The Real Blogger Status

Some Blogger blog owners treat custom domain publishing, as drivers in Miami USA treat the suburban streets. Have you ever been to Miami, Florida, USA? Many of the suburban streets there are long, straight, and intersect at 90 degree angles. And as you get into the outer suburbs, with housing developments which (this year) may be right next to the Everglades - there will be almost no traffic, much of the day. The major streets intersect with stop signs or traffic lights. Many of the natives blow the stop signs, run the red lights, and speed with almost reckless abandon. And auto collisions are frequent - and lawyers and police are very busy.

Since 2009, I've been explaining the intricate relationships between Blogger accounts, email addresses, and Google accounts . One of the challenges of logging in to Blogger or Google involves account names and passwords, that may be shared with an email account that is the basis for the Blogger / Google account name. Non GMail based Blogger / Google accounts initially share an account name / email address with the source non GMail email account. If you change a non GMail email address, the Blogger account name will not change. If you delete a non GMail account, the Blogger account is not deleted. Finally, even with shared account names, the passwords between the email account, and the Blogger / Google account, are not automatically shared. With a GMail / Google based Blogger account, on the other hand, both the account name and password will be shared - since it's the same account. If you delete a GMail / Google Blogger account, the Blogger account - and all owned blog...

This week, we're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning a badly shortened dashboard Reading List. When I want to read the list of the blogs I follow, I can only see 1 blog, instead of the usual 30. When I click on "Show more", nothing happens. A brief affinity analysis , of current forum reports, suggests that the affected blog owners are using Draft Blogger.

The recently redesigned Pages gadget and wizard has been with us for just over 3 months. We are occasionally seeing some confusion from people who can't add a dynamic page link to their blog - even when they manage to find the redesigned Pages gadget. I added a dynamic page, linking from "mymainblog.blogspot.com" to "mysecondblog.blogspot.com". Imagine my dismay, when the new page link goes to "mymainblog.blogspot.com/mysecondblog.blogspot.com", instead of to my actual target "mysecondblog.blogspot.com"! Here is a blog owner who is not aware of the unforgiving syntax of the "New Page › Web Address" wizard, and the "Web address (URL)" entry.

We're seeing reports from some blog owners, who purchased custom domains through Blogger / Google, who are unable to access the registrars zone editor through Google Apps. Owners of blogs published to custom domains, where the domains were purchased through "Buy a domain", need to use the registrars zone editor to maintain their domains. In the past, the zone editor could be accessed from a link in the "Advanced DNS settings" wizard in the "Admin console" / Google Apps dashboard. The "Advanced DNS settings" wizard provides important tokens, to let the owner of a domain, purchased through Blogger / Google, interact with the registrar. Besides the tokens, there is a link, captioned "Sign in to DNS console", which should lead directly to the sign in screen provided by either eNom or GoDaddy.

Spammers protect their content against "unfair" deletion, and provide uninterrupted service to their "customers", by publishing multiple blogs, in spam blog farms . Owners of better designed spam blog farms minimise the risk to their blogs, by separating the hacking / porn / spam content (Payload), from the immediately visible Blogger blogs (Collector). Spammers use a tiered structure of blogs, in their blog farms. Collector blogs. Distributor blogs. Payload blogs. Only the Payload blogs contain easily identified hacking / porn / spam material - and only the Collector blogs are immediately visible to the abuse detection processes.

Occasionally we see confusion and impatience, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about previously submitted DMCA complaints . I have repeatedly submitted a complaint about "offendingblog.blogspot.com" - and nothing is done! How long must I wait, for results?? We should start by noting that Google staff attention cannot ever be promised immediately - but if a valid complaint is submitted, repeatedly, with no results, maybe the problem is in the presentation of the complaint.