There Are No Shortcuts Or Workarounds To A Stable Custom Domain

Some Blogger blog owners treat custom domain publishing, as drivers in Miami USA treat the suburban streets.

Have you ever been to Miami, Florida, USA?

Many of the suburban streets there are long, straight, and intersect at 90 degree angles. And as you get into the outer suburbs, with housing developments which (this year) may be right next to the Everglades - there will be almost no traffic, much of the day.

The major streets intersect with stop signs or traffic lights. Many of the natives blow the stop signs, run the red lights, and speed with almost reckless abandon. And auto collisions are frequent - and lawyers and police are very busy.

I car pooled with a co worker for a while, until I noticed that he drove like a native.

His justification?

My brother does this all of the time - and he never gets into an accident - and has never been stopped by the police!

One day, after work, we were getting home - and as we approached the final traffic light, the light cycled green. There was no other traffic in front, or behind.

Instead of cruising through the intersection, my bud jammed on the brakes, and came to a screeching halt. As soon as I untangled my forehead from the dashboard, I started screaming at him. His reply?

My brother lives down that street!

In Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we deal with the reckless abandon of some blog owners, setting up their custom domains.

There is much confusion, and bad advice, provided by blog owners who want to publish their blogs to custom domains - but find the official instructions to be either confining or confusing.

For every need, you will find bad advice.

• Can't buy a domain? No problem, get a free domain.
• Can't figure out the supported DNS configuration? No problem! Get the registrar to setup forwarding!!
• Can't wait for HTTPS connectivity provided by Blogger? Use proxied SSL from CloudFlare!!!
• Want to publish to the domain root ("naked" domain)? No problem! There's a great kludge for that, too!!!

There's a workaround, for every need - but how many are effective, long term?

And here in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we see the results.

• Poor search engine activity.
• Spurious malware / spam classification.
• The old "Another blog ..." / "Key already exists ...".

And all of these symptoms - and the frustrating secondary results - can be avoided.

If you want to setup your domain, properly - and you find the official instructions to be confining or confusing - see my tutorial here - and more recently, here.

You may, alternately, read my forum FAQ, here - or the official Blogger Help FAQ, here.

Many problems can be avoided - if you only believe. There is but one configuration, for each publishing need - if you want to avoid the problems - though some folks may be more optimistic.

• Poor search engine activity.
• Spurious malware / spam classification.
• The old "Another blog ..." / "Key already exists ...".

Or, we'll see you, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken - whether immediately, or years later.

Confusion About EMail Addresses Based On Google Apps Provided Email Domains

Since 2009, I've been explaining the intricate relationships between Blogger accounts, email addresses, and Google accounts.

One of the challenges of logging in to Blogger or Google involves account names and passwords, that may be shared with an email account that is the basis for the Blogger / Google account name.

Non GMail based Blogger / Google accounts initially share an account name / email address with the source non GMail email account. If you change a non GMail email address, the Blogger account name will not change. If you delete a non GMail account, the Blogger account is not deleted. Finally, even with shared account names, the passwords between the email account, and the Blogger / Google account, are not automatically shared.

With a GMail / Google based Blogger account, on the other hand, both the account name and password will be shared - since it's the same account. If you delete a GMail / Google Blogger account, the Blogger account - and all owned blogs - are also deleted.

Besides the account name / password confusion, use of the Google login wizard is complicated by use of Google Apps based email accounts.

Use of the new Google login wizard is a challenge because of the blind login process - and the lack of detailed diagnostics, when an incorrect account name or password is entered. The lack of detailed diagnostics helps prevent hacking of our Google accounts, when our email address and various personal details become known to the public. Any mistakes result in one monolithic error.

The email or password you entered is incorrect.

Google Apps based email accounts are a frequent concern, when frustrated custom domain owners need to access their Google Apps accounts, to either update domain registration payment details, or to access the registrars domain management dashboard.

Google Apps access, which uses the Google multi-account login wizard, is complicated by domain owners who do not realise (or remember) the non GMail based Google Apps account name - or the password.

Before Google Apps based email domains became an issue, it was possible to easily identify non GMail based Blogger / Google accounts, as opposed to GMail based accounts, based on one significant detail - the absence of "gmail.com" / "googlemail.com" in the account name.

Observing that a given Blogger account name did not include "gmail.com" / "googlemail.com", we could advise a Blogger account owner of the issues involving account name / password sharing, between the source email account, and the Blogger / Google account.

Thanks to the existence of Google Apps based email domains, it is now possible to have GMail / Google accounts which lack the "gmail.com" / "googlemail.com" in the account name - and we see the confusion.

• Some blog owners may delete an unused "non GMail" Google account, not realising that they are deleting the necessary Blogger / Google account that owns a given blog.
• Other blog owners may be unable to use the Google login wizard effectively, since they don't understand that a non "GMail.com" account may be a Google account.
• And, in truly unfortunate scenarios, we have blog owners who lose control of their blogs when their employer, Internet Service Provider, or school converts their domain to use Google apps management

Just as it's impossible to canonically identify "legacy" accounts, it's a challenge to adequately describe the issues specific to Google Apps based non "GMail.com" Blogger / Google accounts. Control and synchronisation issues, relevant to both the account names and passwords, will always cause confusion, to Blogger blog owners.

Articles about regaining account control - and proper use of the new Google One Login wizard - will be referenced frequently, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

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Blog Owners Report Their Reading Lists Contain Just One Entry

This week, we're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, mentioning a badly shortened dashboard Reading List.

When I want to read the list of the blogs I follow, I can only see 1 blog, instead of the usual 30. When I click on "Show more", nothing happens.

A brief affinity analysis, of current forum reports, suggests that the affected blog owners are using Draft Blogger.

One of the little realised issues with the Reading List is that access to your Reading List requires that you be identified, to Blogger, as you.

If the "One Entry" in your Reading List display is the Blogger Buzz blog, that would suggest that you are not being properly identified. Blogger Buzz is a part of every Reading List, automatically, and can't be removed. If you are only seeing Blogger Buzz, then you, the specific owner of your Reading List, are not being identified.

Reading List content is complex - and subject to various local computer and network problems. Many problems can't be resolved, by Blogger Engineering, alone.

Given the normal instructions to revert to use of Production Blogger, several blog owners have reported success.

I just switched to Production Blogger - and there's no problem now!

This blog owner has just found himself experiencing the latest Draft resident bug.

To determine whether you are in Draft or Production Blogger, when you have this problem, examine your Profile URL, after you login to Blogger. An example (with a hypothetical URL):

Draft:

https://draft.blogger.com/profile/04234326634594848875

Production:

https://www.blogger.com/profile/04234326634594848875

See the difference?

Once again, I'll suggest that you use Draft Blogger to work around specific problems - and when the specific problem, affecting you, is resolved, switch back to Production Blogger. The sanity, that you save, may be your own.

Confusion From "Add external link" In Pages

The recently redesigned Pages gadget and wizard has been with us for just over 3 months.

We are occasionally seeing some confusion from people who can't add a dynamic page link to their blog - even when they manage to find the redesigned Pages gadget.

I added a dynamic page, linking from "mymainblog.blogspot.com" to "mysecondblog.blogspot.com". Imagine my dismay, when the new page link goes to "mymainblog.blogspot.com/mysecondblog.blogspot.com", instead of to my actual target "mysecondblog.blogspot.com"!

Here is a blog owner who is not aware of the unforgiving syntax of the "New Page › Web Address" wizard, and the "Web address (URL)" entry.

If we were to view the HTML code for this web page, 'Confusion From The "Add external link" Procedure In The Pages Gadget', and look at my link to a previous post "Adding A Link To Your Blog Post, Part 2", where I discussed link entry syntax confusion, we could see the HTML behind a typical post to post link.

<a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html">link entry syntax confusion</a>

See the code for the link target?

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

When adding a link, many blog owners would simply think

blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

If I were to add a link, using the "Add link" wizard in post editor - or using the "Web address (URL)" entry in the "New Page › Web Address" wizard, I would see a window, with the essential prefix "http://" preformatted there.

Taking my target address of "blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html", and pasting the target after the prefomatted prefix "http://", I would get "http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html".

If I were to simply paste "blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html" into the window, I would end up with (no surprise, here)

<a href="blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html">link entry syntax confusion</a>

That's a bit odd looking - and that gets worse. A URL which lacks the prefix (for instance) "http://" has the current base URL added, when the post is compiled into the blog.

This would result in HTML code

<a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html">link entry syntax confusion</a>

With these two Blogger link entry wizards, you must remember to add the link target selectively, if and only if it is not already prefixed by "http://" - after the preformatted "http://".

Conversely, if you start with a target

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

you want to overlay the "http://" prefix in the window. If you follow the "http://" in the window with

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

you'll end up with

http://http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/08/adding-link-to-your-blog-post-part-2.html

and that will present a new problem.

Some link entry wizards are more forgiving - and will add / strip the target URL, as necessary, so it always ends up with the right syntax construction. This is just another Blogger peccadillo.