The Real Blogger Status

Custom Domains And The Chair To Keyboard Interface

2009-11-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

A Google Custom Domain is an elegant solution for alternately addressing a blog with a BlogSpot or a non BlogSpot URL, and having the current search engine value of the BlogSpot URL transferred to the non BlogSpot URL. There is no other DNS based solution for doing all of that, and doing that so elegantly.

It's so simple to setup, too.

You start with a righteous DNS configuration.
You publish the blog to the primary address.
You redirect the secondary address to the primary address.
You are done with the setup.

For all of it's simplicity, it has a major flaw in the way it's implemented. This flaw, in Computer Security, I describe as a Chair To Keyboard Interface Fault. A CKI Fault is a frequent factor in computer security problems, and similarly, in custom domain problems.

Yet the bloggers, who generate the faults, are not the sole cause of the faults.

Custom Domains depend upon DNS, and DNS is not a user friendly infrastructure. DNS, or Domain Name System, is buried so deeply in the guts of the computer operating system, that very few bloggers know - or care - how it operates, or that it even exists. Yet, what are they greeted with, when they decide to try publishing a blog to a non BlogSpot URL?

Symmetrical DNS Configuration

The most obvious configuration uses a symmetrical DNS structure - dual "CNAME" referrals.
mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
www.mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
This is the simplest to explain. Both the domain root, and the "www" alias separately use a "CNAME" referral to "ghs.google.com", which provides a second referral to the current Google server that is available for use.

With a symmetrical configuration, you may publish to either "mydomain.com" or "www.mydomain.com", at your convenience.

Asymmetrical DNS Configuration, aka "Google Apps"

If you have a domain with email, FTP, and other possible auxiliary services, you use an asymmetrical structure, which use Google Apps to let you add auxiliary services, with quadruple DNS server redundancy.
mydomain.com.  3600 IN A 216.239.32.21
mydomain.com.  3600 IN A 216.239.34.21
mydomain.com.  3600 IN A 216.239.36.21
mydomain.com.  3600 IN A 216.239.38.21
www.mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
Look carefully at the IP addresses in the 4 "A" records, before concluding that the 4 records are identical.

With an asymmetrical configuration, you may not publish to the domain root. Your only valid choice is to publish to "www.mydomain.com", and select "Redirect mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com". If you publish to "mydomain.com", you will eventually see
Blogs may not be hosted at naked domains.

Additional Virtual Host

If you wish to add an additional blog to the domain, maybe to add your Blogger blog to your web site, you setup an additional virtual host pair. There are several variations on this setup - some righteous, others spurious - that you need to consider, carefully.
blog.mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
www.blog.mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.

Some DNS experts state that there are DNS oddities that not even DNS experts can understand. And configuring DNS addresses just is not user friendly, nor is it predictable.

If I was to instruct someone

Diagnose your domain setup. Enter
dig @localhost nitecruzr.net A
dig @localhost www.nitecruzr.net A
into a command window.

For even those whose computers would run the "Dig" command, how many would be prepared for the output?


 ; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @localhost nitecruzr.net A
 ; (2 servers found)
 ;; global options:  printcmd
 ;; Got answer:
 ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 25181
 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
 
 ;; QUESTION SECTION:
 ;nitecruzr.net.   IN A
 
 ;; ANSWER SECTION:
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.32.21
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.34.21
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.36.21
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.38.21
 
 ;; Query time: 123 msec
 ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
 ;; WHEN: Mon Nov  9 21:48:45 2009
 ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 95

 ; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @localhost www.nitecruzr.net A
 ; (2 servers found)
 ;; global options:  printcmd
 ;; Got answer:
 ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 23566
 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
 
 ;; QUESTION SECTION:
 ;www.nitecruzr.net.  IN A
 
 ;; ANSWER SECTION:
 www.nitecruzr.net. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
 ghs.google.com.  380000 IN CNAME ghs.l.google.com.
 ghs.l.google.com. 300 IN A 74.125.43.121
 
 ;; Query time: 105 msec
 ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
 ;; WHEN: Mon Nov  9 21:48:52 2009
 ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 99

Which I abbreviate as

nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.32.21
nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.34.21
nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.36.21
nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.38.21
www.nitecruzr.net. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.

With all of these details in mind, is it surprising that we have users complaining of "Another blog is already hosted at this address" and "Error 404 Server Not Found", with diagnosed causes of such intriguing variations?

>> Top

I Can't See My Blog - What Should I Do?

2009-11-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

This is a very difficult question to answer, because of its almost infinite complexity.

There are several different causes.
There are more symptoms than the number of causes.
There are still more ways that bloggers might report the symptoms that they see.
The reports, and the symptoms, will vary in both accuracy, detail, and relevance.
Different problems can be fixed only by people with different roles, relevant to the blog.
- Some problems can be fixed only by the blogger (blog owner).
- Others can be fixed by the owners of the client computers or their network service providers.
- Still others can only be fixed by Blogger Support or third party server owners.
The epidemiology of the problems will produce different observations.
- A few problems are occasionally observed by Blogger / Google staff.
- Some problems will be observed by the blogger.
- Others may be observed by the bloggers friends / blog readers.
- A very few problems will be observed by everybody.

The term "blogger" can itself cause confusion - some bloggers might be the owners of the blogs, and others might be the viewers - and this, too, needs to be clarified.

And let's also note the difference between "Blogger" and "BlogSpot".

The former is where you maintain your Blogger blog.
The latter is the native domain where you, by default, publish your Blogger blog.
If you're not publishing externally - either to a custom domain (on a Google server) or by FTP (to a third party server of your choice) - you'll be publishing to BlogSpot.
Many times, your specific problem might affect your access to one domain, but not the other.

I'm going to describe the complexity of this problem, enumerating by problem cause, to start.

Blocked By ISP
Blocked By Network, or Local, Problem
Custom Domain Problem
Corrupted Content
Deleted Blog
Hijacked Blog
Login Problem
Lost Position In Search Engine Result Pages
Temporary / Transient Problems
Last Resorts

Blocked By ISP

Some ISPs, possibly motivated by political pressure, are blocking blog traffic, from time to time. You may see a variant of the well known

404 Server Not Found

or just as likely, a completely white screen, with no error.

You can frequently get around this problem, by using a proxy server. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that other readers of the blog will know to do that. If your blog has significant reader population in the geographic regions affected, you're going to lose readership.

http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help/web/use-a-proxy-server

This problem can only be fixed (worked around) by the blog readers, or the owners of the networks used by the blog readers.

Blocked By Network, or Local, Setting or Security Problem

There are settings and programs on your computer, and on your network, that will affect your ability (or your readers abilities) to access your blog, and other blogs. Any of these individual items, or combinations of these items, can be relevant.

* The DNS setting
http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help/web/how-to-identify-a-dns-problem-on-your-computer
* The MTU setting
http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help/web/how-to-check-the-mtu-setting-on-your-computer
* Local network or security problems
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2006/12/securing-your-browser-and-painting.html

Any of the above can cause the white screen as well. Both DNS and MTU are settings on your computer, or on your network. If there is a problem, the problem starts at the blogger computer, or with the Internet Service Provider. As in the above scenario, you may be able to use a proxy server.

http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help/web/use-a-proxy-server

Sometimes, Blogger Support will take responsibility for resolving the problem, but individual bloggers have to let them know that there is a problem. If you are having a problem, and you don't report it, then it's partially your fault if the problem isn't fixed.

This problem can likely be fixed by the blog readers, or the owners of the networks used by the blog readers, although occasionally Blogger Support will become involved to advise the network owners.

Custom Domain Problem

Setting up a blog, published to a Google Custom Domain, demands precise attention to detail and procedure. Sometimes, corruption in the Google server database will result in a well known error (which comes in several interesting flavours).

404 Not Found

This problem you won't get around by using a proxy server, or by making any local or ISP changes. You (the blog owner), or Blogger Support, will have to fix the problem. Frequently, this will involve multiple procedures.

* Post a question here.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/ask?hl=en
* Republishing the blog back to BlogSpot, then repeating back to the custom domain.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2007/11/custom-domain-publishing-and-404-error.html
* Recycling the domain settings using Google Apps.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2007/06/another-blog-is-already-hosted-at-this.html

Corrupted Content

Part of the blog is gone. Maybe the header is there, but no post. Or the posts are there, but the sidebar is blank. Oh no! What do I do now? Well, in this scenario, you may be looking at another case of the old dropped post / sidebar. If it's not a simple case of the posts or the sidebar having dropped down the page, you may have a corrupt template, and reloading the template may resolve the problem.

Here, too, you may see the well known error

404 Not Found

This problem must be fixed by the blog owner. Nobody else - neither Blogger Support, nor the blog readers - can fix corrupted content.

Deleted Blog

You made a mistake, and deleted your own blog, or maybe you or another administrator removed you from the permissions list. DOHH. Mistakes happen. Or the blog may have been removed by Blogger - for just cause - whether falsely or genuinely. Or, did you delete the blog intentionally, without considering the possible consequences?

Hijacked Blog

The bad guys may have hijacked another blog. What you're looking at may or may not contain your content. You may or may not be able to access the dashboard, or the post editor, to correct the problem.

Login Problem

You're logged in with the wrong account, or not properly logged in. Or maybe you tried to change the account name, and simply setup a new account without realising it. Check and make sure that you don't have another account, that the blog is registered to. Find out what Blogger accounts are associated with your email address.

* Blogger Help: My blog disappeared from my account! What do I do?.
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=41973
* Blogger Help: I can't log in. What should I do?.
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=41971
* Blogger Help Group: Welcome to Login Issues!.
http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help-loginissues/tree/browse_frm/thread/b188e22f091f0c62/18df9b57c7ccab41?rnum=1&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fblogger-help-loginissues%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fthread%2Fb188e22f091f0c62%2F%3F#doc_18df9b57c7ccab41
* Google Accounts: Google Accounts Help
https://www.google.com/support/accounts/
* The Real Blogger Status: Schizophrenia When Logging In To Blogger
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2007/02/schizophrenia-when-logging-in-to.html

If you're certain that you made the right choice, but you got the wrong results, clear cache and cookies, and try again.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2006/08/bypass-or-clear-your-local-cache.html

Remember that part of the Blogger security strategy involves keeping the identity of the owner, of any blog, confidential. You don't want Blogger telling anybody who you are, so don't expect to email Blogger

I forgot the account (I changed my email address). What's my account?

and get a useful reply. You will have to do some work, and authenticate yourself, somehow.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2006/12/your-blog-is-forever.html

Lost Position In Search Engine Result Pages

There are many reasons why you won't be able to find your blog listed, in Google Search. Some start with your needing to publicise the blog properly.

http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help/web/how-to-get-traffic-and-repeated-readers-for-your-blog

But even when you do spend days publicising your blog, maybe somebody else spent more days, and his blog replaced yours in your desired search list position. Now, you're just going to have to work harder.

http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help/web/blogging-is-all-about-patience

Temporary / Transient Problems

Right now, bloggers are reporting problems with their blogs, with the well known

Operation Aborted

Blogger Support has to fix the problems causing this symptom. While we await action by Blogger Support, we may have to help ourselves, using various workarounds.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2009/05/internet-explorer-and-operation-aborted.html

Other problems, too many (and too transient) to explicitly enumerate here, will come up from time to time.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/search/label/Current%20Problems?max-results=100

Last Resorts

If none of the above problem descriptions helps you decide how to attack your problem, and the blog really isn't accessible, act immediately.

* Put a stub blog in place, if you can do so.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2006/06/stub-post.html
* Report the problem.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/ask?hl=en
* And join the crowd, at Google Blogger Help.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger?hl=en

Who Are Your Anonymous Followers?

2009-11-07T07:05:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, we see queries from bloggers who are unsure what anonymous Followers are.

How do I know when someone Follows my blog anonymously?

and

How do I block anonymous Followers?

When someone Follows a blog publicly, he / she gets two things:

A subscription to the blog newsfeed, in the Following Reading List, and / or in Google Reader.
An entry in the Following community for the blog.

When someone Follows a blog anonymously, she / he gets one thing:

A subscription to the blog newsfeed, in the Following Reading List, and / or in Google Reader.

If you Block someone from Following your blog, you remove their entry from your Following community. Newsfeed subscriptions, though, are universally open - if a feed is available to anybody, it's available to everybody. Your anonymous Followers, as well as your Blocked Followers, can read your newsfeed - just as any reader who wishes to subscribe, without using Following.

If the blog feed is routed through FeedBurner, anybody subscribing to the feed can be counted. If you have a visitor meter installed on the blog, anybody viewing the blog using a link from the blog feed (called "reach" in FeedBurner statistics) will be logged through the visitor meter. Short of FeedBurner or a visitor meter, you won't know anything about anonymous Followers, or about Blocked Followers.

A Blocked Follower appears in your Following community (in the "Blocked" list in your dashboard). An anonymous Follower is simply anonymous, and appears nowhere.

And, just as you can't track an anonymous Follower, you can't Block an anonymous Follower.

>> Top

Is Blogger Free?

2009-11-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum, we get the querulous inquiry

Is Blogger free, or must I pay for the service?

What upcharges will I have to deal with, after publishing my blog?

To answer the question, I'll say

Yes, and no.

Within limits, and excepting for minor details, you can publish a Blogger blog, and maintain it for a very long time, without needing a major credit card.

There are two possible charge items, that I can think of.

If you want to publish your blog to BlogSpot, the service is free. Publishing the blog to a non BlogSpot URL will require paying for either Custom Domain publishing, or service from a remote server published using FTP. Both will likely cost you some money, though you will not pay the money to Google.
If you publish a blog with photos, and you host the photos using the native post editor upload, you'll be using the Picasa service. Picasa is free, to a limit, then there is an upcharge for additional Picasa storage capacity.

For a free service, there are very few absolute limits to what resources you may use. The limits that do exist may be substantial to some, and you have to decide whether they warrant you finding another blogging platform.

And, as I pointed out long ago, Blogger does not charge us directly for the service, but they are not a non profit organisation. They are compensated, to a nice profit level.

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Add The Followers Gadget To The Blog

2009-11-05T18:37:00.000-08:00

It's been a bit over 2 months since Following was added as a Blogger feature, and daily we see anxious bloggers asking

How do I get Followers to my blog?

as if that is a holy grail of blogging. My first answer is always

Write interesting and relevant content for the blog, so people will read the blog, and will want to Follow the blog.

But there is yet another detail, that not all bloggers seem to get.

Add a Followers gadget to the blog. Having a Followers gadget, with pictures of other Followers, will attract more Followers than just the "Follow" link in the navbar. The "Follow" link, besides not having pretty pictures, works differently than the Followers gadget.

You're going to get a different class of blog readers using the Followers gadget, than the Follow link. The Followers gadget lets people Follow the blog

without signing in to Blogger
using a different Blogger account
using a non Google account

The navbar Follow link requires the reader to be logged in, with the primary Blogger account, to the navbar. People who Follow the blog using the navbar link won't be as casual as those who Follow using the gadget.

Also, the Followers gadget encourages readers and visitors, by making your blog into an active part of the Following community that contains your blog.

The navbar link, frankly, is a poor substitute for the gadget. If you have a blog that uses a classic template, with which people who insist on publishing by FTP are stuck, the navbar link will be your only choice. But if the blog has a layouts template, and you want Followers, the gadget is your best accessory to add.

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Blogging Anonymously

2009-11-05T10:50:00.001-08:00

We know that Blogger allows us to blog anonymously, by promising to never reveal our identity as a blog owner. This leads to mysterious scenarios, like when someone forgets the account that they used to create a blog, that they do own. And, it leads sometimes to tragic scenarios, like bloggers who don't have access to the back door email account, and can't prove blog ownership.

Even though Blogger allows us to pursue our anonymity, though, that doesn't guarantee absolute anonymity without effort. There are things that we still need to do, to ensure that our name / identity isn't connected with a given blog.

First, remove the "About Me" gadget from the blog. Either publish the blog without a native Blogger "About Me" gadget, or make up a custom one.

Second, remove the blog from the "My Blogs" list in your Blogger profile.

If you're truly paranoid, you could transfer control of the blog, to a secondary account that you own. If you do this, it would be wise to use a non GMail account, so you can avoid a Google cookie clash caused by trying to use two Google accounts simultaneously. And please, if you want to retain control of the blog, use a valid non GMail email address, and keep control of the email address.

Finally, check behind yourself, carefully. Comb the contents of the blog in question, and make sure that you don't inadvertently reveal any personal details. This may be an ongoing concern, as you publish any blog, anonymously or not.

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Maybe It's Time To Start Over

2009-11-05T08:22:00.000-08:00

I've been advising folks about spam problems, and splog detection (both righteous and spurious), for several years. Sometimes, the advice is about cleaning up the blog, and submitting it for review. Other times, it's about blogs unjustly accused of being spam. Occasionally, it's about spam blogs, that can't be reviewed again.

Lately, we've seen some folks asking for help, when it appears that they have been given several chances, already, to clean up their act.

this is what i got from email:
We'd like to inform you that we've received another complaint regarding your blog. Upon review of your account, we've noted that your blog has repeatedly violated Blogger's Terms of Service (http://www.blogger.com/terms.g). Given that we've provided you with several warnings of these violations and advised you of our policy towards repeat infringers, we've been forced to remove your blog.

We all believe in forgiveness, but having been forgiven, should you continue with the blog restored and simply cleaned up? Or maybe, isn't it better for everybody if you simply start over, with a new blog and new content?

Focus your energy on making a new blog. Don't waste your time (the helpers time, Blogger Support's time) trying to clean up what can't be cleaned up.

Start over. And next time, when you get the first notice about unacceptable content, heed the warning.

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Less Traffic To Our Blogs

2009-11-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

One of the more active (and frequently controversial) subjects discussed in this blog is getting more traffic to our blogs, also known as getting the blog indexed by the search engines. Not everybody wants their blogs indexed, though.

How do I make sure my blog is NOT found by search engines?

That question is asked, regularly. And, in truth, there is only one truly effective answer.

Don't publish your blog on the Internet.

This is similar to the question (and answer)

How do I keep my blog private?

Short of absolute effectiveness, the most obvious solution is the two Settings - Basic options. And there are other tweaks which you may find, in Google Webmaster Tools.

And, in the spirit of locking the barn after the horses have been stolen, there is the subject of Removing Your Blog From The Search Engines Caches. Search engine caches, like browser caches, won't clear overnight, if ever.

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The Attack Of The Clones

2009-11-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

The latest spam problem, which became visible a couple weeks ago, thanks to yet another Blogger error, left a lot of bloggers (some legitimate and others actually spammers) reporting both confusion and indignation

My blog seems to be locked, but when I fill out the CAPTCHA, I get
Your blog is not locked, and does not need review.
What do I do, now?

and

My blog is not spam! Honestly, how could Blogger legitimately call my blog spam?

Both of these reports, echoed by dozens of bloggers and spammers, show two sides of the same story.

Note: This isn't fiction - I'm not stealing content from the Tom Clancy "Net Force" novels. This is real.

Spammers, in order to publish one or two active splogs (blogs containing actual hacking, porn, and / or spam content), use the power of the Internet. Each splog publisher, who may have at his control thousands of hijacked computers, publishes thousands of blogs each day.

A splogger starts by simply publishing empty blogs, in a constant, all day activity. You may see the empty blogs some time, if you go "Next Blog" surfing. They have a title, an archives gadget in the sidebar, and maybe one or two posts with random garbage. And a Profile gadget, with a link to the "owner", each "owner" with 10 blogs.

The splogger next takes one legitimate blog - in this case, your blog. He scrapes the content from your blog, takes a dozen or so of his empty blogs, adds your content to each, and republishes each blog. Now, there are a dozen clones of your blog, plus your original, in BlogSpot.

Next, the splogger takes a couple of his recently created clones, adds the payload - hacking, porn, and / or spam content, and republishes his now active splogs. Each time, he just uses a couple blogs (cloned from your blog), and keeps the others as reserve. He has dozens of other splogs with active content out there too, using scraped content from other legitimate blogs. The clones of your blog, joining the clones of other blogs, are now active members of his splog farm.

As the splogs with active content are detected and removed by Blogger, the splogger simply activates other reserves, placing payload into each, in turn. By the time all of the reserves, that are clones of your blog, are used up, the spam farm will have clones of still more legitimate blogs, ready to be activated.

Considering this process, we see the life cycle of each splog in the splog farm.

Empty (just published).
Reserve (previously empty, republished with scraped content added).
Active (previously reserve, republished with payload added).
Detected (previously active, locked by the Blogger Spam Classification bot).
Deleted.

The plan here is that each splog will pass through each stage in the life cycle, in proper sequence. Since the splogger publishes thousands of splogs daily, if Blogger were to simply lock then delete the active splogs, the splogger simply activates the reserve splogs, as needed. This is good project management, by the sploggers.

Blogger aims to shorten this life cycle. When the anti-spam bot detects an active splog, they search their database of suspected splogs, find similar blogs with no active content (the reserves), and lock the reserves too.

Unfortunately, when Blogger locks the reserve splogs, they are also going to lock your blog. Fuzzy spam detection techniques can't tell the difference between your blog, and the clones, because there is no difference. And that leaves you, and hundreds of other bloggers, reporting

My blog is not spam! Honestly, how could Blogger legitimately call my blog spam?

When you look at this differently, though, you see that Blogger is actually helping you. Were your blog, and the clones, to remain in BlogSpot undisturbed, the search engines would see the clones, and levy a huge duplicated content penalty on all aliases of the content - including your original blog. If you are able to declare your blog as legitimate to Blogger, Blogger can later delete the sploggy clones, and the search engines will, hopefully, continue to index your blog, as legitimate and unique content.

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The New Navbar And The "Follow Blog" Link

2009-11-01T20:00:00.000-08:00

The new navbar, with its Follow and Share links, has been out for just over a week. People are starting to use the Follow button, instead of the Followers gadget - which is not necessarily present on every blog. But there are differences between the "Follow" button on the navbar, and the "Followers" gadget that's (sometimes) added to the blogs. These differences are causing some confusion.

The Followers gadget lets you login to Following, under any account, Blogger or not - and separate from the account used to login to the navbar. If you so desire, you can Follow any blog without logging in - You'll add a temporary "shadow" icon to the blog (if you choose to Follow publicly), and you'll add the blog feed to your Reading List and / or Google Reader subscription list.

With the Follow link on the navbar, if you're not logged in (using the "Sign In" link), you'll not see a "Follow" link. Once you do login (which you can only do using a Blogger account), you can click on the Follow button. There, you'll get a choice of Following publicly, using your Blogger / Google account - or Following anonymously. If you Follow publicly, you'll use your Blogger profile, as connected with the account used to Sign In to the navbar.

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The New Post Editor And Read More

2009-11-01T07:39:00.000-08:00

One problem which we seem to see, pretty consistently, in Blogger Help Forum, is where the posts and a sidebar end up in one long column, with one above the other. Reports like

My posts have vanished!

and

My sidebar (my archives, my Followers, my profile gadget, ...) have dropped to the bottom of the page!

are seen a lot in the forum. Generally, it's caused by trying to put too much in one place.

Recently, though, a few bloggers report the dropped sidebar symptom, after they try the new post editor, and the Blogger "Read More" option (called by Blogger, "Jump Break").

The "Read More" feature in Blogger blogs has been a long needed option. Before the new post editor, Blogger, and at least 2 other bloggers, had their own competing, and mutually incompatible, procedures for making your blog show, and execute, a "Read More" link. All 3, to my knowledge, had drawbacks. One of the most obvious was that each different version was added by editing the post HTML, and the HTML was complex, and messy.

The "Jump Break" in the new post editor is easy to add.

Position the cursor after the words that you want to be shown, initially.
Hit the "Jump Break" button.
The jump break is inserted into the post editor window.
When you publish the post, you'll see the words that you want to be shown, followed by the link "Read More".
What could be simpler?

In rare cases, the "Jump Break" button in the toolbar may not work. If you have that problem, go into the "Edit HTML" mode, and insert

right where you need your jump break.

For all the simplicity in adding this (either in Compose or "Edit HTML" mode), it's not producing simple results.

There appear to be at least two scenarios where a blog, with one or more posts published with jump breaks, would have a dropped posts or sidebar section.

When the blog displays more than 10 posts in main page view, each post with a jump break, the 11th post will cause this problem.
If the jump break is inserted into the middle of a section of text with formatting implemented using a "<div> ... </div>", a "<div>" section broken by a jump break will cause this problem.

The workarounds to prevent these scenarios are obvious.

Reduce your main page size.
Don't add jump breaks in the middle of "<div> ... </div>" sections.

But those workarounds may not be popular, or easy to implement.

Some bloggers like to publish blogs with 15, 20, or more posts in the main page.
Blogger who like this new, shiny feature may not be aware of when their posts include "<div> ... </div>" sections. How can they avoid breaking a section that they can't see?

So, it looks like Blogger has yet to polish the "Jump Break" feature. If you aren't technically proficient, and don't like solving problems cause by Blogger code, you may be better off not using "Jump Break" until it's a bit more polished.

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FTP Publishing - October 2009

2009-10-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

This month, we have several reports from bloggers who, for one reason or another, have changed the FTP username and / or password on the domain host server, and then updated the username / password in their Blogger FTP settings. Much to their dismay, when attempting to publish their blog, they find the old username / password being sent to the remote server.

I have verified it's saving my new username in the publishing settings and yes, I'm seeing the error based on the posting status. I get the following ...
FTP login failed (server: ftp.domain.com, username: myoldusername, reason: 530 User myoldusername cannot log in. )

Are you seeing this behaviour, when trying to publish your blog?

What is the blog URL?
What is the FTP server setting?
When did you make the setting change?
Did you verify the problem, by examining the host server activity logs?

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A Private Blog May Not Be Completely Private

2009-10-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

We've known for a while that private blogs have limitations, such as latency. If you originally publish your blog as public, and later make it private, cached copies of the blog will be all over the Internet, for anybody to read, after it's supposedly private. This week, we see another, possibly more serious limitation.

Why was my coworker able to read my very private, personal, password protected blog yesterday? I had it set to "Blog Author Only" and yet she found it and was able to read the whole thing.

It has never, ever been public. I started it last September and set the permissions to "blog author only" at the start for all posts. I have never invited anyone else to read it...and have never, ever logged into it at work.

Occasionally, while using a dialup connection, I've had occasion to load a private blog. As the blog loads, the browser enumerates the various components of the blog, such as various pictures loading, in the browser status area (generally, the lower left border of the browser window). The interstitial notice

This blog is open to invited readers only

It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.

seems to come up well after the blog main page contents have loaded.

If you are surfing from a network which goes through a server which loads the main page of the blog, and fails to subsequently load the interstitial warning, it's possible that people who surf through that server may see the main page of the blog, even though it's supposedly private. If your Blogger profile is part of your public blogs, or people link to your profile while surfing profiles, and your private blog is listed as one of your blogs, someone may click on the link, and may get a view of the blog.

This security deficiency isn't one that you can control, as you have no way of denying anybody access to your profile, if it's published publicly. If you want to keep your blog private, it would be a good idea to at least remove it from the list of your blogs, in your profile.

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What's In The Boxes?

2009-10-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

Every day, we see one or two queries from confused bloggers, about these boxes.

I type the URL in my browser, and get
No blog found.

Why doesn't it show more than what's in my blog?

I know the URL. I can see it on my dashboard even. But the search says that it's not there.

All of these observations are evidence of people who don't know what all the boxes in the browser are intended to provide.

When you view your blog, there are 2 to 4 boxes of which you need to be aware. Depending upon what accessories are provided in any given blog, there may be more. Depending upon what browser you have, there may be less. And depending upon what browser you have, the label, position, and size of any of these boxes isn't predictable. But, the boxes will be there.

Browser Address Box. This is the most important box visible. This is where you are supposed to paste or type the URL of your blog, another blog, or any website, to browse to the blog or website.
Browser Search Box. This is a browser accessory, provided by some browsers, so you don't have to load the web page of the major search engines. Here, as on the search boxes on the various web pages, you paste or type the search that you want to do.
Navbar Blog Search Box. If you haven't disabled the navbar, here you can paste or type keywords which will be used to search your blog, directly - without requiring that your blog be indexed by the search engines.
Blog Search Gadget. This will be any search gadget added to a blog by the owner. This could be a version of the navbar blog search, or a version of the browser search box, but against different search engines.

Except for the navbar blog search box, there is no way to predict if, what, or where any of these boxes will look like or appear. The labeling, positioning, even whether a box is included, are all a matter of personal preference. Some personal preference is of the blog owner, other is of the blog reader / owner of the computer used for browsing.

In some browsers, the address box and search box are combined, with browser code interpreting (more or less reliably) whether a URL or search terms have been entered. This causes confusion when the person used to such a browser uses another browser, with separate and distinct boxes.

The navbar is intended as the single most predictable object on the screen, when viewing Blogger blogs. Unfortunately, some blogs are setup with the navbar hidden, which prevents use of the navbar blog search. To compensate for this, some blog owners will add a blog search gadget. Unfortunately, Search gadgets for Blogger blogs come in a variety of designs. A browser search gadget may be the equivalent of the browser search window, of the navbar blog search window, or even may be customised so you can't tell what it does.

Besides understanding the blog search box (whether navbar or blog based), we need to note a major difference between a search using a search engine, and a search directly against the blog.

Both a browser search box and a blog based custom search box will involve a search engine, which uses cached copies of every indexed blog and web site. The cached copies will be subject to search engine latency, causing discrepancies similar to SERPs referencing main page view.
Blog direct searches, such as the navbar search box, and some custom search boxes, which will search the blog now, based upon what's in the blog, now.

Considering all of these details, it's not surprising that there would be confusion, when people surf strange blogs and / or use strange browsers, maybe on strange computers. Possibly, by knowing the details, we can diagnose the questions from the confused bloggers.

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Accepting Membership In Another Blog May Change Post Editor Settings

2009-10-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Recently, we've seen an occasional question about mysteriously changed post editor selections.

Where did my options toolbar go?

Why do I now see the new post editor?

Right now, as part of the deployment of the new post editor, there are 3 selections, in Settings - Basic - Global Settings - Select post editor.

Updated editor
Old editor
Hide compose mode

If you make this change under one blog, you'll find it true for all of your blogs. I've also noted, under some circumstances, that when you accept membership in someone else's blog, and the other person was using a different post editor selection, the other person's selection will now be yours, globally.

The next time that you accept membership in a blog, check your post editor setting. If the owner of the blog was using a different setting, your setting may have changed.

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Blogs Showing The WMX Verification File, Instead Of Main Page

2009-10-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

This week, we have various Blogger blogs reported as displaying a mysterious WMX Verification File, when main page view would be expected.

This is the WMX verification file. If you are having problems with the WMX verification for your blog please visit http://help.blogger.com/bin/static.py?page=start.cs

This symptom was first observed Thursday, October 22, and Blogger Support is aware of the problem. Supposedly, the problem was fixed, though some blog owners are still reporting it.

We note that the Google Webmaster Central Blog: Verifying a Blogger blog in Webmaster Tools now instructs us to use the meta tag verification procedure.

The "Webmaster Tools" auto-verification link from the Blogger dashboard is no longer working and will soon be removed.

Is your blog showing this, in place of main page view? If you can provide some diagnostic details, you might help Blogger to help you and others. Precision here is good - and date, time, and timezone will be appreciated.

What's the URL of the blog?
When did you first observe the problem?
When did you last publish a post to the blog?
When did you last modify the template?
Did you add the blog to Google Webmaster Tools, using the dashboard wizard, or using the GWT native procedure?
When did you add the blog to GWT?

(Update 10/23): Some bloggers are working around the problem by refreshing the blog. From Settings - Publishing,

Change the name to any available URL, and Save.
Change the name back to the correct URL, and Save.
Note for a custom domain published blog, you'll have to publish back to BlogSpot, then back to the correct domain URL.

If you do this, you ought to examine the Google Webmaster Tools entry for the blog, and check your Following relationships carefully. Both GWT and Following are sensitive to blog renames.

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Keep Malicious Content Out Of Your Blog

2009-10-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

Every day or so, we see reported from concerned bloggers, about unknown content in their blogs.

Where did those ads come from? I didn't add them!

How do I keep this other blogger from posting porn links in my blog?

As we add content to our blogs, and make them fun, interesting, and shiny, to attract readers, we risk adding undesirable content. This is a constant problem. The bad guys are out there, and the more fun, interesting, and shiny your blog is, the more it's likely to have readership, reputation, and value. The more readership, reputation, and value that your blog has, the more attractive it is to the bad guys.

Malicious Comments

One of the easiest way to add third party content to your blog is from allowing comments. Comments are contributed by people who, at best, you simply do not know. Any content from someone who you do not know can always be malicious, or obnoxious in some way.

Some blog owners will try to identify and block individual commentors. I will continue to insist that anybody who you should fear will not be bothered greatly by anything that you can do here.

You absolutely must moderate comments, or risk having a blog known for hosting malicious links - or worse.

Malicious Posts

Besides comments, posts are a constant concern. If you have a team blog, you have to be able to trust the authors in the blog. Post moderation, using post editor to publish, isn't an option. Anybody who you make an author can publish what they feel like publishing. You can only moderate posts after they are published, when using post editor.

An alternative to using post editor to publish is Mail-to-Blogger, where contributions are emailed to the blog. If Mail-to-Blogger is setup to publish straight to the blog, and the bad guys figure out your MTB account and password, you'll have malicious content a plenty. You can moderate before publishing, using Mail-to-Blogger.

Malicious Accessories

And finally, any time that you install third party accessories of any type, you are placing your blog at risk.

Don't be paranoid - you have to make your blog interesting to your readers. But do keep the risks in mind. This is similar to layered security for your computer, which is a related concern here.

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Waiting For The Tap On The Shoulder

2009-10-23T17:39:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest here. I was a nerd in college (and I am one even now). So this story is one that I've only seen in movies - neither I, nor my friends, got even this far.

College Secret Societies
Some of them have no name even. There are no published entrance rules - membership is by invitation only, and rules are communicated by word of mouth. And the initiation process starts like this:

The prospective members are blindfolded, and led to a dark room.
The prospective members are put into a circle, in silence.
The prospective members wait, for what will happen, they are told nothing.
Periodically, one prospect will feel a slight tap on the shoulder. In silence, he / she will be taken by the hand, and led into another room where they will join the elite.
And eventually, those who don't get elected will open their eyes, remove the blindfold, and find herself / himself in a pitiful group of rejects, all waiting (hopelessly) for that tap. The tap that never comes.

Now maybe you should be advised that this article is a rehash of one that I wrote long ago, about a more pleasant and positive experience.

The subject of this narration is the spam detection problem of this week. So, here are my words of wisdom about this mess.

This problem is caused by criminals - spammers who are publishing thousands of spam blogs, daily.

They make dozens of clones of your blog, by scraping the content from your blog, pasting it into their blogs, and adding the spam content to just a few of their blogs, at any time. Blogger can't tell the difference between the spam blogs without active content, and your blog. So all of the blogs that look like your blog - including your blog itself - get locked.

If you are not a spammer, look at the next guy (also reporting the problem), because it's likely that he is one. And when you get concerned about how long it's taking Blogger to restore your blog, if your blog is not a splog, place some blame on the spammers, and the thousands of splogs that have to be locked, then reviewed, daily.

Anyway, the only thing that makes this even endurable is the thought of the spammers who have lost their blogs this week. Many of them are gathered in Blogger Help Forum, reporting their blog loss. Some of those gathered in BHF are not spammers - and that is what will give hope for everybody gathered there.

Now Blogger, being the "secret society" in this analogy, will restore a few blogs - the ones that were not splogs. But they will not be posting a big notice.

The following blogs were determined to be spuriously locked, have been restored, and we apologise to their owners.

and conversely

The following blogs were righteously detemined to be splogs, and will never be restored.

Nope.

Blogger will walk around silently, and tap the owners of the spuriously locked blogs on the shoulders. Those owners will wake up one morning, and their blogs will be back, operational.

The spammers will be the ones waiting, until they figure it out on their own, that they will never get the tap. They will wait all night, then slink home in silence.

BooHoo.

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The New Navbar

2009-10-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

By now, I'm sure that you've all seen the new navbar on our blogs. Besides having new links, and some links being renamed, there's a significant improvement - transparency.

For those of you wondering where "Search Blog" went, the "Search Blog" window is still there - the "Search Blog" caption was simply removed, to make space. And "Flag Blog" (which was, some time ago, greatly enhanced) is now accurately captioned "Report Abuse". And we have "Follow" (previously "Follow Blog"), matching the new "Share" link.

And, for everybody who has always hated the navbar because it was ugly, and its background colour never matched the blog, you can now select a transparent option - and let the background colour / images in the blog show. You can select "Transparent Dark", with light navbar characters and graphics - or "Transparent Light", with dark navbar characters and graphics.

You select the new options in the Navbar Configuration wizard in "Page Elements". Click on the "Edit" link to the right of "Navbar".

What you get doesn't look like complete transparency - you can see some colour variation on my home blog, "nitecruzr dot net", but on this blog - look above. Transparency on white looks pretty good.

No more ugly navbar stripe - that's a small improvement, but still a significant one. This may motivate some bloggers - though probably not all - to reverse their earlier decisions to hide the navbar on their blogs.

Now, since we're looking at the navbar, let's look at what the "Search Blog" box is. It is for searching for posts, in this blog, which contain references to the keywords entered into the box. It's not for searching for other blogs or web sites, neither using keywords or URLs. Just for keywords, in the blog that's currently displayed.

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Identifying And Blocking Malicious Comments

2009-10-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

Almost daily, we see complaints from bloggers who are disturbed or offended by comments that they get, in their blogs.

How do I stop nasty comments about my posts?

How do I block a person who posts nasty comments?

My answers always start with

You have to moderate comments, either before or after they are published.

You can identify your commentors, using a properly chosen visitor counter / log utility.

Note the date and time of the comment, and what post it was published against.
Examine your visitor log, and find all clicks against the post in question, immediately preceding the comment in question.
Find the visitor log entry that contains a reference to the comment viewing and / or the comment posting process.
Now, you have the IP address of your malicious commentor, and an assortment of demographis details, possibly including an approximate location.

Now that you have the IP address in question, use IP Address Blocker (free) to prevent access, from that IP address, to your blog.

Simple enough? No. There are definite limitations to the effectiveness of this process. But, you are welcome to try, anyway.

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Availability Of Any BlogSpot URL That's Not In Use

2009-10-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

I've been arguing the plain facts about URL non availability for years - if the BlogSpot URL of your choice is in use, you can't have it. That's not an easy answer for many bloggers, and some don't accept it without a lot of arguing. The other side of the coin is that any available URL is there for the taking, by anybody. Relevance of the name in question, to any physical existence outside the Internet world, has no validity.

Today, we have a query of an issue not previously argued.

I have website "TheNameThatIHave.com". Today, I discovered that somebody else is publishing to "TheNameThatIHave.blogspot.com". That's not right - I should have the right to "TheNameThatIHave.blogspot.com"!

And the answer here is

No, if somebody else has "TheNameThatIHave.blogspot.com", it's their URL. You have no claim to "TheNameThatIHave.blogspot.com", simply by having "TheNameThatIHave.com".

There is no screening, to determine the validity of anybody to publish to "TheNameThatIHave.blogspot.com", for any value of "TheNameThatIHave". If the URL "TheNameThatIHave.blogspot.com" is available for publishing, every blogger has equal claim to take it. If you see it, and you take it, you have it - for eternity. The moment you take it, nobody else has any claim over it - for eternity. If somebody else took it, you have no claim over it - even if you own "TheNameThatIHave.com".

As the well used adages go

First come, first served.

and

You snooze, you lose.

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Ambiguity In URL Availability #2

2009-10-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago, we had various bloggers report that they are initially informed that a given URL is available, but the "Create a blog" wizard later shows that the same URL is not available. This month, we seem to have more of the same, plus a new, disturbing detail.

I am unable to see my blog on the web or sign in to it on Blogger Dashboard. I initially thought my blog had been given a false positive as a spam blog and blocked. A Blogger Help forum post said that often happens and I should send a "review request."

I sent a review request from my Blogger Dashboard. It took me to a page that says:
Blog is not locked. Your blog is not locked and does not need a review. If you are having problems accessing your blog or if you received an email saying that it was locked, please leave a message in the Help Group and we will investigate the issue.

Further conversation returns additional details.

On my Dashboard, next to the name of my blog "This Day in Famous Quotes" (which is at the URL www.ThisDayinQuotes.com) I see this:
This Day in Famous Quotes
Restore access to this blog. Learn more

The word "Restore" has a link. I clicked that and got the message shown, which asks me to send my email address and fill in a captcha. I did that and then got a message saying my blog is not blocked. But I still can't see my blog on the web or access it through my Dashboard. Here's the message I get when I click "Restore":
Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.

A normal error, when browsing to a blog published to BlogSpot.

A cryptic, yet distinctive, error message when browsing to a blog published to a custom domain. This is also seen for the BlogSpot alias of the blog, published to a custom domain.

Here, you have no blog, but there's nothing stated to be wrong. And, we won't tell you what's wrong, we'll just ask that you report this in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

(Update 10/22 12:00): It appears that we have 2 relevant factors here.

A coding problem caused the ambiguity and some false positive results.
Not all blogs reporting the problem are legitimate. Blogger will probably handle this on a case by case basis, and unlock only legitimate blogs. I'm betting that we won't see a lot of apologies either.

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Getting Traffic To Your Blog - How Not To Do It

2009-10-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

There are many ways of getting traffic to your blog. If you truly respect your readers, you 'll write content that's interesting and relevant to the needs of your readers, and you'll use the search engines to advertise your blog. Other people might join a forum, where everybody promises to read each other's blogs. A third way would be to use the magic of RSS, and join your blog to a common feed.

TRAFFIC via RSS

by ananth77 with 2,473 members

Tagged: blog, blog building, blogging, feed, Marketing, promote, rss, traffic

Build your traffic via RSS. Simple Rules : - 1. Subcribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/feed_traffic 2. Update your RSS feed address in the reply. 3. Your feed will be merged with all the other blogs and web sites.

What a deal. All that you do is make your blog part of the Feed Traffic feed, and you get a piece of all of the traffic, from / to all of the other blogs in the feed. This used to be called a "link farm", where everybody would link to each others blogs, randomly. This is just a link farm using a FeedBurner feed as a backbone.

But, there's a problem here - can you see it?

When you redirect your blog feed to the Feed Traffic feed, your blog becomes part of the feed cloud. Each post that you publish goes to that feed - and anybody subscribing to the feed, from your blog, gets a subscription to all of the blogs and web sites that are part of the Feed Traffic cloud. Just as anybody subscribed to the feed, from any of the other blogs and web sites in the cloud, now gets your blog posts.

Your readers subscribe to the feed from your blog, to read the posts from your blog. Your readers don't want to read the feed from thousands of other blogs, they want to read the feed from your blog. You want to encourage people to read your blog, don't you?

This becomes worse when you involve Following, where your Followers subscribe to the feed from your blog. The feed from your blog goes into the common "All blog updates" list in the Reading List for all of your Followers. This puts thousands of unrelated blogs into the Reading Lists for all of your Followers. This makes the Reading Lists practically useless, for Following relevant blogs.

I know of two bloggers who broke off Following with a third blogger, because of the volume of posts in the feed cloud overwhelmed their Reading Lists. I don't think that these two will be the only ones who find this necessary. If you make this technique part of your strategy for dispersing your blog, you might watch your Following community.

Decide whether you want random anonymous readers, or membership in a relevant and interested community. I don't think that you'll get both.

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You Have To Read The Local Language

2009-10-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

As Blogger / Google continue to make their services more available to the bloggers and blog readers of the world, they are separating the language affinities of the various portions of the Blogger displays, into two categories.

Components most referenced by the bloggers.
Components most referenced by the blog readers.

Components referenced by the bloggers can be controlled by the Blogger profile language setting, so you, as you publish your blog, see many Blogger wizards in your stated language.

Readers of a Blogger blog, on the other hand, won't always have a Blogger profile, as they surf the Internet and land upon your blog. To support your readers, Blogger uses Geo Location, and determines the prevalent local language where the computer is located. Blog displays that are most referenced by the blog readers will be presented in the local language.

If you write your blog for your readers, this benefits you. The more portions of your blog that are available to the blog readers of the world, in the language of each reader, the more likely they will be to continue reading your blog, rather than surfing to other web sites. Since the vast majority of the people of the world surf the Internet at home, in their native culture, blog displays presented in the native language will be more friendly to the majority of your readers.

If you accompany your blog with translation options, such as a Google Translator with a user friendly interface, casual visitors will be more likely to become regular readers.

Of course, this won't please everybody. Travelers to a foreign land, using a computer connected through a local network - whether their own computer, in the hotel, or a local computer in a coffee shop / Internet cafe - won't be seeing their displays in their native language. Just like other artifacts encountered in a foreign land - advertisements, newspapers, street signs - computer displays may use unfamiliar language.

This is an unavoidable result of travel to foreign lands - everybody there won't be speaking your language.

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Missing Icons For Commenters In Inline Comments

2009-10-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

Does your blog use Inline (Embedded Below Post) Comments? Do you have any posts with more than 5 comments? I have a few.

Notice anything odd there? The first 4 or 5 comments, which were made by commenters who have pictures, show the pictures. After that, no pictures.

I wonder what other surprises are in store for us this week?

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