The Real Blogger Status

This weekend, we have seen several queries from anxious bloggers who report that their blogs are redirecting to mysterious URLs containing the domain "blogoholic.info" . My custom domain blog is being redirected to Blogholic.info, more specificaly this page http://searchacross.com/?flrdr=yes&nxte=js&dn=blogoholic.info&fp=kXHnDH0xDZIfzljX%2BDZc03diJWrFV5N2iQsAAr%2B8wZ5vQbLTczZHqvpj5dH6ceOni8J3qmgZu6B7HPtmtRSh3liB4Bceya4r6bgt7Hun9mtM%2BFPcjOiVrmJZXmemWKnsednw2Q%3D%3D&prvtof=xjrTXwchHaVL%2BUf32HNg%2BrxOBffsFN1Lkm7UUA%3D%3D&cifr=1 Upon research, we've found that the blogs affected were knowingly using a script provided by Blogoholic, and some portion of the script was apparently discontinued. That causes the URL reference (quoted above) to redirect to the Blogoholic web site itself. In cases where the Blogoholic code was installed in a HTML / JavaScript gadget, the cure for the problem is to simply delete the gadget with the bad code. One blogger, howeve...

I've said before, repeatedly, that you must rename your blog with great care , if it's mature and / or has any reputation. Don't go changing the blog URL without planning the change, if you hope to keep your readers or search engine reputation. That admonition applies, likewise, to a blog with Followers, since people Follow blogs, not people . If you look at the code behind the "Follow Blog" link in the navbar, you'll see a reference to the " blogID ", not the URL . Conversely, when you subscribe to a blog feed, as when you become a Follower of a blog, you subscribe to the URL. If you look at your Reading List, Google Reader Subscription List, or any other newsfeed client, you'll see blog feeds which are based upon the blog URL . With a new blog name comes a new blog URL, and a new feed URL. Your Followers won't have the updated blog feed in their Reading List, or anywhere else that matters - unless you advise them to change their su...

Almost every Internet service, that requires us to identify ourselves, provides a backup identification option. Every properly planned Internet service provides a way to access their services, should we forget our account name and / or password. Some services provide backdoor access in such easy fashion, that some people don't bother about using front door access. Some Blogger blog owners use backdoor access to Blogger, routinely. This is a problem, in several ways.

This weekend, as the custom domain problems initially observed June 16 continue to be reported, we see now a new symptom. Observed by the administrator of an affected blog, in the Settings - Publishing wizard, will be the warning The DNS record for your domain is not set up correctly yet. If you just purchased this domain the set up process may take up to a day. In several cases, this is reportedly observed for blogs with righteous DNS addresses . Why? Here we have one example, "wakworld.com". First, we see an extracted Dig log . wakworld.com. 3600 IN A 216.239.32.21 wakworld.com. 3600 IN A 216.239.34.21 wakworld.com. 3600 IN A 216.239.36.21 wakworld.com. 3600 IN A 216.239.38.21 www.wakworld.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com. Next, an excerpted HTTP trace . Sending request: GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: wakworld.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11 Connection: close • Finding host IP address... • Host IP add...

This weekend, as the broken BlogSpot to custom domain redirect problem stretches into its 4th through 5th days, we see a diverse crowd of bloggers complaining about the problem. Some bloggers have been following this problem since Wednesday, others just discovered it today. One group of complainants which always intrigues me is the ones with the biggest and most popular blogs. What? Blogger can't do this to me, and get away with it! I'll move my 10,000 visitor / day blog to WordPress!! as if the daily visitor count makes them more important. Everybody who is hurting, because of this snafu, is hurting because of links that continue to refer to the BlogSpot URL. The BlogSpot URL is the primary blog address until you publish the blog to a custom domain, and only until then. When you publish the blog to a custom domain, it becomes a secondary blog address . It's a secondary blog address which should diminish in importance, steadily, as your the custom domain address bec...

Most web services, when you setup a new account, require you to provide an existing email address, for backdoor access. After you finish providing all of your personal details, and hit "Create my account" or whatever, you'll then see Check your email now, and reply to the message from us, so we can activate your account! You open your email, reply to the message or click on a link in the email, and you then see Congratulations, and welcome to our service! By verifying your email address, you're ensuring that, one day when you forget your password, you simply click on a link "I forgot my password!", and they email you a hint, or maybe let you reset the password from a link in the email. Since you verified the email address originally, you know that you will be getting the "forgot password" email in your inbox.

Many times in the Blogger Help Forum , we see bloggers angrily complaining Why does Blogger not work now? It worked yesterday! What did Blogger break today? and sometimes, we will see a trend of multiple bloggers complaining of the same problem. Generally, and given enough bloggers with the same complaint, Blogger Support will investigate, tweak some code, and things will get back to normal. The latter scenario doesn't happen immediately, though, nor does it happen consistently.