The Real Blogger Status

One of the more intriguing questions, that we see in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , involves the Blogger / WordPress dichotomy . Should I migrate my blog to WordPress, where they provide SEO optimized themes, and various plugins? My answer to that question starts with the suggestion, that the blog owner should ask himself Why do I publish a blog? This question has many possible answers - but I will focus on two possibilities.

I've been using affinity analysis , and differential analysis , as tools for diagnosing intermittent problems with custom domain published blogs , for several years. Some people may be using a browser which is more forgiving of DNS problems than others - and people who use the right browser, when accessing a domain with righteous DNS addresses , should expect to generally get more consistent service. But that's only a small part of the story.

Occasionally, we see a perplexed blog owner asking a popular question about custom domain setup. Does my domain really need four servers? Some even seem to think that newer domains, with less readers, can get by with less - even one - servers. Won't one server do - at least, for newer blogs? Theoretically, yes. But not one server is going to be 100% reliable, or last forever. Every computer ever made, like every human born, will die, one day. Your blog (and your domain) depends upon DNS, to resolve its address . Address resolution is an essential part of helping your computer (your readers computers) connect with the computer where your blog is stored.

That is the unfortunate truth. Every day, some new member of Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken asks, innocently What is all this traffic from dodgy websites? and after we explain what the dodgy traffic is, and why it does not reflect real traffic , the next question is So why doesn't Google block it? Why should I have it polluting my Stats displays, and be unable to find actual traffic in my counts? and the unfortunate truth is simply that Google cannot block it, because it's not significantly different from normal traffic - and the insignificant difference is not easily detected.

One of the most constantly seen discussions, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , involves people who have forgotten their Blogger account name or password. Generally, it's a rather simple task to recover access to one's Blogger account , should you forget / lose access to any one Blogger authentication token . The Blogger Forgot your username or password? wizard will send, upon request, an account recovery email message, to the email address associated with the Blogger account needed, for any active and online blog. Just provide the blog name, read the email, and follow instructions. Unfortunately, not all Blogger blog owners can always use email based account recovery.

We see the pain, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , of blog owners who do not understand the need for keeping the name of their Blogger account a secret. I forgot the email address that I was using. Why can't Blogger just tell me the address?? and some ask How did this unknown person "xxxxx xxxxx" get control of my blog? Years ago, the local police would have to convince home owners Please, stop leaving a spare key under a rock, near the door! Both many blog owners (today) - like some home owners (years ago) - had the same basic problem - naivete.

Every week, at least one BHG forum thread, in which I provide advice about a custom domain setup, includes the question Why are custom domains so complicated? And the short answer is They are not at all complicated; they are elegantly simple - when you understand their simplicity, and follow the instructions . The long answer, which justifies the simplicity, is not so simple.

I moderate my comments to my blogs, avidly. I was, therefore, flattered to get this first bit of praise, months ago sheela has left a new comment on your post "Publishing Your Blog Externally": I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often. Kaylee http://www.(spamurlremoved).info This looked a bit light on detail - but it was positive in general, so I Accepted it as a comment. A few hours later, another comment, worded the same, hit another post. And the following day, a third comment, with a third post targeted. By then, it was looking pretty obvious. I went back and deleted the other two published comments, and I figured that would be the end of it. Not. I recently went back through my Comments Inbox, and checked for "Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.". I h...

The Maximum Transmission Unit , aka MTU, is a critical setting on your computer. The MTU setting controls the size of the messages that it passes to other computers. When you surf the Internet, your computer is in communication with hundreds of other computers, each with their own possibility to contribute to packet loss . Packet loss is caused partly because of an optimistic MTU setting on your computer, and partly because of constantly varying paths between the computers, resulting from packet switching .

Along with the similar cry, " Why Isn't Google Solving The Server Not Found Error 404 Issue? ", this is a concern of many blog owners . Many blog owners only want to publish to their newly setup non-BlogSpot URL, and have their readers able to access their blogs. Like the answer to the latter question, the answer to this question is simple. Google is solving " the problem ". One problem, at a time.

This is a cry echoed by many, and for some time. Some, who ask this question, ask a similar question too, " Why Isn't Blogger Solving The "Another blog is already hosted at this address" Problem? " And there is but one answer, to both questions. Google is solving "the problem" . One problem, at a time. But "the problem" will never be solved, as long as bloggers keep referring to it as "the problem" . It simply isn't one problem - it's many problems, with the same symptom.

If you're reading this, you have a computer (or at least access to one). Your computer is being used as a client , to read this blog, which is located on a server . The Internet is a "Client - Server" application, and Google has thousands of servers, which they use to provide us access to our blogs, and other activities. I won't go into the details here, but aside from the fact that both clients and servers are types of computers, there are not a lot of significant similarities between the two. Servers are generally not, in a well designed and secured environment, used as clients. Then there's Google. If a Google server needs to provide you access to your blog that's published to a custom domain, it has to contact a Google DNS server to get the IP address of your blog, located on another Google server . That is, a server becomes a client . And there is one of the weaknesses of the custom domain product, in general.

One of the reasons why Blogger code is so "unstable" (judging from the threads in the help forums) is that, as I wrote long ago , it involves code and data that starts on Blogger computers ("servers"), but is processed from other computers ("owned" by bloggers) which are connected to the Blogger computers over networks that nobody owns or controls. Some of these factors Blogger can accept responsibility for. Others we (the blog owners, or blog readers) have to accept responsibility for. And still others are the fault of the network owners, and many of those are problems which nobody will accept responsibility for. And that's the problem with diagnosing the ever common bX- codes. Of late, some bloggers are pumping themselves up, and declaring to the world Finally the solution to the BX error codes of blogger.com Don't know who and why it works and why google/ blogger have failed to recognize such simple tricks. But still that doesnt reduce its ef...

This is frustrating as hell. I've been suspecting this situation since 5/2, when Geeta reported Temporarily Out of Service . Being as I'm not an employee of Blogger, just another Blogger like everybody else, I have to sit on the sidelines with everybody , and watch the fun (NOT). I can only remind each person with a hijack situation, to Report The Problem To Blogger Support . And anybody who has a clue about this situation, if it differs from what I am writing here, Please! let us know . But I suffer, as does everybody else, while I wait for my turn at being hijacked. And wonder WTF I'm doing to protect myself (if I am), and why I haven't been hijacked. Why (how) are all of these blogs getting hijacked ? The Possibilities The bad guys are attacking thru Blogger client (unpaid staff) personal computers . The bad guys are attacking thru Blogger or Blogspot servers. The bad guys have brute forced a security hole in a Blogger or Blogspot server. A recently applied Blo...

Long ago, and oh so far away (no, that's a popular song from when I was young), I wrote an article Why Do I Do This? . This is not a rehash of that article. I've had a few folks, (maybe misunderstanding my motives, maybe wanting to interfere with my message, who knows?) tell me, in not so many words but close Chuck, you have your head where it won't see any sun. Of Fables And Blogger : Comment #3. To the Blogger Staff Reading This Group Damn, Down Again, Is There Someone Smart Enough to Fix This Mess? It appears that my pointing out that There are no blog hijacks (in these cases) . There is no major outage of Blogger or Blogspot (right now) . Blogger shouldn't be expected to respond to every complaint immediately (without any work on our part) . ... all of these posts, in general, mean that I am trying to be a shill for Blogger. Simultaneously, though, I wonder whether Blogger might become tired of my prodding them. I prod them to get off their coffee breaks and fix...

I had a friend ask me that question, recently. Wanting to know why I try to help other Bloggers deal with the vagaries of Blogger. Why do you do this? The implied second question (neither spoken nor written, and it didn't need to be so either) was This isn't your problem. I had not a clue what to say. At the time, anyway. But as I reflected upon the question, many replies occurred to me. I wasn't affected by the "403 Forbidden" errors Monday, March 06, 2006 . I wasn't affected by the "403 Forbidden" errors Wednesday, March 08, 2006 . But I WAS affected two days later. My blog was unviewable for 4 DAYS . Friday, 3/10, I started my day. I had some spare time mid morning, and I added a couple paragraphs to one of my posts. I Published my updated post. And immediately discovered that I was now one of the lost. My updated post was not to be found. Just what I had been reading about for several days, but spared until that moment. 403 Forbidden I fo...