The Real Blogger Status

Blogger One Button Publishing makes it so easy to setup and maintain a very attractive, organised, and useful website. Anybody who knows how to turn the computer on, practically, can have a Blogger blog. And anybody who knows a minimum about computer coding can have a customised Blogged blog. And that's one of the biggest problems with Blogging. As easy as it is to customise a blog, it is just as easy to screw it up. And the more that you depend upon your blog being online, the sorrier you will be when it's not. Even in businesses, this risk exists. In businesses, though, we practice risk management. You can, and should, do likewise. Backup your blog . Have alternate copies of everything, in various formats. Monitor your logs , even when no problems are being experienced. And when problems are being experienced, involve your logs in diagnosing the problems. Report your problems . Some problems can only be resolved by involving Blogger Support. It's their program -...

When you setup your blog, and elect to publish to Blog*Spot (as many do), you decide upon a name (xxxxxxx.blogspot.com). The "xxxxxxx" must be unique - that is, nobody else in this world can use the same "xxxxxxx". You type your choice, the Blogger script checks for its availability, and tells you one of two things This address is not available. This address is available. If your desired address is available, you'll see the latter message. You can now continue with template selection, and your first post. As soon as you publish your first post, your blog (xxxxxxx.blogspot.com) becomes visible on the Internet, and is registered in DNS . But how does the Blogger availability script decide if the address is truly available? Does it check its internal database, and make sure that nobody else has selected that name, but not yet published? Or does it maybe ping that address (ie reference its DNS entry, as you would do, when you ping)? ping nitecruzr.blogspot.co...

Using images and links in your blog is one of the easiest, yet sometimes least obvious, way to make your blog user friendly. The basic process is easy - each component is so simple to setup. Combining the various components, though, takes a bit of thinking. Maybe this article will make you think a bit. A URL . A URL is one of the building blocks in HTML. A Hyperlink . A hyperlink is simply a URL with a caption. A Hyperlink, With A Hidden URL . We can have a hyperlink, with a caption describing the destination. A Hyperlink, With A Visible URL . We can have a hyperlink, with a caption showing the destination URL. A Hyperlink, With The Target Content Opening In A New Window . We can have a hyperlink, with the targeted content opening in a nw window (or tab, as your browser is setup). A Hyperlink, With The Target Inside Another Post . We can have a hyperlink to a section inside another post. A Picture, Embedded In The Post . An embedded picture is another building block in HTML. ...

Every week you read about another blog being hijacked . Yesterday, there was a blog. Today, a splog. How did this happen? The original blog was deleted, by the owner , or by Blogger anti-splog efforts . The owner switched to external publishing , or to a new URL, and did not plan the change properly. The owner did not practise proper security . The owner made no mistake. The attack came thru Blogger / Blogspot security . One of the problems with the above list is that nobody knows if it's complete. Nobody really knows what is happening . All we can do is report the problem to Blogger Support. Sometimes, Blogger Support can resolve the immediate issue - the individual hijacked blog. But they have yet to report back, and let us know what the hell is going on . The individual blog owners don't help a lot either. They see the problem, they report the problem, the problem is fixed (their problem is fixed), they go back to blogging. If you know anything, and aren't telli...

This is a complex subject, but it starts with one rule. Get all of the valid hits that you can. I'll restate that, in more obvious wording: Get all of the hits that you can, but make sure that they are valid. If someone clicks on your URL, make sure that he lands right on an article that answers his question. If the details answering the visitors needs are not provided in that specific article where he lands, add a paragraph In most cases, the above should be sufficient. Sometimes, you might also want to look at this topic , for more ideas. Don't just lure your visitor into your website, and expect him to search for the answer. If he's coming off a search hit list, he probably has other alternatives. When you see a 1 page view, but know that you had the answer to the query somewhere, that's what just happened. And you just lost a possible customer - and future bookmark. Another option would be putting a search query box on your website. Many visitors, though they ...

My Blog Is Missing! Oh no! Generally, this refers to a deleted or hijacked blog. Other times, part of the blog is there, and the other part is not. This may be similar to the dropped post / sidebar problem , except there's garbage on the screen, or maybe the screen is blank. Or if you're in the Page Elements wizard, you can't add or relocate page elements. What do I do now? If you're lucky, the last time you published your updated blog, the publishing got interrupted. This will be more often seen when publishing to non-Blogspot blogs, but can happen with Blogspot too, generally with Old Blogger blogs. If that's what happened, you're in luck. Just republish your blog again. And next time you make changes, always test afterwards. If the problem is in using the " Page Elements " GUI to add or rearrange elements, maybe the widgets are corrupt. Try resetting the widgets to default values , first. If the problem is with comments or posts, ...

OK, you've got a kick ass web site. It's attractive, has good content, and it's nicely organised. Then you get email from your friend Dude, your web site is crap. How did this happen? You think it looks great. Frequently, this happens when you design and test your blog for one browser, and your friend uses another. Firefox and Internet Explorer, which use differing code and display standards, are famous for this problem.