The Real Blogger Status

Recently, we've been seeing queries from some anxious blog owners Why should I have to sign out a total of three, four, or more times? With blogs that use a template that shows the navbar, the owner may logout, using the "Sign out" link - but the navbar may continue to suggest that they remain loggedin. This problem may start with how we connect to Blogger, as part of the mysterious Internet cloud .

Some Blogger blogs cannot be viewed, in some proxy servers. Proxy servers are useful, when diagnosing connectivity and other blog display issues . They are more useful, though, when the content of the blogs being diagnosed does not contribute to the problems. The reported discrepancy appears to start with blogs published using dynamic templates .

If your blog is published to a dynamic template, neither you or your readers will have a navbar, when your blog is being viewed. The navbar, found on blogs which use a non dynamic template - when selected by the blog owner - has a number of reader friendly icons and links. Dynamic templates have a "menu bar" 1/5 of the way down the page - which provides a combination of the Pages gadget, and limited navbar functions. At the far right end of the menu bar, you'll see 2 tiny icons - when you are properly logged in as the blog owner. New post, the "pencil" icon. Home, the "home" icon.

As Blogger Engineering continues to upgrade Blogger code so our blogs will support SSL (aka "HTTPS" protocol), they are having to update many blog components, at the same time. Sometimes, they upgrade a component - and the upgrade has a more extensive effect than they hoped. Right now, the navbar search gadget is broken - for blogs published to custom domains.

Blog owners who live in Europe have a recently added regulation with which you need to comply. If you publish a blog, and host AdSense ads, you already have part of the requirement - the properly written Cookie Advisory. If you live in Europe, and view this blog, chances are that you have been offered the chance to view the Nitecruzr.Net Privacy Policy , which includes my Cookie Advisory. If your blog displays the Blogger Navbar, you have a compliant Cookie Advisory Banner which is provided by Blogger, in the navbar. If you have disabled the navbar - or if the blog uses a dynamic template (and has no navbar), you can add a Cookie Advisory Banner as supplied by Google Cookie Choices.

Occasionally, we see confusion in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue ?, about a rather obvious process. How do I logout? The blog owner, here, is not being completely facetious, or obtuse. Many applications, on the web and in other scenarios, have a "Logout Complete" display - maybe with a link, to login, again. You have now logged out of XXXXXXX. Thank you for visiting! >> Login And "Login" would be clickable, and would take you back to the Login screen.

Occasionally, a blog owner wants to login to Blogger from the blog - but there's no link to login. I can't get to my dashboard! How do I login to Blogger? The simplest solution is to just use the Blogger login link https://www.blogger.com Bookmark that, and you can login any time - using either a Designer / Layout, or a Dynamic, template. A long term solution would be to have the Navbar enabled, on the blog. All blogs can't use a navbar, however.

We see occasional reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about the "Next Blog" link in the navbar, and undesirable behaviour. Long ago, "Next Blog" was used to link to the most recently published blogs, to encourage blog publishing, using the now dead "Recently Updated Blogs" database . Since multiple Blogger blogs are published each second, this gave a pseudo random effect to "Next Blog". Blog owners disliked the pseudo random effect. Some wanted to view blogs only published in their language, others wanted blogs geographically similar - and some demanded relevant subjects. The pseudo random effect was abused by spammers, who would setup spam blog farms , then publish each spam blog repeatedly, to attract victims. "Next Blog" hacking was a popular spammer technique.

We've known, for a while, the dangers of logging in with the wrong Blogger account . My dashboard has no blogs!! or My Reading List is empty! Blog owners and readers, alike, have been reporting this problem, for years. With the new Google multi account login , this problem has become more noticeable, for some blog owners and readers. My Blogger account was merged, to an an account with an empty dashboard. Sometimes, the dashboard lacks blogs - at other times, it lacks menu items, or reading list entries. In either case, the account owner needs to login to a different Blogger account .

Ever since Blogger added the "Next Blog" link to the Blogger Navbar, blog owner and readers alike have periodically asked one question, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I remove the "Next Blog" link, from the Navbar? The "Next Blog" link, long ago added to generate random traffic for new blogs, is occasionally perceived as leading unwary readers to blogs where they should not wish to go. Some "adults" of various intention have asked this question, quite seriously, in fear of their blogs being inadvertently linked to blogs with unsavoury content. The navbar coded as it is, there is no known ability to customise it, and to remove specific elements such as the "Next Blog" link. Generally, we simply advise people, when they have the need, to remove the Navbar. Use the Layout wizard, Edit the "Navbar" gadget, and select "Off".

Recently, a few Blogger blog owners are looking at their blogs and wondering Where is my Navbar? or Why don't I have a "Sign In" ("Sign Out") link, at the top of the page? When investigating further, they may discover that none of the blogs, that they view, shows the Navbar. And, they did not intentionally make any template changes, to their blog, to hide the navbar . Many of these people, later investigating the problem in Blogger Help, learn that their browser, or another anti malware product, is blocking the navbar as suspicious code. This is another example of improperly configured layered security , planned to protect our computers. If you are observing the lack of the navbar on your computer, and you request help in Blogger Help, please help us to help you better, and provide details. What browser ( name and version - and precision matters) are you using? What add-ons are installed, in the browser (completeness matters)? What anti malware product...

Recently, Blogger cleaned up the Navbar somewhat - and removed the "Follow" link. This change left some would be blog Followers inconvenienced. How do I Follow blogs, that don't have a Followers gadget? There has always been a third way to Follow a blog, provided by Blogger - though not everybody may be aware of it.

Last week, after some complaints were heard from blog owners who were using the dynamic templates on their blogs, Blogger added "Dashboard" and "New Post" links in the header bar. These new links are accessible when the blog owner is logged in, as a blog administrator. Unfortunately, their improvement did not take into account the need to login. Blog owners, not logged in, will still see no links. If not logged in, you may access your dashboard simply using the link to Blogger. http://www.blogger.com/ Alternately, you may access the non dynamic alias of any blog, for instance http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/?v=0 and you may then use the "Login" link in the navbar. >> Top

Yesterday, we saw a few reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning the lack of a link, in the dynamic views header bar, to our dashboards. I'm using dynamic views and now can't access my dashboard! It appears that the Blogger logo / Attribution ("Powered by Blogger" caption), which formerly linked to our dashboards, is not there, any more. This deficiency appears universal - the links no longer appear on all different dynamic views, on header bars with the views listed side by side or in the pulldown list, or on blogs where dynamic views are default, or optional.

The Blogger navbar always bothered me, because of its lack of one key link. When you're logged in, it has "New Post" and "Design" (previously "Customize") links - and that's OK. When you're not logged in, it has a "Dashboard" link - and that's OK. But when you're logged in, there is no "Dashboard" link - and that's not OK. Even though there is no "Dashboard" link, there is a link to the dashboard. Try it, and see. Click on the Orange / White (or Blue / White for Draft Blogger) "B" at the far left of most Blogger displays, and there you'll see - your dashboard . The "B" is simply a logo, that links to " Blogger.Com ". If you're not logged in, you get to login. If you are logged in, and your default dashboard is Draft (Blue) Blogger, you see a White on Blue "B" logo. Click on the logo, and you get the Draft dashboard. If you are logged in, and you...

Up until last week, I would advise folks looking for traffic to their blogs that they should publish, publish, publish . Besides friends and family, your initial readers will come through the "Next Blog" link, randomly. You get more "Next Blog" traffic from posting more, less from posting less. And, you'll need this initial traffic. Last week, with the new "Next Blog" link, all of that changed. Now, people hitting "Next Blog" get another blog, but with 2 major differences from the possibility last week. The "next blog" linked to will be chosen for similar content / subject, and same language, as the blog being displayed currently. The "next blog" linked to will not be chosen relevant to updating activity. You're just as likely to get a blog published to 5 years ago, as 5 minutes ago. This gives us two concerns, which we did not have earlier. Finding other blogs of random subject and recent updates won't be as ...

Long ago, I observed that getting readers for your blog started with publishing posts. Thanks to the "Next Blog" link in the navbar, as you published posts, you'd get readers who randomly surfed to your blog . As you got more readers from random access, some readers would become return readers, which would encourage you to publish more. Which would bring you more readers. And so on. That was a great strategy on Bloggers part, for a Blogosphere with Relatively few blogs. No spammers. Unfortunately, the spammers of the Internet figured that was the perfect way to get readers to their splogs , too. And BlogSpot splog farms were born. This week, we have The New "Next Blog" link . For any blog with any given subject matter, a reader hitting "Next Blog" gets another blog in the same language, and with the same subject matter. As noted by several readers of this blog, there's one thing missing now. "Next Blog" now makes no attempt to look...

Just a couple days ago, I observed that the "Next Blog" link in the navbar was being redesigned . So, it's here. Click on "Next Blog" from above. Now, you'll get other blogs in English, and for this blog, other techie blogs. No more hacking, porn, or spam blogs, from clicking "Next Blog" - unless the blog that you're currently viewing contains hacking, porn, or spam. Which means no more hacking, porn, or spam from this blog, from clicking "Next Blog" - period. The end of hacking, porn, and spam in the NextBlogosphere. Bravo, Blogger. Maybe you'll see a third difference. Now, any randomly accessed other blog may, or may not be, recently updated. This won't please everybody, unfortunately. Before it would often bring me to sites I had no interest in or were not in english, but at least it brought me to recently updated sites. Now when I do it I often get stuck finding a ton of sites all on a single topic, and many of the...

I've been writing about the navbar, and the "Next Blog" link, for some time - about its random nature , about its dangers , and recently about its design changes . Soon, we are promised a major functionality change in "Next Blog". Blogger Buzz: Coming up Next... suggests that soon, the link will let us surf to blogs with both language and subject affinity to our blogs. This is a great idea, and one that's been long overdue. This has been coming, since well before January 2008 . But like all great ideas, one should consider the details. It will be interesting to see what a blog with a totally unique language / subject pair will link to. Also, how granular will the subject association be? For that matter, how will blog subject be determined? What of blogs with multiple subjects - or of course some blogs with no subject, simply ramblings? And will this allow folks to intentionally (or un intentionally) surf to porn or spam, if they are currently viewing ...

It's been a bit over 2 months since Following was added as a Blogger feature, and daily we see anxious bloggers asking How do I get Followers to my blog? as if that is a holy grail of blogging. My first answer is always Write interesting and relevant content for the blog, so people will read the blog, and will want to Follow the blog. But there is yet another detail, that not all bloggers seem to get. Add a Followers gadget to the blog. Having a Followers gadget, with pictures of other Followers, will attract more Followers than just the "Follow" link in the navbar . The "Follow" link, besides not having pretty pictures, works differently than the Followers gadget. You're going to get a different class of blog readers using the Followers gadget, than the Follow link. The Followers gadget lets people Follow the blog without signing in to Blogger using a different Blogger account using a non Google account The navbar Follow link requires the reader...