The Real Blogger Status

We've been dealing with a minor recent deluge of reports, from blog owners reporting mysterious redirection of their blogs. The original typical report, which started like any report involving a respected Internet service going out of business, was annoying - yet benign. Today, the status changed to malicious. Right now, "w i d g e t s e r v e r . c o m" is redirecting to "l i b o s t u d i o s . com" . Please enter your email address to continue. Many gadgets, long known for redirecting, are again redirecting - recently to "w i d g e t s e r v e r . c o m" - and now to "l i b o s t u d i o s . c o m". As some were diagnosed, a few owners advised that the misbehaving gadget had been installed long ago . We've seen, so far, a few old (not!) friends. M a u k i e , N e o C o u n t e r, and "S u n a n d M o o n P h a s e" can be seen, in some topics . A brief sample of forum topics involving "w i d g e t...

As both custom domain publishing, and social sharing networks, become normal with many blogs, we see anguish when blog owners change the URLs of their blogs, without planning for the effects of the change . What happened to my Likes? This blog owner - and many others - do not realise that FaceBook counts Likes, based on the URL, not the blog. FaceBook Likes, and Google+ +1s, are counted by URL - and are not controlled by DNS redirection, or simple name changes. If you rename your blog, you get a new URL with a new popularity counter , in FaceBook and Google+.

We see some blog owners deciding to change their custom domain URLs - and discovering an unexpected limitation, in re indexing the blog, under the new URL I received email from Google, advising that my previous domain is pulling up a number of 404 errors. I've noticed that these are for individual blog posts. When you change one custom domain to another, you may not see the domain re indexed, transparently.

Blog owners are always changing the URLs of their blogs - then asking why Blogger does not provide automatic redirection, to the new URL. We see the occasional query, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I redirect my readers, to my new URL? And this is a need that will likely go unfulfilled. If Blogger provided automated redirection, spammers would abuse it, as part of a spam publishing strategy .

A few blog owners, who publish blogs published to custom domains, are becoming impatient , waiting for Blogger Engineering to finish the Blogger upgrade to support HTTPS / SSL. If I get a domain through Google Domains, will I be able to get HTTPS? Unfortunately, no. HTTPS / SSL is simply not available, to blogs published to custom domains .

Some blog owners setup their new custom domain, check all settings carefully (and correctly) - then find that it does not work. We see the confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . The addresses were right - and all the DNS servers updated correctly. But when I open the website, it does not open. It continuously reloads for 5 minutes and after 5 minutes it shows an error. It's frustrating, when everything is setup properly - but still no results.

We see occasional reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , from Blogger blog owners who want to share their blogs using BlogLovin. Why can't I claim my blog? BlogLovin is somewhat monolithic. They use the blog feed, and a BlogLovin URL with embedded token, to process / validate blog claims - and their diagnostics, when a claim is a problem, are not always effective. Some blog feeds can be validated, yet not be found by BlogLovin. And other feeds won't validate.

Country specific domains were launched by Blogger almost 3 years ago . Even this month, we see people with doubts about their benefits. Is using a script, to prevent blogger country redirection, a violation of Blogger or Google TOS? And the proposed script is the same one that is being used by spammers, to abuse the Blogger service .

We've been exploring bogus redirection of reader traffic , for a few years. Similar to dubious awards and web rings , we have "traffic exchanges". Traffic exchanges are similar to "affiliate marketing", where readers of one blog are randomly shuffled to another blog , then to another - all the while, lighting up ads on each blog.

Renaming a blog is not difficult - but it can produce unwanted side effects. We've seen a few problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I renamed my blog, last year - and I have had no new visitors, since then! or I looked at the old URL, and it's got my posts, and lots of spam! These blog owners did not plan the renaming process.

Even after being able to find a deleted post in cache, and retrieve the BlogID / PostID , some blog owners may find themselves unable to restore a deleted post. Until Blogger gives us an actual recycle bin / trash can for deleted pages and posts, some deleted pages and posts just may not be re publishable. It appears that all deleted content is not retained consistently, similar to the legendary "90 days" for deleted blogs.

One of the simplest - and most user friendly - displays that you can add, to your blog, is a custom "404 Not Found" display. A standard Blogger blog, by default, provides a terse advice, for invalid URLs. Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist. Would it not be more user friendly, to use relevant slang, maybe. Sorry, bro - that's not on! You can do this - and more - with a little imagination.

One feature of the Blogger home page, enjoyed by some blog owners, is the ability to explicitly set maximum main page size, for the blog when displayed. We see an occasional complaint, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I redirected my home page, using a label search - but the display is now way too long! How do I shorten my custom main page? This blog owner is probably a little disappointed, to discover one tiny limitation, in main page setting. The "Show at most" setting, in Settings - "Posts and comments" - mirrored by "Number of posts on main page", in "Configure Blog Posts" - lets you set an explicit maximum page size. That setting only applies to the native main page URL - and some blog owners like to customise the main page, using a label search redirect.

Many people who publish Blogger blogs also publish to FaceBook. Some have their own Wall, others post to friends Walls. We see occasional questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , about the desire to combine the two products. How do I publish posts from my Wall to my blog? and How do I link my blog to my Wall? Like any combination of Blogger and non Blogger content, there are techniques to combine a Blogger blog, and a non Blogger website. Some techniques don't work - and others may work, but won't be good for the blog.

Occasionally, we see concern, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , about continuing to serve the readers of a blog, after renaming or replacing with a new URL. How do I let my existing subscribers read the feed, with the blog published to a new URL? This blog owner is planning ahead - which is a good idea whenever renaming a blog .

From time to time, we see questions about using a Blogger / Google custom domain, with publishing services outside Blogger / Google. Some Blogger blog owners want to combine their Blogger blogs, with non Blogger blogs and websites - and others want simply to move their blogging activity to non Blogger services. And a few think ahead, and wonder how adding or moving to another service will affect the ability of their existing readers to find their blog, and / or their ability to get new readers. As with using a Blogger blog with an existing non Google domain , this is not a simple project - and to do this properly will require research - and well informed decisions. Some assistance can be provided by Blogger or in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger - and other portions of the project will require advice or instruction from the support groups for the new service.

One of the neatest features added to Blogger, this decade, has to be the Custom Redirects. For many years, we asked, over and over, for the ability to optionally publish a blog with a static home page . 2 years ago, Blogger gave us that ability, and more, with Custom Redirects . But, Custom Redirects had a problem - it did not work with a mobile template , and a redirected mobile home page. Recently, however, that changed.

One of the most fascinating features of Blogger blogs is the various options to organise our content. Long ago, I wrote a simple article, Adding A Blogger Blog To A Website . That's become one of the most consistently popular posts, in this blog. Most blog owners have multiple interests, and like to organise their different interests , by subject - and have a different blog, for each subject. Some people like to have a blog, and a website - and host both the blog and website in one Blogger blog, under one URL. For a small blog / website combination, that's an easy way to start out - and a good alternative, to having multiple blogs / websites.

Spammers protect their content against "unfair" deletion, and provide uninterrupted service to their "customers", by publishing multiple blogs, in spam blog farms . Owners of better designed spam blog farms minimise the risk to their blogs, by separating the hacking / porn / spam content (Payload), from the immediately visible Blogger blogs (Collector). Spammers use a tiered structure of blogs, in their blog farms. Collector blogs. Distributor blogs. Payload blogs. Only the Payload blogs contain easily identified hacking / porn / spam material - and only the Collector blogs are immediately visible to the abuse detection processes.

We've recently seen a few reports about problems with custom redirects , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I want to redirect my blog URL to a static home page. With a redirect in place, mobile computer users can't access my blog. Mobile browsers display an error, mentioning too many redirects.