The Real Blogger Status

Not all blog owners know the best ways to update labels, with the posts in their blog. We see occasional signs of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I add a label, to many posts at once? and How do I correct the spelling of my label, already added? and How do I remove all of the labels, from one of my posts? These owners are not aware how to use the dashboard Posts page - and Post Editor - to add, delete, and edit labels.

Occasionally, we see real confusion, involving the email address. I can login to Blogger - but I can only change my email address, or remove myself from the blog. This is a blog owner who is logged in as a blog author, who now sees just two dashboard menu pages. Posts Settings In many cases, this will be a blog owner who is trying to recover access to the blog , having forgotten the account name - or who is inadvertently using a second Blogger account . Running afoul of the Blogger / Google blind login , the would be owner has just managed to login - but sees a very empty dashboard. And, the confusion may not end there.

Setting up the ability to post to your blog, using email, is quite simple. In Blogger - you just have one essential setting - the password. You setup the password as the "secretWords", in the dashboard page at Settings - Email. You can use any "secretWords" that you like - though if you have any concern about keeping spam out of the blog , you really should make the "secretWords" hard to guess .

Blog owners have been asking, for years, how to use labels, with Mail-to-Blogger . Mail-to-Blogger uses an email editor, for composing a post - and is going to lack features that are not provided by the email editor. Labels are one example of what you don't get, when you use email to publish a post to your blog.

Some blog owners use Mail-to-Blogger, for publishing to their blogs, without considering the issues. Some owners can't get Mail-to-Blogger to work. I get Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: or I don't get any error - and the post never shows up in my Posts list. Other owners have no problems getting theirs to work, and later find posts that they didn't send - and don't appreciate . Where did all of the spam come from? Using Mail-to-Blogger seems simple - but maybe should not be treated so. The Mail-to-Blogger email address, at Settings - Mobile and email, is a major part of the challenge , in this case.

As long as computers exist, and people are needed to provide technical advice, the one problem report that many of us fear is anguished, and brief. I got hacked! To many of us, this means that we have not been doing our job - because the first job of technical support is, unfortunately, security. Hillary Clinton got hacked, recently - and she was lucky. The hacker that attacked her was only poking around - and had no actual intent to cause harm. The owner of a successfully hacked Blogger blog may not be so fortunate. If you act promptly. and plan wisely, you can prevent long term inconvenience.

We're seeing a few queries recently, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about a little used option in mobile blog publishing. Is "go.blogger.com" down? I'm trying to claim a mobile token, but having no success. This blog owner, like a few others, is trying to use a dying Blogger feature. "go.blogger.com", and MMS / SMS , was the Blogger solution for blog publishing using "mobile" phones, provided several years ago. SMS is a protocol used for sending text messages between computers, that was used on "mobile" phones, before most "mobile phones" became just pocket sized computers using "cellular" (3g, 4g, etc) networking.

We have seen a significant number of reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , again mentioning inability to post to our blogs using EMail / Phone / SMS. The problem appears to have started several days ago - but was quiet for a while, and has been rather noticeable today.

Occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , we see a query from a confused blog owner. I made a large number of posts today, and Blogger is now requiring me to solve a CAPTCHA, for every post. I tried to find the form to submit, so that my website could be reviewed, but I could not find it. What do I do, now? This blog owner, like too many, does not understand the spam mitigation policy.

Occasionally blog owners get confused about the effects of blog ownership changes, and various Settings values. We'll see odd questions in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . I just changed the email address of the blog owner - but comments are still going to the old address. and How do I change the email address used in emailing my posts to my blog? Not all blog owners realise that blog ownership, and various Settings values, are separate from each other.

Mobile blogging is becoming more and more popular - and it's creating an interesting challenge. Many blog owners, freed from the daily use of the home computer, are publishing multiple smaller posts, throughout the day - instead of a few larger posts, at the end of the day. Also, they are using mobile computers, and emailing or messaging the posts using Mail-To-Blogger, rather than composing the posts using the GUI Post Editor. Lately, we're seeing more and more problem reports,in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why are my posts not publishing? Many of the people reporting problems are mobile bloggers, not understanding about the unavoidable limitations.

Mail-To-Blogger is a very simple way of using your email client or mobile computer, to submit photos and text as posts in your Blogger blog. As simple as it is, it offers less options than some folks would wish. Some post content can't be immediately published, using email - but must be later added into the post, using Post Editor.

As Google+ increases in public visibility, we're seeing suggestions how to integrate it into our lives. You can, for instance, publish directly to your blog, using a Google+ stream, and Mail-to-Blogger.

Occasionally, we see signs of some blog owners acting like ostriches, as they publish their private blogs using Mail-to-Blogger, and ignore yet another Blogger security initiative . I like my Mail-To-Blogger email address! Why does Google tell me to change my "secret word"? Some owners of private blogs believe that their blog is invisible to hackers and spammers, as an ostrich sticking his head into a hole in the ground becomes invisible to predators. If you combine a private blog with an activated Mail-to-Blogger address, using an easily guessed "secret word", you have yet another future spam host. Hackers don't care about the name of the blog, or the fact that the blog is private. Their script starts with a working email address, from which they derive the public portion of the Mail-to-Blogger email address. Given an easily guessed "secret word" - the private portion of the Mail-to-Blogger email address - they have yet another blog on which th...

A few blog owners are reporting problems, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , with posting to their blogs, using Mail-To-Blogger. Several days after sending my post, I get an error text stating that Blogger is not responding. I personally have tested Mail-To-Blogger using my email client, and there is no problem, in general. From the reports received, the problem appears to be related to use of MMS / SMS from cell phones and smart phones. We have a rollup discussion , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , where the problem is being explored. If you are experiencing any problem with posting photos and / or text using email, MMS, or SMS, please provide your details in the rollup discussion . Help Blogger Support focus on the problem. (Update 1/8): A suggestion from one blog owner suggests that the problem appears to be related to use of an address book entry to address the messages. The workaround, in this case, may involve using the native Settings - "Em...

For some time now, Blogger has supported use of mobile devices, for posting to our blogs. Picture blogs, containing photos taken with your camera phone, are a popular activity for many bloggers. Mail-To-Blogger , which used an email client instead of the browser based Post Editor, sent in many different formats and protocols, was the beginning. Now, we have the ability to post directly from our smart phones. You can enable Mobile Posting, for your blog, from Settings - Email & Mobile - Posting Options. Blogger provides detailed instruction, in Blogger Help: How does Blogger Mobile work? . Recently, Blogger added mobile client support, so your readers can enjoy your blog from their mobile devices. Now, new templates will include special formats designed to work better with small mobile screens. In Draft Blogger , under Settings - Email & Mobile, we have Mobile Template, where you can now enable use of a new mobile template for your blog. To make you comfortable befor...

Occasionally, we will see an ominous problem report in BHF: Something Is Broken Somebody is posting articles in my blog, but it's not me! When we see this, the first thing that comes to mind is unwanted comments, generally when comments are not actively moderated. That's not always the case , though.

In early 2010, Blogger issued a typically terse warning of a security problem, with blogs that use Mail-to-Blogger for publishing posts. To prevent abuse, a recent update to disabled easily guessable secret words. Please update your Mail2Blogger secret word. I've referred to the importance of the "secret word" some time ago - and apparently this year, a few blogs are being hit by the vulnerability.

Every day or so, we see reported from concerned bloggers, about unknown content in their blogs. Where did those ads come from? I didn't add them! or How do I keep this other blogger from posting porn links in my blog? As we add content to our blogs, and make them fun, interesting, and shiny, to attract readers, we risk adding undesirable content. This is a constant problem.

For a long time, blog owners who would frequently publish many posts in one day would report the anguish of having to solve a CAPTCHA . Blogger Help Why do I have word verification on my posting form? explains the necessity, and the limitation. This restriction is in place as much to control the load on our servers as to prevent explicit spam. Therefore, there is not a whitelisting review process to exempt individual blogs.