The Real Blogger Status

Over the years, we've seen various problem reports mentioning attempted use of SMS for identity verification, for emergency Blogger account access. It's possible that SMS based identity verification is one more service that has been replaced - by Google 2 Step Verification.

We're seeing a few queries recently, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about a little used option in mobile blog publishing. Is "go.blogger.com" down? I'm trying to claim a mobile token, but having no success. This blog owner, like a few others, is trying to use a dying Blogger feature. "go.blogger.com", and MMS / SMS , was the Blogger solution for blog publishing using "mobile" phones, provided several years ago. SMS is a protocol used for sending text messages between computers, that was used on "mobile" phones, before most "mobile phones" became just pocket sized computers using "cellular" (3g, 4g, etc) networking.

One of the most frustrating problems with Blogger accounts involves the conflicting goals of anonymity and security. We are allowed to publish a Blogger blog in complete anonymity. Blogger acknowledges and supports that need . Anonymity comes at a price . Should you succeed in intentionally becoming completely anonymous, then forget the account name or password, there will be no way for Blogger to help you to recover access to your Blogger account. Every week, we get reports from people who can't access their blogs because they changed their email address without proper planning , or they don't know which account owns a given blog . And some time ago, we dealt with a small flood of reports from people whose Blogger accounts - and blogs - had been stolen, using some devious hacking techniques .

Every day, we get various impassioned pleas from blog owners (active, former, and would be), in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , requesting assistance. How do I get access to my blog, that I published 10 years ago? and How do I keep my blog from being visible in Google? and How do I contact the owner of a blog that was published 10 years ago (and never updated)? All of these are valid concerns - and answering one question sometimes involves referring to various other concerns .

Blogger has been using CAPTCHA verification for some time, to identify you as a person, and to make sure that you are not running a computer based script. When you setup a new blog. When you submit a request to have your blog unlocked after being (falsely) classified as spam. When you attempt to publish too many posts in one day. Unfortunately, spammers eventually figured out how to automate CAPTCHA processing .

A few blog owners are reporting problems, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , with posting to their blogs, using Mail-To-Blogger. Several days after sending my post, I get an error text stating that Blogger is not responding. I personally have tested Mail-To-Blogger using my email client, and there is no problem, in general. From the reports received, the problem appears to be related to use of MMS / SMS from cell phones and smart phones. We have a rollup discussion , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , where the problem is being explored. If you are experiencing any problem with posting photos and / or text using email, MMS, or SMS, please provide your details in the rollup discussion . Help Blogger Support focus on the problem. (Update 1/8): A suggestion from one blog owner suggests that the problem appears to be related to use of an address book entry to address the messages. The workaround, in this case, may involve using the native Settings - "Em...

Blogger has been using CAPTCHA ("word verification") screening , to verify human presence in various Blogger processes , for several years. This is necessary, to prevent spammers from automating the processes of creating new blogs, and submitting "unlock" requests for spam locked blogs. CAPTCHA verification has its weaknesses though; and as spammers have been exploiting those weaknesses for some time, Blogger recently added additional tokens in some Blogger processes. You may be required to provide the number of your mobile / smart phone, as a token. When you setup a new blog. When you submit a request to have your blog unlocked after being (falsely) classified as spam. When you attempt to publish too many posts in one day. This requires that your phone receive / send SMS messages from / to Blogger, to verify your identity as a person, and not an automated process. You provide the phone number of an SMS capable mobile phone. Blogger sends a verification re...

In the never ending battle against spam, and the unending attempts to make it easier for innocent bloggers to get their blogs restored, when falsely accused of hosting spam, Blogger is now using SMS and mobile phone service in the spam review verification process. As with every feature that Blogger adds, problems are reported. SMS based verification is a process that should maybe be thought out a bit more. Some bloggers report the SMS verification is not 100% reliable. Sorry, there seems to be a problem. The service you're looking for is temporarily unavailable. If you're trying to verify blog ownership, with your blog falsely accused, and you're seeing this message, or something similar, please provide some details. What's the blog URL? What phone service do you use? What's the area code of the phone? What location is the phone registered in? What's the message, if different from the sample above? >> Top