The Mysterious "Deleted blogs" Dashboard Link

Occasionally, we see signs of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

Where is the "Deleted blogs" link?

or

How can I recover my blog, if there's no link on the dashboard??

These blog owners don't understand that "Deleted blogs" only appears, when there are deleted blogs that can be recovered.

Not all blogs, having vanishing from the dashboard, will be recoverable by the owner.

• A blog deleted / locked after hacking activity was detected won't be recoverable.
• A blog owned under another Blogger account won't be recoverable.
• A blog that does not exist won't be recoverable.

If the Blogger account owns no blogs that are recoverable, there won't be a "Deleted blogs" link on the dashboard.

If the Blogger account owns other blogs, that are not currently deleted, those blogs will be listed. If the Blogger account owns no recoverable blogs, the blog owner sees a monolithic message

You are not an author on any blogs.

In some cases, the blog owner will be advised to clear cache, cookie, and sessions - then restart the browser, and login to Blogger. In other cases, the solution will be to wait 24 to 48 hours, and check again. Just don't waste time looking for a link that may not be there - and try to understand why the link may not be there.

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Unfold Widgets Selectively, Instead Of All At Once

The new Template HTML Editor has been with us for just under 2 weeks.

Not every blog owner sees the new editor as an improvement. Some folks don't understand how to find the code sections, where they need to apply changes - and would probably be happier if "Expand All Widgets" were an option.

Like the old saying goes, you just cannot please everybody.

Fortunately, with this change, it's not difficult to find the code sections that need changing - you just do a little bit of research, before using "Edit HTML".

With the old editor, finding a section that needed changing could be a bit frustrating - though simple, given enough time.

1. Hit "Expand Widget Templates".
2. Search for a recognisable section of code.
3. Try very carefully, to find the right section of code.
4. Be careful, and don't select the wrong section of code.

With the new editor, you have a bit more work to do - and what you have to do appears to be simply repetitive.

1. Find a folded code section.
2. Unfold the section that's folded.
3. Repeat, until everything is visible.
4. Search for a recognisable section of code.
5. Try very carefully, to find the right section of code.
6. Be careful, and don't select the wrong section of code.

Instead of spending so much time unfolding, searching, and rechecking everything, why not do some research? Figure out what needs changing. Look at the display on the dashboard Layout wizard (previously called "Page Elements"). Identify the widget to be changed, using both the relative position on the page, and the title.

Find the widget id, by looking at the widget to be changed, then at the URL behind the "Edit" link. If you're editing the post template, you'll be looking at "Blog Posts", which has the widgetID of "Blog1". Click here, for instructions on determining the widget id.

Once you have the widgetID, for the specific widget that you need to modify, go to the Template "Edit HTML" wizard, use the "Jump to widget" pull down list, select the widget by widgetID, and there it is. Now, unfold that widget, and do what you have to do.

Isn't that simpler, when you think about it?

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Recovering And Protecting Your GMail Account

Blogger blog owners may have productive action, when their Blogger accounts are successfully hacked through an attack on their GMail accounts.

GMail account owners can get detailed instructions on recovering a successfully hacked account, and on preventing future hacking attacks from being successful. Some of the instructions are specific to GMail use - but overall, Blogger account owners will benefit from their use.

To benefit from the GMail instructions, one should consider the differences between Blogger, email, and Google accounts.

GMail provides instructions for recovering hacked / stolen GMail accounts.

Gmail Account Recovery: Gmail Account Recovery and Security provides complete and detailed instructions for recovering a hacked and stolen GMail email account.

The Recovery instructions include specific mentions of Disabled / Suspended accounts, successfully Stolen accounts, and accounts locked or deleted because of Underage owners.

Accompanying the recovery advice is Gmail help and information: How NOT To Get Hacked. These are instructions for preventing a recurrence of a reported problem. This includes discussion of using a strong and secure password, identifying hacking techniques that involve the account owner, and preventing attacks which are conducted using the computer or network in use by the account owner.

Prevention instructions are similarly focused on GMail account security.

The Prevention instructions, many which are common sense issues to any IT professional or security expert, are specifically written to apply to GMail account owners. There may be additional issues which apply in general, to Blogger accounts - and specifically, to Blogger accounts which are based on non GMail email accounts.

There are a few differences between Blogger blog ownership and GMail account ownership, which will cause issues that cannot be easily resolved by Blogger Support, or by GMail Support, to the satisfaction of the (former) blog owner.

GMail accounts, unlike Blogger accounts, do not contain transferrable assets.

GMail accounts are, by nature, single owner - and ownership of a GMail account is never transferred. In contrast, Blogger blogs can be under team ownership - and ownership can be transferred.

• Intentional team blog ownership. Team blog ownership can cause problems with loss of blog control, when all known blog administrators (accidentally or intentionally) remove themselves as administrators, leaving an unknown administrator.
• Intentional transfer of control. A blog owner may assign administrator status to another person, voluntarily - then later regret his decision.
• Un intentional transfer of control. A blog owner may assign administrator status to another person, voluntarily - and the other person may then remove the former owner administrator status.
• Ownership theft after account hacking. A hacker, having temporarily gained control of a Blogger account, may transfer ownership of a blog to another Blogger account.

All of these scenarios are regarded as simple transfer of blog ownership, by Blogger Support.

Though maybe not preferred by the (former) blog owner, the blog in question will now be under control of another person. It's possible that some of these scenarios are considered by Google Security, when reviewing Blogger / Google accounts after hacking activity is detected.

Blogger accounts based on non GMail email have typical third party issues.

Blogger accounts, based on non GMail email addresses, will be subject to the typical uncertainty which accompanies any third party service in Blogger. Some details may be involve the email provider, while others will involve Blogger - and arbitrating between the two will be the responsibility of the Blogger account owner.

Owners of Blogger accounts which are based on non GMail email addresses will need to contact the providers of the actual email service, for resolution of some of these issues.

In general though, the GMail Account Loss Prevention and Recovery instructions provide good advice, for any Blogger account owner.

Problems Being Observed, In Blogs Now Using Google+ Comments

A few blog owners, eagerly opting to use the latest Blogger enhancement, Google+ Comments, are seeing some changes which they did not anticipate.

Even after checking all of the settings, some blogs, with Google+ Comments enabled, may not show the comment form - or may show the form, but comments may not be visible. Besides the visibility of the form, there are other changes which some blog owners don't appreciate.

In many cases, Google+ Comments, like other new features, require an updated post template. This will be seen in blogs with customised post templates, most frequently - although newer, less customised blogs also may need a post template reset.

After getting Google+ Comments working in general, some blog owners find other unexpected changes.

There will be changes seen by the blog owner.

• Almost the entire "Comments" section, in the dashboard Settings - "Posts and comments" wizard, will disappear - though "Comment Location" will remain - and will default to "Embedded". None of these settings are relevant in Google+ Comments. On some blogs, there may be no "Comments" dashboard menu entry at all.
• There are no controls for moderation, or for notification, of comments.
• There is no ability to moderate comments, from the dashboard. Moderation is done under each post, one post at a time.
• As a blog owner, you have no special ability to moderate comments, made against your blog.
• There may be some comments, which you may not be able to moderate - but will publish against your blog.
• If you Block somebody from Following you, that person may still be able to post a Comment on your blog. When you look at the comments, you will only see

  This post is hidden because you have blocked the author.

• The "Export blog" wizard, which used to export both comments and posts, will only export posts.

There will be changes seen, by the blog readers.

• People without Google+ accounts won't be able to make - or view - comments (since comments are Circle dependent).
• Visibility of the comment form, as with all embedded comments, is sensitive to cookie / script filters, on the client computers.
• Comments posted outside Google Comments may not be immediately visible, though the comments remain in existence. Resetting various sections of the template may resolve this, when observed.
• If you change the blog address - with either a simple BlogSpot address change, a non BlogSpot address republishing (aka "custom domain"), or export / import - existing Google+ Comments may not remain visible, with the blog. This may be a similar problem, with URLs subject to Country Code Aliasing.
• With a blog using Google+ Comments, the Comments newsfeed will not be published. Any "Recent Comments" gadgets will be useless.
• The comment count, as displayed in the blog main page display, may show "0 comments" - even with comments actually present, and visible when clicking on "0 comments".
• You may or may not get email notification of comments, when comments are not shared specifically with you - even if you own the blog. Other people, who do not own the blog, may get notifications when you do not.
• It appears that Google+ Comments only work with blogs that are published publicly.

There will be problems seen (not seen) by both blog owners and readers.

• With a blog using Google+ Comments, comments made while the blog was using Blogger Comments won't be visible. They will be present, in the Blogger Comments database - they won't be visible, unfortunately.
• With a blog using Blogger Comments, comments made while the blog was using Google+ Comments won't be visible. Google+ Comments will still be out there, in the streams of the owners and readers - they just won't be visible on the blog.
• If you change a blog between Blogger and Google+ Comments, comments made under the previous host won't be visible, to either the owners, or the readers. Neither the Blogger dashboard, or the blog display, supports multiple comment hosts.

Fortunately, in most cases any prematurely made decisions are reversible. Go to the dashboard Google+ menu entry, and unselect "Use Google+ Comments on this blog". The blog will simply return to native Blogger based Comments. Any comments made under Google+ will not be visible to you, from the blog - but everything else should return to normal.

I've now added a Problem Rollup discussion, in Blogger Help Forum: Feature Suggestions and Feedback, where your opinion is appreciated. Please be objective.

See my test blogs Google+ Comments, Dynamic Template Test and Google+ Comments, Simple Template Test if you wish.

Click here, for instructions to revert back to Blogger based comments. Note that you will lose ability to view all Google+ based comments - though the comments will still exist.

URL Availability Competition, During "Buy a Domain", Is Similar To "Create a Blog"

Some Blogger blog owners, trying to setup a new blog, discover the hard way that other people are trying to do the same thing.

When I try to use "Create a blog", I keep seeing

This name is not available.

or

Blogger is saying it's available - but as I begin to register, it says that it has already received a request for this name.

Other blog owners discover that the competition between Blogger blog owners, when using "Create a blog", also applies to "Buy a domain". And worse yet, "Buy a domain" involves competition with would be website owners outside Blogger / Google.

Besides the competition with other buyers, there's a problem that the domain purchase process takes time - and during the purchase process, someone else can be purchasing the same domain also.

The longer the purchase process takes you, the greater the possibility that someone else may "steal" the domain from you. You, and the unseen other person, may start the purchase at the same time - but the person who gets the money to their registrar first gets the domain.

Let's use "Create a blog" as a simple example of an address selection process.

1. You type the blog name, of your choice.
2. With every character you type, Blogger checks for availability.
3. Initially, with not enough characters typed, you see bad news.

   Sorry, this blog address is not available.

4. When you have typed enough characters so you are now requesting a unique name, you see good news.

   This blog address is available.

5. Since you have, hopefully, already entered a Title and selected a Template, you now hit the "Create blog!" button.
6. Hoping that you were fast enough, the address which was available half a second previously is available as you hit the button - and the blog name of your preference becomes your new blog name.
7. If you were not fast enough, someone else might have snuck in front of you. Instead of seeing your new blog, you now see the bad news.

   Sorry, this blog address is not available.

The "Create a blog" wizard is simple.

1. You see good news.
2. You hit "Create blog!".
3. You are done.

Even with a "Create a blog" selection period of 1 second - and if your reflexes are not that good, it could take you longer - you could lose out. What if the selection process was longer - instead of 1 second, say 5 minutes? The "Buy a domain" process is a bit more complicated, than "Create a blog".

1. You enter an available domain URL.
2. You hopefully see the good news.
3. Now, you pay for the purchase.
4. You enter all of the details, about your bank account.
5. Google charges your bank a token amount, to verify that you actually entered a valid bank account number.
6. You hopefully see more good news.
7. Now, Google passes the purchase to the registrar.
8. The registrar sends the actual purchase to your bank.
9. Your bank credits the account of the registrar.
10. The registrar then registers the domain, in your name.
11. Google can then setup the addresses in the domain.
12. Blogger can then publish the blog, to the domain.
13. And hopefully, the blog is now live (and In Transition) with the domain URL.

The "Buy a domain" wizard is not simple.

1. You enter an available domain URL.
2. ...
3. The registrar registers the domain, in your behalf.
4. You are done.

Unfortunately, during the amount of time that it takes your bank to pay your registrar, somebody else could be buying the same domain, from another registrar. The longer that it takes your registrar to get paid, the greater the chance that someone else may register the domain, which you have supposedly paid for, before your purchase is complete.

Unfair? Certainly. But, based on the worldwide Internet based domain registry system, it can happen. What's worse, the symptoms of an unsuccessful domain purchase are similar to an attempted purchase restart.

And that leaves you with the uncertainty, when you post in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

Blogger is saying it's available - but as I begin to register, it says that it has already received a request for this name.

And sometimes, after you wait the legendary 2 to 3 days, you find that someone else bought the domain, while you were waiting.

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Blogger And Google+ Continue To Move Ever Closer Together

Today, Blogger announced the most innovative step in integrating Blogger and Google+, since sharing of Blogger posts to Google+.

The December 2011 sharing option lets us publish our blog posts to Google+. Today, Blogger added the ability to do the same - and more - with our blog comments. Like basic Google+ post sharing, Google+ Comments will be shared, and be visible, on a Circle by Circle basis.

The ability to post a comment, against a Blogger blog post shared in Google+, and have the comment publish to the blog will make for interesting comment based conversations.

There will be challenges to this feature, however. One of the most annoying problems with Blogger comments, right now, involves the embedded comment form, and security limitations caused by cookie filtering on many readers computers.

This blog uses a full page comment form, because too many of my readers need to post comments, in spite of the cookie filtering on their computer. Blogger Google+ Commenting requires use of the embedded comment form.

Google+ Comments lets you bring the following conversations together in one place, right under your blog post:

• Comments made on your Blogger blog post
• Comments on the blog post that you’ve shared to Google+
• Shared content on Google+ that links to your blog post

Readers will need a Google+ page or profile to comment on your blog.

Anybody who publishes a blog, and has readers who do not understand the reason for allowing third party cookies, will not want to use an embedded comment form - and won't benefit from Google+ Commenting, either. Until either

• Blogger resolves their "third party cookies" problem, with the embedded comment form.
• All Blogger blog readers resolve their issues with filtering "third party cookies".

Google+ Comments will have a limited audience.

Many blog owners may find a problem, in the moderation process.

Once you enable Google+ Comments, you can moderate comments within the blog post itself.

Owners of large blogs may not enjoy having to check each post, one by one, to moderate comments - so, you let your readers moderate for you.

I check my dashboard Comments menu, several times daily - and see all comments posted to the blog, in one convenient place. Having to look at each post, to moderate comments, won't be as convenient.

A third challenge will come from blog owners who want everybody to be able to comment, on their blogs. Requiring a Google+ account to comment won't be widely accepted by blog owners who have readers who comment either Anonymously, or using an OpenID.

One of the benefits of Google+ Commenting will be a reduction in comment based spam. The increasingly annoying "nice blog" spam - and the accompanying security risks from having it published on our blogs - should be eliminated, from blogs using Google+ Comments.

Google+ Comments is a feature that is needed, on some Blogger blogs - but it needs to remain optional, for some time.

If you're in one of my Circles, and wish to test this new feature, see if you can comment, on my recipes blog, Chuck's Kitchen.

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Dynamic Templates, And Jump Break

We see occasional evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, from blog owners who are using a dynamic template.

Why does the Jump Break not show up, in the blog display?

or

Why can't I see the entire post?

Not all blog owners understand the limited options, in the dynamic templates.

Compare the main page of this blog, to a formatted feed page of this blog.

Do you see the differences? I use Jump Break consistently, on my main page posts. Unfortunately, newsfeeds do not include the Jump Break, because the newsfeed standard was developed before Blogger developed their post summarisation feature, Jump Break.

Blog feeds will not contain Jump Break tokens.

Since dynamic views format the display using the blog posts feed, they have no way to include the Jump Break. The posts feed contains each post, in its entirety. The "Jump Break" token is part of the main page display, not the posts.

This is just one more reason why dynamic templates won't be chosen, on all blogs.

If you want to display your main page as I do, you can't use a dynamic template. Dynamic templates format their posts without using jump break. Some dynamic template "main page" views include text, broken; others include text, unbroken; and still others include only photos. None of the dynamic views include the Jump Break.

Dynamic templates require a full blog feed - comments and posts.

Remember that to use dynamic views, you have to set the blog feed to "Full". If you set the feed to "Until Jump Break", dynamic views won't work. The dynamic views format the post displays to the requirements of each different view (selected by the reader), and require the complete post content in the feed.

To see an example of what happens, using "Until Jump Break" - and with a Jump Break included, you can click here. If you want to display your blog in a dynamic template, you have to let the template determine (or not) where to break the posts.

Blog Owners, Marking Stats Log Entries As Referer Spam, Won't Accomplish Much

We see the occasional optimistic suggestion in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, from blog owners tired of the referer spam, in their Stats logs.

Why can't we just tell them which Stats entries are spam?

This is, admittedly, such a simple suggestion - it surely must present part of the final solution.

If one considers the purposes behind referer spam, one can see a problem with having individual blog owners designate specific pageview entries, in their Stats logs, as referer spam.

There are actually multiple purposes for referer spam.

Look carefully at the entries, in your Stats logs. Are all of the websites, which are being advertised by non existent links to your blog, actually spammy? Chances are, if you look closely enough, you'll find one or two which just don't seem to fit the pattern.

• The volume of hits makes the pageview counts look suspicious.
• There's no link to your blog, from the websites.
• Looking closely at the content of the blog or website, it just does not look like the typical referer spam target.

This blog was honoured, as a false target, in October 2011. I have no doubt that other blogs and websites are also the targets of similar, deliberate attacks.

With referer spam used strategically, the spammers could simply adjust the volume of their attacks, to make innocent victims more visible, and more vulnerable to false accusation by the less observant blog owners, who simply want all referer spam stopped.

To guard against referer spam being used strategically, to attack innocent blogs and websites, any designations "This is referer spam!" would have to be complemented by "This is not referer spam!". Ultimately, all Stats pageview entries would have to be verified as "Spam!" or "Not spam!", to prevent referer spam from being successfully used as an attack technique. How many blog owners would want to scan their entire Stats log, daily, and mark all pageview entries as "Spam!" or "Not Spam!"?

Understanding the nature of referer spam, one sees that the only way to effectively combat it is to have Google globally examine all pageview activity for all blogs, over long periods of time, to identify actual referer spam - and to avoid falsely designating innocent third party blogs and websites as being intentional referer spam customers.

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The Tower Of Babble Comes Down Slowly - One Brick At A Time

I installed the Google auto translator - using a custom front end, which I helped develop - on this blog, 5 years ago.

I installed it originally because of the February 2008 Kaspersky problem with Blogger blogs - and hastily, because of the magnitude of the problem. I knew, at the time, that the Google auto translator was not 100% accurate.

No auto translator will ever be 100% accurate. Every language in the world is always developing, as society and technology develops. There will always be nuances in every language, which are not yet detected by any one person - or by any one computer.

That said, I think that it's obvious to many people, that auto translation is a legitimate feature on the Internet.

If you've read this far, and you're using the translator to read this in a non English language, my thanks to you.

I think that the Internet in general, and Blogger blogs - and translated Blogger blogs in particular, are going to do a lot to bring the various cultures and nations of the world closer together. Being a native of the USA, I speak only English with any degree of fluency. I have, at one time, attempted both French and Spanish, as secondary languages - but this is neither the time nor place for me to discuss my experiences in France and in Panama.

I would never attempt to publish this blog, manually, in either French or Spanish - and certainly not any of the other 300+ languages which are present in the world. Since this blog has some value to Blogger blog owners and readers in general - and hopefully to some non English Blogger blog owners and readers - I think that using this blog, translated into other languages, has some value also.

If you are reading this blog in a non English language - or if you know of specific phrases or words which are not translated, successfully, by the Google translator - you are invited to suggest any appropriate improvement to Google. Translate the phrase or word in question, using the Google Translate web page - and select "Rate translation" in the lower right corner of the translation result window.

If you publish a blog in a non English language, and you don't have an auto translator gadget on your blog, I hope that you will soon add such a feature. I'll even invite you to look at Cumulus In Your Language, and see if the offered non English selections are useful to you.

Just don't dismiss auto translation, because it's not currently 100% accurate. Use it - or don't use it - on any web page where it's useful, right now. But don't dismiss it, with prejudice.

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Blogger Magic - Managing The Pages In Your Blog

Some blog owners are never quite sure how to manage all characteristics of the Pages, in their blog.

From time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, we see evidence of the confusion.

How do I hide the Home tab?

or

I can't rename my pages!

Some blog owners may know of one Pages management wizard, but not another. To the untrained eye, it may all seem like one big magic show.

There are actually 3 wizards, which let us manage the pages.

• The Configure Page List wizard (aka Pages gadget).
• The Layout wizard.
• The Pages wizard.

The Configure Page List wizard (aka Pages gadget) is accessed from the Layout wizard, by Editing the Pages gadget. Alternately, if QuickEdit is enabled, use the QuickEdit icon, on the blog itself.

If the Pages gadget is not visible on the Layout display, you may need to add the gadget, before you can Edit it.

To make the Pages gadget function as a horizontal link bar - the most popular layout - you add the gadget into the "crosscol" template section, in the dashboard Layout page. The "crosscol" section, on standard Blogger templates, contains CSS rules which make lists display horizontally.

"Configure Page List" has various functions, to assist you in managing pages.
The Layout wizard is accessed from the dashboard. It has three functions, in managing pages.

• Provide access to the "Configure Page List" wizard, by Editing the Pages gadget.
• Relocate / restructure the pages list, by dragging and dropping the Pages gadget.
  • Drag the Pages gadget to the top of the blog layout, and it morphs into the tabs gadget.
  • Drag the Pages gadget into the sidebar, and it morphs into a linklist.
• Let you add the Pages gadget, using "Add a Gadget".

The Pages wizard is accessed directly from the dashboard menu. It is now used solely to add, edit, and delete static pages, with the same look and feel as the Posts wizard. All other functions, formerly provided by the Pages wizard, are now provided by "Configure Page List".

None of this is magic - though the complementary functions of the different wizards may make one think of a typical MMORPG team. And the recent redesign of the wizards has caused some confusion, being recently discovered.

All Template Changes Won't Always Be Visible, When The Blog Is Published

Not all blog owners appreciate the differences between using the various template wizards, and what they will actually see, once the blog is published.

The confusion about the various template wizards, and what is actually seen, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, is numerous.

Why aren't my changes to the template being saved?

This question is expressed in a number of ways - and has a number of causes.

There are a number of causes of template problems, in general.

• Some problem are caused by Blogger Engineering, as they manage the Blogger application.
• Some problems are caused by the blog owners, as they use (and yes, misuse) the Blogger application.
• Some problems are simply caused by the perception of the blog owners, and will never be resolved, to everybody's expectations.

If you're viewing this blog using a desktop / laptop computer, with a "normal" browser, and you can find the "View Source" control, take a look at the source for this page. Compare what you see there with the display in the Template "Edit HTML" wizard (and allow for some confusion, when using "Edit HTML").

• If you have a "normal" browser, and are viewing this blog in a "Designer" / "Layout" template, you'll see a lot of the same code, in both "Edit HTML" and "View Source".
• If you have a "normal" browser, and are viewing this blog in a "Dynamic" template, you'll see very little of the same code, in both "Edit HTML" and "View Source".
• If you have a "normal" browser, and are viewing this blog using a redirected "mobile" browser view, you'll see very little of the same code, in both "Edit HTML" and "View Source".
• If you're using a "mobile" computer, you probably won't even have an option to "View Source".

The bulk of the options in the Template "Edit HTML" wizard, in the "Layout" wizard, and in the Template Designer, are intended to change the "Designer" / "Layout" template views. The three wizards have much less effect, against the "Dynamic" / "Mobile" template views.

If you tweak the CSS settings in "Edit HTML" or the Template Designer - or if you change the layout using "Layout" or the Template Designer - you may not see all of the changes reflected in either a Dynamic or Mobile view.

Sometimes, this is because you have already tweaked the template improperly, preventing the wizard from saving your latest changes. Other times, it may be simply because the Dynamic and Mobile templates are not designed to let you tweak the settings in question.

We've also seen vague suggestions that having the mobile template active can cause the Template Designer font and style selections to be non operational. Font settings, made using the Template Designer, won't be saved and won't appear in the blog, when published. Right now, we're unsure whether the Live Preview window updates reliably.

And recently, uncontrolled customisation of the blog accessory complement, and of the dynamic template code, have caused instability in network access, when viewing blogs using dynamic views.

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Using "Buy a domain", From Outside The USA

As custom domain publishing becomes more popular with Blogger blog owners, it's inevitable that people outside the USA would start using it, routinely.

Questions about payment options are seen regularly, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?.

How much does a domain cost?

This used to have a simple answer.

$10 US, charged against a major bank issued credit card.

With the internationalisation of Blogger, the answer becomes significantly more complex.

Using Google Wallet, one may purchase a domain in over 230 countries.

The Google billing system accepts payments in over 230 countries with an international credit card.

We now see mention of specific payment methods which are not accepted - though they appear to be important enough to be documented by Google.

• Health Savings Account (HSA) cards.
• Transit cards.
• Western Union/Money Gram.
• Any escrow type of payment.

From what I have observed, using a bank issued credit card involves pretty complex "peer to peer" type transactions, between at least 3 parties.

1. Google.
2. The bank providing the credit account for the blog owner.
3. The bank providing the payment account for the registrar.

Item #2 provides intriguing options.

• American Express (USD Only).
• Discover (USD Only).
• MasterCard.
• Visa.
• Visa Electron (Outside of US Only).

I have no idea what #3 may involve, internationally. I know that accepting payments, even within the USA, is not as simple as making purchases.

If these options do not satisfy you, personally, you are entitled to purchase a domain from almost any registrar which provides an acceptable payment method. However, you will need to accept some responsibility for the technical details involved, in setting up the domain.

The complexities of International Banking will make "simple" purchases such as non BlogSpot URLs, for Blogger blogs, interesting to watch.

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The Option To "Expand Widget Templates", In The Template "Edit HTML" Wizard, Is No More

One of the more confusing features of the Blogger Template "Edit HTML" wizard, used to be the option to

Expand Widget Templates

With the new "Edit HTML" wizard, that option is not needed. Given the choice to "Expand Widget Templates", the typical blog owner was frequently caught between a rock, and a hard place, when editing gadgets.

• Don't use the option - and the gadget code section, which was to be edited, remained concealed.
• Use the option - and all gadget code sections were expanded, revealing all gadget code.

This frequently left the owner with either no information - or too much information, from which to work. Broken templates, caused by improper template HTML edits, were common.

The new Template "Edit HTML" wizard replaces the single "Expand Widget Templates" option with selective widget expansion. Now referred to as "folded" code, a concealed widget code section is identified by a fold marker ("sideways arrow icon"), next to the line number.

The code inside the widget is folded by default.

Clicking on any fold marker, the concealed gadget code section is revealed. If the now revealed code section itself contains concealed code sections, those sections are displayed as folded, and can then be revealed - if necessary, and only if necessary.

Thus we can eliminate unnecessary depth (internal gadget code sections) and width (additional gadget code sections) from being displayed when we only need to edit a specific gadget, at a given level of complexity. This will make it easier to identify and to edit the necessary lines of code, and to avoid editing lines of code which should not be edited.

If you're looking for a specific section of the template - for instance, the CSS rules - you may find that section folded also. CSS rules, for instance, are at the top of the template.

<b:skin>---</b:skin>

and

<b:template-skin>---</b:template-skin>

On the other hand, if you're looking for the content of an HTML / JavaScript gadget, that's still edited from the specific gadget in the Layout wizard.

<data:content/>

Gadget content is not folded.

Hopefully, we'll soon see less problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, about broken templates - though we will probably continue to see confusion, about templates that only appear to be broken.

As always, if you change template code, remember to clear browser cache and restart the browser, before concluding that your changes were not effective.

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Blogger Blogs Being Hijacked By The Sociable Gadget

We're seeing a steady stream of reports, from blog owners in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, from Blogger blog owners, reporting the latest hijacking of their blogs.

My blog is being redirected to a search engine display.

or

My blog has a porn popup attached!

These are all blog owners who have installed the latest hack, willingly distributed by Blogger / Google.

This appears to be yet one more gadget, intentionally installed by many Blogger blog owners, which is now redirecting unwilling viewers. The redirection target is a website which provides commercial advertisements for various Internet services, which creates a variety of symptoms, as reported in the forums.

The Sociable gadget appears to be a Blogger accessory installed from the Blogger "Add a Gadget" wizard, when selected intentionally by many Blogger blog owners.

As with many reported hijacks, access to the Blogger Layout wizard appears to be affected. If you need to remove this code from your blog, you may find yourself unable to use the Layout wizard. In this case, you will need to use Firefox with Noscript - or a similarly well protected browser - to prevent the redirecting code from executing.

After removing the identified code from your blog, as always, clear cache and restart the browser. Finally, I'll remind you again, to please be particular - only install third party code from trustworthy providers.

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Consider, Carefully, The Decision To Use A Third Party Commenting System In Your Blog

Not all Blogger blog owners appreciate the features provided, in Blogger native commenting.

Some suggest that third party commenting systems, such as Disqus, provide a superior service. It's possible that, to some, third party commenting systems are more feature rich - but only Blogger native commenting provides one essential feature, in comment moderation.

Blogger commenting is one component, in the global Blogger / Google spam classification and mitigation strategy.

Blogger blog classification, Blogger commenting moderation, and various Google services, all contribute globally to spam detection, and to spam removal, in Google Internet space. Each service both provides input into - and accepts input from - other services.

Third party commenting products, while they may have some interesting design features that Blogger won't include, won't necessarily contribute to the Blogger blog spam classification effort, or to the community commenting moderation process. Nor will they accept input from Blogger blog spam classification, or from the community comment moderation process.

If you, as a blog owner, believe that Disqus - or other non Blogger commenting products - provides more useful service to your blog, you're entitled to use any service, that you can make work, in your blog. It is, after all, your blog - and this is one feature in our blogs which Blogger / Google leave to our discretion.

As with all third party accessories and services, however, you will get limited support, for any problems. If you break your blog, you'll have only yourself (or the provider of the third party service) to support your problems. You may even see the blog deleted or locked, because of suspected malware.

When you use a third party commenting system, there are two details to consider.

1. Integration of existing comments.
2. Post template modification.

When you install a third party commenting service, you'll have the service import existing comments into their database. And, you will have to install the necessary code into the post template - and deal with ongoing changes to the post template, in the future.

If, in the future, you want to return to use of Blogger commenting, you'll have both of the above details to consider, in reverse. Third party services, while they may provide importation of Blogger comments into their database, may not provide a reverse service. Nor are they likely to provide easy reversal of post template changes - particularly as the Blogger post template may have been changed after installation of the third party service.

If your blog uses an alternate product like Disqus, right now, you'll probably find it easiest to refresh the post template, to return to Blogger comments. If you have various custom tweaks in the post layout, you may not find this to be a pleasant solution.

If you are contemplating changing your blog, to use Disqus - or another alternate commenting system - you may do well to consider all of these issues, before changing.

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Blogger Blogs Cannot Be Used As Gateways

We see evidence of confusion, from time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?.

How do I move an established blog to WordPress (or any other platform), while retaining the history, reader interest, search engine reputation?

Some blog owners think blog readers are cattle (to be herded from blog to blog) - or monkeys (to be attracted by shiny things).

We've known for some time, that Blogger blogs cannot be used as gateways, with traffic automatically redirected from one blog to another - or from a blog to a non Google website. Use of traffic redirection scripts is a known cause of blogs classified as malware hosts.

If you wish to relocate a Blogger blog in another hosting service, you can always publish your Blogger blog, and a non Google blog / website, as dual hosts, in a non BlogSpot domain.

With your Blogger blog and non Blogger website published to the same domain, you can then combine the two, dynamically. Just remember to add unique content to each, periodically, to retain search engine reputation.

1. Publish your Blogger blog to a host in your custom domain.
2. Publish your WordPress (or any other platform) blog to a host in your custom domain.
3. Combine the two blogs.
4. Let your readers access either blog, as their choice.
5. Update both blogs, to retain search engine reputation, regularly.
6. When the WordPress (or any other platform) blog receives enough reputation and traffic, make the Blogger blog into a stub blog.

Just don't build a maze of blogs and web sites - and don't waste time or money artificially developing traffic. Blogger blog readers are attracted by interesting, unique, and useful content - and are retained by new content, added periodically.

And don't try adding clever code, to shuffle your readers from one blog to another. That could make your blog look like one member in a well planned spam blog farm - and leave you reporting

Help! Blogger just deleted my blog!!

.

Adding Ownership Verification For Your Custom Domain? Examine The Error Display

Sometimes, you have to step outside the box, to complete a Blogger blog task.

The task of adding domain ownership verification, to a custom domain purchased using "Buy a domain", is one example of stepping outside the box. I advise people that tweaking DNS settings, in general, is a task best undertaken by someone with "Advanced" experience with Blogger custom domain publishing.

Unfortunately, domains purchased using "Buy a domain" are occasionally subject to incomplete setup - and correction of an incomplete setup involves republishing the domain. And republishing the domain requires verification of domain ownership.

To a first time domain owner, the task of verifying domain ownership is surely a bit scary.

We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain.

This initial accusation is followed by the instructions

On your domain registrar's website, locate your Domain Name System (DNS) settings and enter the following two CNAMEs:

The challenge, for many, is getting to the Domain Name System (DNS) settings, aka the Zone Editor.

1. Login to Google Apps.
2. Find the instructions for logging in to the registrar's website.
3. Login to the registrar's website.
4. Find the registrar's Zone Editor wizard.

Having completed Steps #1 - #4, adding the "CNAME" is almost an anticlimax. See the instructions?

On your domain registrar's website, locate your Domain Name System (DNS) settings and enter the following two CNAMEs:

  Name, Label, or Host field    Destination, Target, or Points To field

  www                           ghs.google.com

  i7vgls457wxc                  gv-fbz2zptam3ucji.dv.googlehosted.com

Once you have access to the Zone Editor, look for "www", added by "Buy a domain". See how it's formatted, in the display?

• Add the second "CNAME", mirroring the format and syntax of the first.
• Note the example of the second, shown here as "i7vgls457wxc" - though when you setup your domain, you will surely see different values for both "i7vgls457wxc" and "gv-fbz2zptam3ucji.dv.googlehosted.com")
• Refresh the Zone Editor list, and compare the "www" and "i7vgls457wxc" entries.
• If you added the new entry properly, the format and syntax, of the two entries, will be identical.

Having successfully added your new "CNAME", go back to the Blogger Publishing wizard, and publish the blog to the domain. Finally, wait a few days for Transition to expire - and while you wait, plan what to do, next.

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Deleted Comments Cannot Be Recovered

Blogger blog owners, who are accustomed to recovering deleted files on a personal computer, will find Blogger Comments to lack useful protection.

If you accidentally delete a file on your personal computer, no worry - just look in the Trash Can, find the file in question, and recover the file. Just do this before you empty the Trash Can.

Comments, published on our blogs, cannot be recovered once deleted.

I deleted a comment - but now realise that I acted in haste. How do I recover the comment that I deleted?

To this person, there is no useful answer.

Whether you moderate comments before or after they are published - and whether you moderate using the dashboard Comments wizard, or your email Inbox - once you click on "Delete" (and possibly hit "Yes"), the comments in question are gone. There is no Trash Can for deleted comments.

Some blog owners will retrieve the deleted content (possibly, from email), and manually re publish the content, when possible. Unfortunately, that will produce a comment with (possibly) the deleted text - but no link to the originator of the comment deleted. If the text content of the comment is the relevant detail to you, as the blog owner, you may do this - but the republished comment won't be the same.

Delete comments with care. Once you delete a comment, you won't get it back.

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Forwarding A Domain Requires Experience

I constantly advise Blogger blog owners to avoid forwarding, when setting up custom domain publishing.

In the rare cases where forwarding is actually required, not every blog owner reports success.

My blog now displays a non Google search page!

or worse

My blog now displays

404 Not Found

What did I do wrong??

Depending upon what setup work was done by the blog / domain owner, and what effort is required by the registrar, one may expect to see, quite predictably, either of the above errors.

When you just publish your blog to the primary domain, you're using the Blogger Publishing wizard.

Many domains will require two settings, to forward a domain.

When you forward a secondary domain to the primary domain, you're using the DNS Manager wizard provided by the registrar, for that secondary domain. Frequently, this is a 2 step process.

1. You use the DNS Manager for the secondary domain, and designate the primary domain as the forwarding target for this domain.
2. You setup a DNS address for the secondary domain URL, and target the redirection server - as provided by the DNS host.

Some domains may make one setting, for you, automatically.

Some wizards will handle one step for you automatically, while others will require that you do both steps separately. I have had both experiences, when forwarding different domains using the GoDaddy DNS manager. You may need to experiment, here - or ask an experienced technician at the registrar, for advice.

If both settings are not made, the domain will not forward properly.

If your zone editor requires that you perform both steps separately, and you only do the first, your domain gets redirected to the redirection server. If you don't define a redirection target, you have a parked domain, similar to an expired domain - and your domain will serve the ads display page provided by the registrar.

If your zone editor requires that you perform both steps separately, and you only do the second, your domain will be properly redirected from the redirection server - but the redirection server will not be defined, for your domain. If the redirection server isn't defined, the domain will be "404".

You may need to contact your registrar, for detailed instructions.

If your registrar does not provide explicit instructions - or if you use the domain manager wizard and get either of the above results, it may be time to contact a registrar customer service representative - and possibly, insist on support from a senior technician. Using a third party registrar, or a third party DNS hosting service, you may have to improvise.

Forwarding a domain - when you must serve two domains (or more) from one blog - is simply not a task for the inexperienced.

The Task Of Forwarding A Domain Requires Experience, Persistence, And Research

I constantly advise Blogger blog owners to avoid forwarding, when setting up custom domain publishing.

In the rare cases where forwarding is actually required, not every blog owner reports success.

My blog now displays a non Google search page!

or worse

My blog now displays

404 Not Found

What did I do wrong??

Depending upon what setup work was done by the blog / domain owner, and what effort is required by the registrar, one may expect to see, quite predictably, either of the above errors.

When you just publish your blog to the primary domain, you're using the Blogger Publishing wizard.

Domain forwarding frequently requires two steps.

When you forward a secondary domain to the primary domain, you're using the DNS Manager wizard provided by the registrar, for that secondary domain. Frequently, this is a 2 step process.

1. You use the DNS Manager for the secondary domain, and designate the primary domain as the forwarding target for this domain.
2. You setup a DNS address for the secondary domain URL, and target the redirection server - as provided by the DNS host.

Some wizards will handle both steps for you automatically, while others will require that you do both steps separately. I have had both experiences, when forwarding different domains using the GoDaddy DNS manager. You may need to experiment, here - or ask an experienced technician at the registrar, for advice.

The registrar may require both steps, done by you separately.

If your registrar requires that you perform both steps separately, and you only do the first, your domain gets redirected to the redirection server. If you don't define a redirection target, you have a parked domain, similar to an expired domain - and your domain will serve the ads display page provided by the registrar.

If your registrar requires that you perform both steps separately, and you only do the second, your domain will be properly redirected from the redirection server - but the redirection server will not be defined, for your domain. If the redirection server isn't defined, the domain will be "404".

With no instructions provided, contact the registrar customer care group.

If your registrar does not provide explicit instructions - or if you use the domain manager wizard and get either of the above results, it may be time to contact a customer service representative. Using a third party registrar, or a third party DNS hosting service, you may have to improvise.

Forwarding a domain - when you must serve two domains (or more) from one blog - is simply not a task for the inexperienced.