The Real Blogger Status

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.

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 an occasional report in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about custom domain publishing. My readers can't view the blog - they get a redirection count error! DNS analysis shows a properly setup domain . When we try to examine the blog, we see a private blog notice - or we are required to login. But why a private blog, using a custom domain?

Some blog owners like to restrict access to their blog - and others want to have multiple people able to publish, or maybe to administer their blog. A few even want multiple administrators, and restricted access. Both private and team blogs involve use of the Permissions wizard, and the membership invitation / acceptance process. Making either a private or a team blog starts from the Permissions wizard. Just keep the multiple functions, and the different links, in mind.

Owners of private blogs have, periodically, lamented the lack of options for distribution of comments and posts. We've seen a few queries, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I let my readers subscribe to my private blog? There's no good answer, to please everybody, here. You can't use EMail, FeedBurner, or Reading List, for sharing private blog content. FeedBurner requires the blog comments / posts newsfeeds - and private blogs don't produce newsfeeds .

Private blogs affect other Blogger features - and the combination of results are inconsistent. With dynamic templates, the private blog selection causes an inoperable display. Conversely, with Google+ Comments, enabling Google+ Comments disables the private blog (designated reader) selection - and vice versa, in the various Blogger dashboard pages. The two interactions - and differing mutual exclusiveness - contribute to some interesting diagnostic sessions, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue .

Some blog owners have reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about broken email distribution. There are various ways to distribute Blogger blog content, to email . For those unable or unwilling to use FeedBurner Email Distribution , one popular alternative is Google Groups.

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 .

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.

Blogger recently simplified private blog access, and removed some of the ambiguity from the membership invitation acceptance process. Previously, an invitation to a private blog involved an email message with several options. Besides the expected invitation to join (using a Blogger / Google account), one might find an option to "preview" the blog, and / or view as a "guest" (without requiring a Blogger / Google account). Both the "guest" and "preview" options caused confusion, for both owners and prospective members.

Some blog owners consider changing their blog, to private membership - but have a problem with managing the membership volume, during the conversion. How can I populate my membership list, with email addresses, before making the blog private? This is a question seen occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger - and it's a question that can't be answered. You can only add members, to a private blog. A public blog allows access to all - and has no member list.

Some blog readers wonder about how to follow blogs, recently turned private by their owners. We see some concern , in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I Follow a blog which was recently made private. Its entry in my dashboard Reading List froze, and I can't get it working by removing and re adding! This would be reader does not realise the results of making a blog private. Private blogs do not publish blog feeds . When a blog is made private, the feed stops - and the Reading List and all other feed subscriptions - comments and posts - stop updating. With no feed published, a blog cannot be added to Reading List - though the members picture icon may remain visible, in the Followers cloud.

We see occasional reports of people unable to accept membership in a private or team blog. Even when an invitation is sent repeatedly, and accepted properly, some prospective blog members can't achieve membership. This blog is open to invited readers only http://myownbloggerblog.blogspot.com/ It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. We see this periodically, when trying to view a private blog - or access a team blog as an administrator. Even after accepting membership, some people may see this message.

We see the signs of naivete, periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I require my readers to enter a password, to keep my blog safe from public view? This blog owner does not understand the realities of setting up a private blog. Long ago (very long ago), a computer system might have "private" files, and a shared password, known by everybody, for each file. Nowadays, a private Blogger blog uses team blog access - or team blog ownership - and each team member gets to choose her / his own Blogger account , with a password that he / she decides to use (and hopefully, remember).

Occasionally, someone may publish a blog as private, invite / accept readers, then later decide that results are not as positive as desired. It's easy enough to change a blog, from Private to Public. Just go to the Permissions wizard, in the dashboard menu Settings - Basic, and change Blog Readers from "Private" to "Public". Unfortunately, this may not leave everybody able to access the blog. I made my blog public, last week. Some of my friends are now seeing Your current account does not have access to view this page. Why is this still an issue? The blog owner, in this case, is seeing the effect of cache, and authentication. In many cases, simple instructions to " clear cache, cookies, and sessions " may resolve this problem. This does not always work, however - and the mystery why it does not always work may frustrate us, almost as much as the original symptom.

Along with problems with comments and unwanted CAPTCHA forms, we're seeing some reports about problems with persistent and unwanted interstitial displays, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . The interstitial display, and its use of cookies, is similar to the new mandatory anonymous comments CAPTCHA form . If your identity can't be determined, or your decision to view a blog can't be remembered, an interstitial warning is displayed - just as the CAPTCHA form is displayed, when your readers are preparing to comment.

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.

For some time, we've known about a problem with non GMail based Blogger accounts, and comment moderation / notification email . That problem, though mildly annoying to the blog owners affected, has an easy workaround - use a GMail based email address, for comment moderation / notification. That's a quick 15 minute fix. Setup a GMail account, if necessary. Change the comment moderation / notification email addresses, for the blog(s) affected, to use the GMail email account. GMail email accounts are, after all, free. Besides the ease of putting a workaround in place, that problem is not all that severe. The problem with comment moderation / notification email, being filtered, only affects blog owners who moderate before publishing. Owners who moderate after publishing can always use the Blogger dashboard Comments wizard, at their convenience, to moderate. This week, we realised that the base problem - rejected email because of non GMail based Blogger accounts - may also a...