The Real Blogger Status

Periodically, we see complaints about "Next Blog" content, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . When I click on the "Next Blog" link, I get sent to blogs from many, many different languages. Can I set this to send me to primarily blogs published in English? or "Next Blog" sends me to blogs about "xxxxxxx". My blog is about "yyyyyyy". Why can't I get more blogs about "yyyyyyy"? What these blog owners do not understand is that using "Next Blog" involves compromise.

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.

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".

The new Next Blog link has been out for almost a full year , and we still see daily complaints. When I press "Next Blog", I get only religious blogs (My name is Jude). or When I use "Next Blog", I only get blogs in Spanish (I only speak English). or "Next Blog" is boring now - it only gives me "crafts" blogs by American housewives (I hate crafts blogs). These are all complaints by people who want to randomly surf blogs, but don't care for truly random results. If you can't accept random surfing results, try less random surfing techniques . Blogger Profile surfing. Following surfing. Google Blog Search (Advanced Mode) surfing. Focus your activity just slightly, and see if you don't get better results. If you start your "Next Blog" surfing from your blog, and don't like the results, put more content into your blog. The more focused your blog content is, the more obvious your abilities and interests will be to "Ne...

In November 2009, Blogger changed the nature of the "Next Blog" link . Originally driven by randomly selected entries in the "Recently Updated Blogs" list , the list was later filtered to block inadvertent surfing to blogs with undesirable content (intentionally published to host hacking, porn, or spam content). When the filtering became relatively ineffective, the "Next Blog" code was redesigned, to select link targets dynamically, relevant to the content of the blog being currently displayed . This causes occasional confusion among bloggers and blog owners alike. Some blog owners don't understand why their blogs now get less "Next Blog" traffic, even as they post more content to their blogs. Other blog owners don't understand why they click on "Next Blog", and are redirected to blogs that don't seem to relate to their blogs. Some bloggers don't understand why they don't get sent to interesting blogs, any more...

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.

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 ...

One noticeable spam problem became visible in late 2009, thanks to yet another Blogger error. This error left a lot of bloggers ( some legitimate and others actually spammers ) reporting both confusion and indignation.

The Navbar, and the Next Blog link, are great blog accessories, and make your blog part of the Blogosphere. Not all blogs need the navbar though, and not all blog readers appreciate a blog with the navbar on it. Blogger recently admitted that we are permitted to hide it on our blogs , if necessary. (Update 2009/11/12): With the new "Next Blog" link , and the transparent navbar design , do you really feel obligated to do this? Note that all that you can do, here, is prevent the navbar from being visible. The code still exists, in the blog template; the navbar simply isn't visible when the blog is displayed. Fortunately, hiding it isn't difficult. With the new Designer templates, just Edit the Navbar gadget, in the dashboard Layout wizard. You'll have a selection, "Off", at the bottom of the color selections. Save, and you're done. A useful alternative to hiding the navbar - especially if you find the various links useful - is to make the ...

Recently, Blogger launched Following , which looks to me like an eventual replacement for the "Next Blog" link. By Following the right blogs - those with some Followers, and that are owned by bloggers who are Following other blogs - you immediately become part of a global network of bloggers and blogs. By Following the blogs that interest you, you focus your surfing on your interests, and do the same for those who surf to your blogs. If you Follow the right blogs, you help attract traffic, through the backlinks to your profile, and there to your blogs. And as you see your Followers and blog traffic increase, you will be encouraged to publish more posts, which will encourage still more traffic to your blog. This provides the same effect as traffic from the "Next Blog" link, except it will be from bloggers who share your interests, as you Follow blogs that interest you. Traffic from bloggers who share your interests (and are interested in the content of your blog...

I've been advising bloggers about an essential and sensitive subject - getting more traffic to their blogs - for years. Such a simple activity - post accurate, relevant, and useful articles - and advertise responsibly - the search engines will see you - and the readers will come. But there's a problem here, similar to the chicken and the egg paradox. If more search engine visibility depends upon more readers, and more readers depends upon better search engine visibility, how do you start the process? Where did the first chicken come from, anyway? With Blogger, there is a way around the paradox - the "Next Blog" link , driven by the "Recently Updated Blogs" list. When you post to your blog, your blog goes onto the "Recently Updated Blogs" list. People using the "Next Blog" link access the RUB list, and there they are reading your blog. The more that you post, the more readers you get from "Next Blog". But, there's a lim...

For many years, using "Next Blog" for surfing through the Blogosphere has been a dodgy activity. No matter when you surfed, you were sure to find something pretty nasty , and frequently hazardous to the health of your computer (and maybe to you). In January 2008, that changed . Blogger started scanning blogs for undesirable content, and blocked many nasty blogs from being targeted by "Next Blog" surfing. Besides using automated blog scanning, they also provided a voluntary classification of our blogs.

The Blogosphere, including Blogger blogs both published to Blog*Spot, and to non-Blog*Spot URLs, is immense, and is growing constantly. In the Blogosphere, you'll find blogs created as a "first blog" by beginning bloggers, as well as blogs created by those who have dozens of other blogs already. Anybody with Internet access is entitled to make his / her own contribution. If you want to estimate, in any 10 minute slice of time, what blogs are being published, you can examine the Recently Updated Blogs list. That list, however, only shows you what blogs are being updated - it in no way shows you what blogs, in total, occupy the Blogger portion of the Blogosphere. In reality, there is no way a single, flat list could ever enumerate the entire blog population. When you view Recently Updated Blogs on your own, you'll understand this to be true.

The Blogosphere, like the web in general, is subject to attack and misuse by malicious people, even as it is available for legitimate use by any person. Until a month ago, the "BlogSpot.Com" region of the Blogosphere was known for rampant misuse. I warned of this misuse, by referring to use of the "Next Blog" link as "Porn\\\\Next Blog" surfing . This analogy of mine was not a great stretch of the imagination. You could see this fact reflected in the blogs visible in "Next Blog". Besides the illegitimate blogs - the ones published for hacking and for porn and spam distribution - a large number of legitimate blogs, when visible, would have no Navbar. The task of removing the Navbar is not at all complex.

Recently, we see periodic queries about strange visitors to our blogs. Why does my StatCounter log show odd links into my blog? What is "www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=", and why do I see traffic from that link? Why am I getting strange traffic to my blog after I publish changes? All of these questions, until Mid November 2009, were related to the same thing - the "Next Blog" link in the Navbar. Now, all of this is changed . When you publish to your blog, your blog goes into a huge database, listing blogs just updated. You can see a replica of this database in the Recently Updated Blogs list. The RUB list is huge - it shows a 10 minute slice of Blogger publishing, and at any time, will have from 4,000 - 8,000 entries, with new entries constantly being added (just as old ones drop off the list). The RUB database is important to the Blogosphere. When anybody clicks on the " Next Blog " link in the Navbar, an entry from that database results ...

This is the game of " Porn\\\\Next Blog" surfing . Like all games, it must have some rules. You are welcome to make up your own, as you see fit. These are simply my rules, which I follow for consistency. Use Firefox, on a computer properly protected with Layered Security . Start Firefox from within SandboxIE . Open half a dozen or so tabs, to start, in the window. The goal of the game is to hit "Next Blog" repeatedly, until you have surfed to 3 Adult Friend Finder splogs. The surfing, for maximum consistency, should be done as rapidly as possible. One of the problems of "Next Blog" surfing is that you constantly find interesting blogs which you will be tempted to examine. Don't spend time looking at blogs, keep going. When you find any interesting blog, or when you find an AFF splog, move on to the next tab. When you have found 3 AFF splogs, you will have 3 tabs with those splogs, plus any incidentally interesting blogs, displayed in the tabs. If...

Several months ago, I started a series of posts which I entitled "Adult FriendFinder" , or "AFF". Adult FriendFinder has been long known for providing Internet advertisements using pictures of "local" women, with many of their pictures frequently described as pornography. An unidentified criminal organisation is currently producing a large number of blogs, which are being hosted by BlogSpot, and which use Adult FriendFinder ads as their signature. These blogs are maintained in great volume, so when you use the "Next Blog" link in the Navbar for any amount of time, you will likely surf to one or more. The volume of these spam blogs, or splogs, in BlogSpot, is one of the reasons why I, and a few other bloggers, now advise those with blogs read by sensitive people, to remove the Navbar from your blog . I make this advice, ever mindful of Blogger repeated advice that the Navbar should not be tampered with . And this is why I currently refer to usi...