The Real Blogger Status

Possibly encouraged by less than positive reviews , Blogger has recently enhanced their dynamic templates . Dynamic Views are a set of templates that make it easy and fun to explore a blog. As you might expect, we’ve made the gadgets interactive too. Instead of appearing in a panel that consumes valuable real estate on your blog, gadgets now appear in a dock that slides in and out as you move your cursor over them. Now, at least some of the gadgets in the sidebar will be visible to your readers, when they visit your blog, as viewed using a dynamic view.

Some blog owners are seeing the recently added Country Code Top Level Domain Aliases in their visitor logs / meters, and various non Google search engines. Possibly unaware of the aliases, they are afraid that their blog has been hacked. My SiteMeter logs show that I've had incoming traffic from "mybloggerblog.blogspot.in". Clicking on one of the links in SiteMeter, I see my blog, "mybloggerblog.blogspot.com". Has somebody cloned my blog? In reality, the scenario is not so ominous.

Too many Blogger blog owners, seeking recovery of a long dormant account, overlook the realities of the Blogger business relationship . I started the blog 10 years ago, I have forgotten the password, the email address is long gone - and I need the blog deleted now. When told that deletion is not possible , if you cannot provide proof of ownership, they next ask for personal assistance. But isn't there a person to whom I can explain my problem? Surely we can reach some understanding! The reality is that Blogger wants to help their customers - when helping their customers provides them some business benefit.

Since the most important part of almost all Blogger blogs is the posts, the "Blog Posts" gadget is an essential element in the template. Sometimes we have to remove the gadget though - maybe the gadget is corrupt - or in odd cases, we may have a duplicate "Blog Posts" gadget . In either case, the solution is known, and is quite simple. Remove (the / one) "Blog Posts" gadget. Unfortunately, not everybody, needing such advice, is able to do this. People using the Template Editor in the New Blogger GUI (2011) may find, to their frustration, that removal of a "Blog Posts" gadget isn't permitted.

Ever since Blogger installed auto pagination . Blogger blog owners have been asking How do I disable auto pagination? and Why can't I display my blog on the main page, without my readers having to use "Older Posts? The response, up to this year, has been simple. You cannot disable auto pagination. You have to allow sharing of network resources. Though technically correct, the latter response has not always been met with appreciation. The solution, for avoiding auto pagination, is now simple. Install a dynamic template , on your blog.

The issue of URL availability has been a subject of intense debate, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , for several years. Many would be blog owners URLs learn that neither "dormant" blogs , nor deleted blogs , nor spam locked blogs , are automatically available for the curious nor desperate. Those denied the URL of their choice ask How do I find an available URL? All of the good ones are taken - and picking one that's available is way too much work! I'm moving my blog to WordPress! And that complaint is somewhat valid . Under the Classic GUI, picking an available URL was a pretty painful process.

Ever since Blogger started using Google accounts to authenticate Blogger account access, blog owners have had trouble maintaining access to their accounts and their blogs. Not all Blogger blog owners understand - and less accept - the measures that Blogger has taken, to prevent malicious activity , by unknown persons who would use Internet obscurity to hijack their accounts , and their blogs. Every day, we see numerous complaints in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , about inability to recover account access. And, we see occasional (not occasional enough) reports about blogs now owned by people who are not personally known by the rightful blog owner. Blogger is continually improving their account recovery, authentication, and account hijack prevention policies . Unfortunately, as they improve in one area, they make things more difficult in another.