The Real Blogger Status

One of the most popular third party image hosting services, for Blogger blogs, recently changed their photo hosting service . Photobcket no longer allows embedding of their hosted photos on third party websites, for free accounts. They now require a $399 / year membership, for accounts with photos shared outside their website .

A few blog owners are concerned about blog network performance - and spend time validating and tweaking the template, based on advice from various third party services. I don't know how to use W3C Validation, there are always errors displayed for my blog! And we see periodic questions about validation - and sometimes reports about broken templates , with blog owners following the validation advice, blindly.

As most of us know, Blogger HTTPS support does not include custom domain publishing . The advantages offered by HTTPS access are widely advertised - and have led to envy between blog owners who publish to custom domains, and native BlogSpot blog owners proudly advertising their new HTTPS connectivity. Long ago, we saw possibly malicious code which helps our readers avoid using country code aliases , to read our blogs from an aliased country. Recently, there was dodgy code which blocked HTTPS mode , to read a customised blog. Now, we have custom code to force HTTPS access, for BlogSpot published blogs.

Some blog owners, who also have activity in Twitter, would like to display their Twitter feed on their blog. This is not at all difficult. Twitter will custom build you an HTML gadget, using a wizard in their website.

Some Blogger features are so subtle, and so simple, that everybody takes them for granted - and nobody thinks about them, until they stop working. One example of this is the Quick Edit option that lets us edit a post, or tweak a template feature, without having to access the Blogger dashboard. Sometimes, the icon is just not there - or maybe it's there, but when clicked on, nothing happens. Quick Edit, like many Blogger features, is affected by both cookie and script filters - and many filters are domain based. Any domain based filter needs to allow cookies and scripts - both from "blogspot.com", and from any non BlogSpot domain that may be relevant.

We see panic, exhibited by many blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I used the W3 Template Validator, and got hundreds of errors! Is my blog broken? This blog owner, like many others, does not understand the differences between W3 Standard HTML / XHTML, and Blogger HTML / XML. The unpleasant truth is that, ever since Blogger released the Layout class templates , in 2007, Blogger has been providing templates that can't be successfully validated using HTML / XHTML standards. Blogger has a lot of features that don't validate, according to public standards.

We're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about BlogLovin, and their inability to accept feeds from Blogger blogs. My feed on Bloglovin is not updating correctly, so I emailed BlogLovin Support. They responded, and said it was because my RSS feed isn't working correctly. When diagnosed, we frequently see a working posts feed, redirected through FeedBurner. It appears that BlogLovin is not able to properly accept some (or all) FeedBurner redirected feeds. The most obvious solution here would be to setup BlogLovin properly, to use a non redirected feed , so they get the native Blogger posts feed.

Not all Blogger blog owners appreciate the features provided, in Blogger native commenting. Some suggest that third party commenting systems, such as Disqus, provide a superior service. It's possible that, to some, third party commenting systems are more feature rich - but only Blogger native commenting provides one essential feature, in comment moderation.

Recently, we've seen a few reports of blogs which contain malware, or links to malware. Unlike the Adult Friend Finder splogs , and similar blogs, the blogs recently identified are generally privately published, and contain genuinely intended material. The owners have added code, provided by third parties, that contain the malicious code or links to other web sites which contain the malicious code.

A Google Custom Domain is an elegant and simple way to have a Blogger blog published to a non BlogSpot URL - if you get the DNS addresses setup properly. Setting up the addresses was very simple, using the " Buy A Domain " wizard. Some bloggers spurn the wizard, and roll their own - and that is where many custom domain problems start .

Third party accessories are a big part of many blogs. As Blogger proceeds to command a larger and larger share of the free online web site market, they encourage (directly or indirectly) the development of third party templates, and accessories. This lets us make our blogs more personal to our desires, and shinier to our egos. Layouts Blogger is more mature, and commands an ever growing share of Blogger. And so, the the selection of Layouts compatible templates and accessories, again provided by third parties, will grow. And as the selection grows, so does the possible risk, from installing what's available on our blogs. As I wrote long ago, what better way to hack somebody's blog (or computer) than by conning the victim into installing the hack , on his own?