The Real Blogger Status

Making a blog searchable is the first step in getting search traffic, and readers, for our blogs - when we want them visible to the public. Not all blog owners want their blogs visible to everybody. Complementing the ability to publish a blog, and have it visible only to invited readers, Blogger gives us the ability to make the blog invisible, to the search engines. If we want readers for a blog, and do not have a private reader audience in mind, we first make it visible to the search engines.

Ever since 2009, when Blogger introduced the Stats visitor activity counter , blog owners have been reporting inconsistencies between Stats and other visitor activity counters . Recently, Google+ changed their +1 counter. Now, we wait for Blogger Engineering to update their +1 per post display counters, which use the +1 counts from Google+. Blog owners continue to report various Stats inaccuracies - such as discrepancies between Stats pageview counts, and the various social sharing counters. They fail to observe the functional differences between the various activity counters - and similarly, between Stats counts and social sharing metrics, such as Google+ +1 counts.

Some moments come fleetingly, and never again. One such moment may be, when you receive a blog membership invitation. The purpose of this message is to inform you that xxxxxxx has invited you to join their private blog "xxxxx xxxxx". To accept this invitation, click on the button below. or The purpose of this message is to inform you that yyyyyyy has invited you to contribute to their blog "yyyyy yyyyy". To accept this invitation, click on the button below. Unless you know the blog owner, this may be your one chance.

We see regular queries about deleting a Blogger account, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . A Blogger account is simply a Google account, used to publish or read blogs. If you want to delete a Blogger account, you need to delete the Google account. If you are using your Google account for other services, maybe GMail, Google+, and / or YouTube, you won't want to delete your Google account. But you can make the Blogger portion of your Google account invisible, to the public.

Some blog owners setup a blog - then a social media account or two - and immediately, start advertising each new blog post in social media. Later checking Google and other search engines, they find that the blog is now indexed - but the index entries point through the FaceBook, Google+, and / or Twitter posts. The blog, under "blogspot.com", is nowhere to be found, in any SERP entry . Not everybody realises that Blogger promises anonymity , when properly setup - and that anonymity comes with a price .

For blog owners who have forgotten the Blogger account name or the password, the "Forgot your username or password?" wizard is an essential tool. You can try to recover account or blog control, by using either a BlogSpot URL or an email address. Both options work only under specific circumstances. Both options are blind recoveries. You enter a blog name or email address, with no assurance that what you enter will lead to a blog. Only when you enter a valid blog name or email address will you receive a recovery email.

One interesting question, that we see from time to time in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , is about owner activity and "dormant" blogs. Many people would like to publish to an inactive Blogger address - but Blogger supports the current owner right to anonymity and privacy - and to keep their blog, until they want to give it up . One of the challenges, in this case, may be identifying dormant blogs.

We see an occasional would be blog member, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , bemoaning lack of private blog access . I used to follow a certain blogger - but found out, recently, that now his blog is blocked & only open to invited readers. I do not know the author and would like an invite. How do I contact the author? Lack of access to the fancy clubs and parties, in any city, is a disappointment to many - except the lucky members of the "AAA" list. Private blogs have the same exclusivity. Life is not fair.

Too often , we see the report, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can't login to my Blogger account! or My blog was just deleted!! Neither of these problem reports are unusual - and generally, there are various control and diagnostic options which may be available, to help us recover control of the account or blog in question.

Too often , we see the report, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can't login to my Blogger account! or My blog was just deleted!! Neither of these problem reports are unusual - and generally, there are various control and diagnostic options which may be available, to help us recover control of the account or blog in question.

If you use Google Two-Step Verification , you will have a better chance of being able to recover Blogger account access, if you forget the account name or password. Alternately, use of 2-Step Verification may prevent account hijackings and blog theft, when you must use a computer that's not yours, or when you travel - as long as you carry your authentication device / tokens with you. As an alternative or complement to 2-Step Verification, Blogger recognises us using demographic details. People who consistently use the same browser, on the same computer, in the same location, and from the same Internet service, are easily recognised, are trusted more - and are less likely to receive secondary challenges.

Every month, we see a concern about content theft or impersonation, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I deleted my blog last year! Now, I see it online again, using my name - but it's not in my dashboard! or I renamed my blog, last month! Somebody else is publishing it, this month!! These former blog owners have discovered the unpleasant reality of never ending spammer activity. URL recycling (a feature begged for, by many), plus blog content and feed caching (a reality, with most blogs), can lead to spammer harvesting and resurrection. And in some cases, to identity theft.

Some blog owners have found out, to their dismay, that the blog feeds contain details about them, that they supposedly blocked from their blogs. Blog owners, who are trying to publish blogs anonymously , have to work hard, to stay anonymous .

We've had some photo / video blogs under review recently, and confirmed as TOS Violations. The citations were first seen late last year, and associated with the "Jennifer Lawrence" / "Anna Kendrick" celebrity leak photos scandal . We're asking Blogger Support for details of the policy - but right now it appears that Google is now forbidding any "nude celebrity" photos or videos, after their public relations problems surrounding the Jennifer Lawrence photos.

Not everybody likes to be known, everywhere. Some folks prefer to publish a blog, without their name appearing. Anonymity is a goal, for many blog owners. Blogs using both Dynamic and non Dynamic (Layout, Designer) templates can be made anonymous - but different tasks are involved. Fortunately, both tasks are simple.

Every day we see the complaints, of the hundreds. Your instructions, for recovering access to my Blogger account, don't work! And alternately, we see the anguish. I can't login to my Blogger account, because my account is locked!! And the final complaint, which is the most heartbreaking. I can login, but my blog is not on my dashboard - and someone has filled my blog, with spam!!! These are all reports about the same problem , in alternate universes. Any time Blogger Engineering changes their account / blog recovery options, and cuts down on the numbers of one of the three, the other two will surely increase in number - because all three are symptoms of the same problem. People simply refuse to remember their account names and passwords .

Most of us, as we surf the Internet, are going to surf some websites, repeatedly. Everybody has favourite websites. When we surf the same website, over and over, some of what we do and see may not change a lot. To keep us from wasting our time, and generating unnecessary network traffic, our browsers keep track of the websites that we visit over and over, save records of what we do and copies of what we see, and note what has changed. The website content, stored locally, is known as "private" data.

Have you ever heard the old saying I had a friend, and I had a secret. I told my friend my secret - and now, I have neither a friend, or a secret. Occasionally we see signs of naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I have a private blog! Why do I see my blog listed in Google? or I distinctly set my blog to be invisible! Why is my blog being indexed? Not all blog owners know that neither the "disallow" statement, in "Robots.Txt" - nor the "noindex, nofollow" directives, in our blogs - are mandatory.

When the Blogger dynamic templates were first introduced, back in 2011, they provided choices . Besides letting the reader choose, on the fly, which dynamic view to use, it was possible to let the reader choose whether to view the blog using a dynamic view - or a non dynamic view . When dynamic templates were first introduced, they offered a dynamic view of the blog posts - and little else. Popular features like static pages were added later, and in pieces . As the various pieces of the dynamic views became better defined, the need to switch between dynamic and non dynamic views became less essential - and eventually, some choices were eliminated.

Every week, we see the anguished cry of blog owners, who don't have access to maintain, or publish to, their blogs. Help me! My email address changed last month, I dropped my phone into the sink, and now I can't sign in to my blog! If you look at the fine print, you see the full story.