The Real Blogger Status

One interesting feature of Blogger, now removed, was the Google+ Share counter. Similar to the FaceBook "Like" counter, many people used to enjoy watching the Share counter increase, for a given blog or post. I, personally, used to share my blog posts to Google+ - then watch happily, as the numbers climbed. The Share counter is no more a part of Blogger.

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.

One of the least understood Blogger features is the Stats visitor counters , and the various displays. We see the confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , periodically. The "weekly" Stats numbers don't add up, properly! or Why is "Popular Posts" so out of touch, with reality? Magic is fun to watch, when it's just for amusement. When your numbers seem to have magical quality - changing from day to day, or display to display - it becomes annoying.

We see an occasional question about search indexing, and visitor activity, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I find out what search queries are used, to bring my new readers, to my blog? This owner is thinking about how to get more traffic - the right way. You can use the Stats - Traffic sources dashboard page, and examine the top 10 Search Keywords, used to find your blog. Depending upon how large and popular your blog is - and what browser your readers use - you may or may not find out as much as you would think, however.

We see cautious blog owners, asking that question periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . Many home based, and small, businesses use Blogger blogs for selling various goods and services. Apparently, you're permitted to sell stuff, using your blog. That said, there are some common sense rules which you should consider, before you setup a blog to sell stuff.

Blog owners use many techniques for getting new readers - and for keeping existing readers happy. Some blog owners use techniques which work inconsistently, because they are not designed to work the way they are being used. Some blog owners becomes concerned when their blogs, listed in blogrolls on other peoples blogs, don't seem to be updated as regularly as they would expect. Blogrolls are good tools for getting new readers, in a casual manner. They may not be as good, for predictable, scheduled visitor activity.

We see an occasional query about Followers, and the ever varying Followers count in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why is my Followers count always going up, then down? Even when I see new Followers, the count is lower today, than yesterday! This blog owner does not know about churn, and reciprocal Following.

Not every blog, that gets readers - or pageview counts - is going to get comments. We see the disappointment, periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I have received over 2,000 page views, but only close friends comment. Is there a setting or something that makes sense as to why I'm not receiving comments? And yes, there are various settings, which may restrict your readers abilities to comment - but that may not be the only possible problem.

Just as with a single owner blog, one would not want to count owner activity in Stats - with a team blog, one may not want to count team activity. Authors, like Administrators, need to use the option "Don't track my pageviews", to avoid Stats recording their activity as a visitor. Unfortunately, the "Don't track ..." setting wizard is part of the Stats dashboard page - and is accessible only to blog administrators.

I've discussed referer spam before, and its visibility in Stats logs produced by newer, less popular blogs . There is always the odd mature and popular blog, also showing referer spam in its Stats logs. Mature and popular blogs, published by experienced blog owners, may still be subject to referer spam. Referer spam attacks blogs of all age and popularity levels. Experienced blog owners will learn to recognise referer spam - and typically, when they identify it, they learn to ignore it.

Real people live in various countries all over the world. Every country has Internet service - and people who surf the Internet. Some read this blog - and maybe your blog, too, My blog pageviews today increased from 150 to 1530 !! And almost all the visits were from Canada. Please Help Me! Why would you dread Canadian readers, eh? Knowing that your blog may host readers, in a worldwide community, would you fear traffic from unknown countries?

Occasionally, we see a complaint about referer spam, from a known spam source, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue - but the spam entry is not in a Stats log. Some people are recently reporting referer spam source, in Google Analytics, StatCounter, and more. When I check my Google Analytics, I See traffic on my blog from porn sites! and Why do I see Russian spam, in my StatCounter logs? Why indeed? If referer spam is unique to Stats, because how Stats develops visitor activity counts , why would we see referer spam activity in Analytics, StatCounter, and other visitor logs? It's normal to ask questions - but when you ask the wrong questions, in the wrong places, you help contribute to your own problems.

One popular Stats related accessory, which displays pageview information to the public, is the "Popular Posts" gadget. Popular Posts identifies from 1 to 10 of the most popular posts in the blog, by comparing Stats pageview counts. Optional parts of the display of each post are a snippet of text, and an ever popular thumbnail photo. Like many Stats features, blog owners have found imaginative uses for "Popular Posts" - and overlook the limitations of the gadget. Both the dynamic nature of Stats, and the timing of the various pageview count recalculations, create confusion, when Popular Posts is examined.

Some blog owners want significant details, from Stats. How do I get all posts listed, with pageview counts? or How do I get a specific time period, from last month? or How do I filter out the bogus counts? Not everybody observes that Stats gives us specific details, based upon what's generally useful, or what is possible to keep, easily. Some details are not provided, because Stats provides details that are significant, in the right context. Other details are not provided, because they are not retained, from day to day (week to week, month to month, or year to year).

I've always been an advocate of redundancy, with essential components and features. One essential feature of a website is the ability to remain aware of where your readers come from, and what they are reading , on your blog. Besides Blogger Stats, I've advocated both SiteMeter and StatCounter, in a complementary role to each other. A while ago, SiteMeter decided to add video advertisements to their blog / website agent, that tracks the clicks.

Occasionally, we see a report in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , that reflects on the reader audience - not necessarily only the blog content. Why is my blog behind a Content Warning? Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable. Occasionally, a quick eyeballing of the blog in question may turn up some dodgy content, which may be suggested, in the forum, as problematic. This story may not end immediately. But, I've had that picture gallery, for years! Why did I just get the Content Warning? Here, the blog owner is not considering changing standards - or the possibility that the blog, becoming more popular, may be adding readers who don't appreciate a photo gallery started years ago.

We see many questions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about blog content, and (lack of) appreciation by the readers. Occasionally, people become concerned about activity of the people reading their blogs - why they get so many new visitors (but nobody returns later, to read more), or why the main page is so well read (but nobody reads the archived posts). In other cases, they wonder why the blog was deleted - even though it had the required warning protecting it - or maybe why the content warning is there . And sometimes, they may wonder why so many people read the blog, but nobody comments on the posts.

For some time, we've been seeing reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about blogs using blogs using dynamic views, which display incompletely , and lack specific features. Various blog owners have developed, and reported, a workaround to the problem, which involves using an unpublicised Blogger setting found in the template HTML code. This workaround sets a loading delay, known as Timeout . There are several different causes of the dynamic view problem - some varying by the different blogs, others varying by the blog viewers - and some, varying by the Blogger / Google infrastructure. None of the causes will be universal in effect. This will result in varying success, when using a static Timeout setting as a workaround for the problems.

Recently, we've been seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about blogs using dynamic templates, which display incompletely , and lack specific features. Various blog owners have developed, and reported, a workaround to the problem, which involves using an unpublicised Blogger setting found in the template HTML code. This workaround sets a loading delay, known as Timeout . The currently recommended Timeout setting will force a fixed delay on blogs using the workaround, which may not be 100% effective in all cases. The effectiveness may vary, according to the specific problems reported by the various blog owners.

We're been getting problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from various dissatisfied blog owners , who chose a dynamic template for their blog. The problems reported involve various symptoms. Blogs displayed will lack various gadgets, in the slideout gadget bar. Some blogs, when customised, will display using default layout and template settings. Some customisations, applied recently, just won't show up . Various blog owners have discovered a solution, based on code present in newer dynamic templates. This solution has been publicised, in forum discussions - and in various blogs and web sites. <script language='javascript' type='text/javascript'> setTimeout(function() { blogger.ui().configure().view(); }, 1000 ); </script> The solution, as proposed, involves a very simple change - but the change won't be immediately, or permanently, 100% effective.