicious. Private blogs, accessed through the Blogger / Google interstitial login , may also complicate HTTPS Redirection.

After years of waiting, this blog is now readable, using HTTPS. This blog, and others published using properly setup custom domains, now provides optional HTTPS connectivity - joining BlogSpot published blogs.

After many years of waiting, people who publish blogs using custom domains can provide HTTPS connectivity, to their readers. Right now, HTTPS Availability / Redirect can be enabled, for custom domain published blogs, using Draft Blogger.

As most of us know, Blogger HTTPS support does not include custom domain publishing . The advantages offered by HTTPS access are widely advertised - and have led to envy between blog owners who publish to custom domains, and native BlogSpot blog owners proudly advertising their new HTTPS connectivity. Long ago, we saw possibly malicious code which helps our readers avoid using country code aliases , to read our blogs from an aliased country. Recently, there was dodgy code which blocked HTTPS mode , to read a customised blog. Now, we have custom code to force HTTPS access, for BlogSpot published blogs.

One of the simplest ways to make a blog useful is to add label searches. Adding label searches, in page / post text, is not easy - unless you know how to build the URLs. Here's a label search from this blog. http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/search/label/Blogger%20Magic All that I want, when using that label search, is to add another reference to my "Blogger Magic" post series. " Blogger Magic " emphasises how easy it is, to use Blogger. How easy is it, to remember that syntax - to add a label link? Maybe, a " Blogger Magic " reference, in this post?

SSL has been an option, for BlogSpot published blogs, since late last year - and we still see occasional questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about its use. When I saved my post, I saw the error message This page contains HTTP resources which may cause mixed content affecting security and user experience if blog is viewed over HTTPS. I clicked "Fix" - and the error message went away. Should I have to go back and "fix" all my old blog posts, this way? This blog owner will be better off, with "HTTPS Redirect" disabled.

We see occasional frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , involving broken or unreliable custom domains. I setup the Custom Domain properly, following the Google directions . For some of my readers, my custom domain is not opening. I can see it is going in an infinite loop in the browser - and after a long time, it's throwing errors. My domain is setup, properly. Why do I have to deal with this? And we will investigate - and in many cases, we find the domain is setup properly .

Viewing comments, on some popular blogs, one may get the idea that not as many comments are being published, as are immediately visible. With a large comment complement, comments are paginated - with some comments hidden behind a link, captioned "Load more". The "Load more" link is JavaScript based - and there is a problem. The "Load more" link does not always work, on all blogs.

People frequently observe significant differences between products from Apple / Google / Microsoft . Since all three corporations are separate (and highly competitive), they have their own corporate philosophies and development timelines. Despite all of that, Blogger tries to make their product supportable, across all corporate lines. Unfortunately, the Blogger service is not always consistently usable, with all browsers - or mobile computer / smart phone apps.

Last month, as part of the SSL rollout, Blogger added a page / post / template editor feature - that not everybody understands. A blog with "HTTPS Redirect" enabled will provide SSL access, for every reader - both those who intentionally use HTTPS, and those who normally use classic "HTTP". Those who normally use "HTTP" will find themselves redirected to "HTTPS" - no choice. When you use page editor, post editor, or template editor, on a blog which offers "HTTPS" to everybody, you may see an alarming alert.

With Blogger now providing (optional) HTTPS, on all blogs, we're seeing a few anxious reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I'm getting an error, on one of my plugins. This content is not yet available over encrypted connections. What can I do? The answer won't be encouraging. Don't enable "HTTPS Redirect", on your blog.

The rollout of SSL, for "blogspot.com" published blogs, continues. All "blogspot.com" published blogs will now offer HTTPS connectivity , to the reader. The choice, offered to the blog owner, is now whether to force every reader to use SSL - and the dashboard option is now labeled "HTTPS Redirect".

An HTTP trace is a very useful tool, for diagnosing and documenting connectivity issues, and many other blog problems. I use the Rex Swain HTTP Viewer , for this purpose. HTTP Viewer lets you package a given display, in the URL, so you can give simple instructions (accompanied by an unavoidably complicated link): Click on the link: http://www.rexswain.com/cgi-bin/httpview.cgi?url=http://klarfamilylife.blogspot.com&uag=Mozilla/5.0+(X11%3B+CrOS+armv7l+7834.70.0)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/49.0.2623.112+Safari/537.36&ref=http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html&aen=&req=GET&ver=1.1&fmt=AUTO And when the link is clicked, the necessary HTTP trace is displayed. There is no need to provide instructions how to actually enter the necessary values, on the HTTP Viewer home page, to generate the necessary display.

In the process of publishing my earlier post " Blogger Magic - Add An HTML Gadget ", I discovered the latest feature in the Blogger SSL upgrade. Page / Post Editor now scans page / post content, and warns us when there are links still using "http" protocol. This will help us avoid publishing pages and posts which will generate "Mixed Content" warnings, when pages and posts are displayed using SSL.

A few blog owners, who publish blogs published to custom domains, are becoming impatient , waiting for Blogger Engineering to finish the Blogger upgrade to support HTTPS / SSL. If I get a domain through Google Domains, will I be able to get HTTPS? Unfortunately, no. HTTPS / SSL is simply not available, to blogs published to custom domains .

Blogger recently redesigned the Stats "Don't track ..." option - and removed third party cookies from the picture. The "Don't track ..." wizard is now accessed from the blog URL. The wizard still produces cookies - but they are ordinary first party cookies , which are much less feared than third party cookies. But, every silver lining has a cloud.

Blog owners have been trying to block tracking their own Stats pageviews, for a few years. This option has long been unusable, for blogs published to custom domains . Recently, Blogger Engineering updated the option - and the dashboard page with the link.