The Real Blogger Status

One of the most consistently seen complaints, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , involves blog owners who can't get their blogs working, using custom domain publishing. Thanks to undertrained tech support staff , a common feature at too many registrars, the most common cause of custom domain problems involves failure to use "CNAME" referral - or "CNAME" referral targeting the wrong destination. Both use of forwarding, and "CNAME" referral to the domain root, is seen too often. www.mydomain.com. 1800 IN A 64.202.189.170 or maybe www.mydomain.com. 1800 IN CNAME mydomain.com Please, don't use either of the above address models! Unfortunately, even with the blog properly published to the "www" alias - and with the "www" alias using "CNAME" referral, targeting "ghs.google.com" - we still see problems. With neither of the above mistakes made.

A few times recently, we've had reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , of mysterious text, appearing in the middle of the posts . How do I remove unwanted text appearing in the middle of the page? Frequently, all that we can see is a mass of text. Occasionally, the mysterious text has been readable. Extracting key phrases from the text, we can some times locate the source of the mysterious text, in the post code.

With Blogger based comments, only the blog owner is allowed to report abusive comments published against their blog. You are free to classify or delete comments posted against your blog - but comments posted against somebody else's blog are their business, and their opinion. With Google+ based comments, moderation is a community exercise . Anybody, seeing an abusive Google+ hosted comment or post, is able to "Block" and / or "Report abuse". You, the blog owner, have no special responsibilities or rights , with regard to comments posted by someone else, against your blog.

One of the more intriguing subjects of confusion, about feed gadgets, involves gadgets with more feeds in the list then they are set to display. Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , we see the petulant query Why does my blog disappear from (feed gadgets on) other peoples blogs? This confusion starts with the question of how often and when we update our blogs , as opposed to how often and when the other blog owners update their blogs. It continues with the little known effect of the difference between how many feeds are in the gadget list, as opposed to how many feeds the gadget is set to display.

One of the most fascinating features of Blogger blogs is the various options to organise our content. Long ago, I wrote a simple article, Adding A Blogger Blog To A Website . That's become one of the most consistently popular posts, in this blog. Most blog owners have multiple interests, and like to organise their different interests , by subject - and have a different blog, for each subject. Some people like to have a blog, and a website - and host both the blog and website in one Blogger blog, under one URL. For a small blog / website combination, that's an easy way to start out - and a good alternative, to having multiple blogs / websites.

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...