The Real Blogger Status

Ever since the new Pages wizards have been in use, we've been seeing reports from blog owners, who have problems with adding, deleting, and re sequencing links on the dynamic template menu bars. Most blog owners have gotten used to the idea of maintaining dynamic pages ("link pages", formerly known as "web address"), using the Layout Pages gadget - separately from maintaining static pages (formerly known as "blank pages"), using the dashboard Pages wizard. Even understanding the changes, some blog owners, who publish blogs that use dynamic templates, cannot add or delete dynamic pages - or cannot resequence the various page links. Some owners claim to have links on the menu bar that they can't delete. Others have added, deleted, or resequenced links - but have found their changes to be lost, when viewing the blog, after saving the changes.

When the Blogger dynamic templates were first introduced, back in 2011, they provided choices . Besides letting the reader choose, on the fly, which dynamic view to use, it was possible to let the reader choose whether to view the blog using a dynamic view - or a non dynamic view . When dynamic templates were first introduced, they offered a dynamic view of the blog posts - and little else. Popular features like static pages were added later, and in pieces . As the various pieces of the dynamic views became better defined, the need to switch between dynamic and non dynamic views became less essential - and eventually, some choices were eliminated.

I've written a few times about protecting your Blogger / Google account, when you use public / shared computers. Generally, any concern about use of public / shared computers discusses cookies, which are simply invisible traces that you might leave behind when using any computer. If you only use your own computer - and never share your computer - this issue is probably of no concern to you. If you use a computer that someone else, who you know, also uses, cookies are a small concern. If you use a computer that other people, who you don't know, also use - as in a public computer in a coffee shop or library - this should be a larger concern.

Every week, we see the anguished cry of blog owners, who don't have access to maintain, or publish to, their blogs. Help me! My email address changed last month, I dropped my phone into the sink, and now I can't sign in to my blog! If you look at the fine print, you see the full story.

Some new blog owners spend time examining the various settings provided by Blogger, in the dashboard. Some dashboard settings inspire questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More about Blogger . As helpers there, we know from experience that some questions, asked and answered there, will lead to later questions in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . The "Robots.Txt" file is one feature which inspires these types of questions. I was updating my settings on Blogger, and I discovered some settings that I didn't understand. What do I add for "Custom robot text" and "Custom robot header tag"? When I was young, my mother used to provide advice "That is a well enough!" - as the proper answer, to this question, is to "Leave well enough alone!".

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see a plaintive query How do I remove my blog from using Draft Blogger? Some blog owners use Draft Blogger because of a specific problem - then discover later, that use of Draft Blogger, in general, is not a good idea .

We're seeing some confusion in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning mysterious comments, published against new blog posts. Each time I publish a new post, there is one comment immediately published against the post, which is just a repeat of the post! This blog owner is using both automatic post shares, and Google+ comments.