Followers Gadget Opens Followers Inside An IFrame

The Followers gadget was recently changed - and not for the better.

Find the Followers (aka "Google Friend Connect") gadget, on this blog. Look for "Follow Me" near the top of the sidebar.

Click on any icon in the community display - or click on on the community "pop out" window icon at the top right of the gadget. See how it now opens all Followers content, where the gadget is located?

The Followers community icons, and the community "pop out window" icon, when clicked, used to open various pop out windows.

Various Followers community displays used to open in pop out windows.
The pop out windows provided screen space for well designed displays. They allowed easy viewing of the individual Followers profiles - and paging back and forth to view more Followers icons, and individual profiles.

Community displays now open inside the Followers gadget iframe.
All of that content, that used to open inside pop out windows, now opens within the iframe which contains the gadget window. The space used, by the resulting display, becomes no larger than the space occupied by the gadget - generally a section of the sidebar.

When you can see a portion of a Followers profile, inside the iframe, you will have a list of some blogs - but no ability to access the full profile - and no ability to view the complete list of blogs for that Follower. You can open other blogs, in new tabs - and look at the Followers gadgets on those blogs.

Randomly clicking on links to other blogs, you can find the Followers gadgets on those blogs. Almost every blog that you find, that hosts a Followers gadget, will show the same behaviour.

Followers administrative controls and utilities open as before.
If the gadget allows you to sign in to Following

Already a member? Sign in

the "Sign in" link will still produce a pop out window, so you can authenticate yourself, for that blog. And if you are signed in as the blog owner, the Followers administration menu ("Options") appears to work, as before.

But all Followers community content now opens inside the iframe, which contains the gadget. This makes surfing the Following community, on any blog, impossible.

Followers community displays do not work, when confined to the iframes.
The Followers community icons set is formatted carefully, to properly display inside an iframe. The Followers profile displays, and the popout window community display, were formatted to make a separate window - and these displays do not fit within the iframe which is sized to fit in the sidebar of a typical blog.

Apparently, somebody changed the code in the gadget - and this did not improve the gadget.

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(Update 6/1 12:00): Blogger Engineering is looking into the problem.

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Scheduled Posts - The Challenge Continues

One Blogger feature, that is occasionally mentioned in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, is the issue of scheduling post publication.

Setting up a scheduled post is extremely simple - and that may be part of the problem. Before you publish a post, you give the post a published date / time that occurs in the future. The post date / time becomes the scheduled posting date / time.

And there is where one possible problem, with scheduled posts, may start. Long ago, when scheduled posts were first introduced, the wizard for setting the date and time was rather simple.

Since this is a new post, I can look under "Post settings", to the right, and see the "Schedule" option. If I expand "Schedule", I can see the selected default of "Automatic". If I select "Set date and time", the fun begins.

Do you see the clever GUI design, in the "Schedule" wizard - as it is, right now?

The date / time wizard, when Schedule Posts was first introduced, was very simple.
When the Scheduled Posts feature was first introduced, "Date" and "Time" was simply two empty boxes, with no hint of what to put into the boxes. Add to that the certainty that some people might enter either the date or time "wrong", and you would get oddities.

• Posts scheduled for future publication, when intentionally backdated.
• Posts published immediately, with back dates, when intentionally scheduled for future publication.
• Posts scheduled, but at the "wrong" time.
• Posts that never published, because the publish date / time was far in the future.
• Now that you see the problem, I bet you can think of more scenarios.

Blogger fixed the first identified problems - and caused new problems.
After we identified the possible problems with scheduled posts, Blogger removed the date box, and replaced it with the calendar. This forced people to see and set the date, using the calendar display.


If you can read a calendar, you can set the month correctly.

But - does that solve the problem?


The calendar selected date worked great, for posts back or forward dated only a few days or weeks. You could select any date in the current month - or page backwards or forwards a month or two, and select a date. And the problem with people entering the date "wrong" was solved, with everybody able to see the month, and select a day.

Everybody did not appreciate the solution.
The calendar did not please everybody. People who had to change the date more than a month or two complained, because they had to sit there and click - click - click one month at a time, to select a month far in the past or future.

Blogger then tried what we have, today.
So Blogger created a hybrid wizard - the date and time are both type in fields - and the date can be selected using a calendar. And when the date is typed. the calendar changes, to indicate the month typed.

Does everybody, typing in the date, to schedule post publication, always look at the calendar - or the resulting Schedule date / time?

This is the current date / time wizard.


How can this not work?

See below, for discussion.
We have type in fields for date, and for time - and below that, the months calendar, with "today" highlighted - and controls, to select the previous or next month.


It's now 4:00 PM. Why do we still see "2:49 PM"?
My suspicion is that some people who type in the date may make a mistake - and not always catch the mistake. I'll also bet that this problem exists, in larger volume than is reported - but only a few people see it. Most people use post scheduling as a convenience. How many schedule a post, then stick around to watch it publish?

You compose your post, you schedule your post - then you're gone. You come back, sometime later, and it's published. Do you know, for a fact, that it published on the second - or the date - scheduled?

I'm also wondering how scheduled posts are published, in general - but that may be a subject for another post, later. Right now, the question is how to ensure post schedule dates can be accurately typed, to eliminate misscheduled posts.

And besides people who don't enter date / time correctly, there's people who never think to hit "Publish" - then watch as "scheduled" publication time comes and goes, with the post still in Draft state.

Blogger, Windows LiveWriter, And Similar Products

This week, we have a multitude of complaints about Windows LiveWriter, and similar third party editors, unable to login to Blogger.

Blog owners who use LiveWriter, and similar third party products, to compose and publish posts, have reported authentication problems.

I have used Windows Live Writer, to publish to my blog, for years. I now cannot publish, and the message I get is that the ID and password are not correct.

Many products besides WLW are disabled.
One blog owner observed that Windows LiveWriter was not the only offline editor affected, by a recent change.

The problem is not with Microsoft is with ALL external soft. Do not work with Zoundry Raven, BlogJet, Post2Blog, PowerBlog Personal Client, W.Bloggar, Windows Live Writer, etc.

Blogger explained the problem.
After some research, Blogger Support issued an explanation.

It looks like this error is a result of an authentication problem between Google and Live Writer. A long time ago, we announced we were deprecating our old authentication system and we encouraged developers to move to the new one (OAuth 2.0). It seems that Live Writer is still using our old system, which is causing the issue. We are currently looking into it, but we suggest that users also reach out to Microsoft to report the issue.

So, now we wait.

Most blog owners know the reality of the latter advice.

Microsoft is even less responsive than Google, when product modifications are needed.

One blog owner did contact Microsoft, to no avail.

We have a simple workaround.
The current workaround, used by various blog owners, is to compose using LiveWriter, and publish using Blogger.

1. Compose and format a post, using LiveWriter.
2. Copy the composed post, from LiveWriter, as HTML.
3. Make a new post, using Blogger.
4. Paste the new post, into Blogger Post Editor, in HTML Mode.
5. Publish the new post, from Blogger Post Editor.

The workaround is not perfect.
The workaround has disadvantages.

• Photos added, when composing in LiveWriter, won't be transferred to Blogger Post Editor. You'll need to upload photos using "Insert image", in Post Editor -then compose and format text around the photos.

• You may need to check the HTML content for excessive formatting meta code.
• Be wary, when switching between Compose and HTML modes, in Post Editor.
• This technique may or may not work, with all third party products.

We have a second, slightly more complicated workaround.
If you really want to use LiveWriter to compose the posts, and have lots of photos, we have a second workaround, slightly more complicated.

1. Enable Mail-to-Blogger, selecting "Save emails as draft post".
2. Compose posts with photos, in LiveWriter.
3. Copy and paste a semi completed post, into your email client.
4. Email the post, to Blogger, using Mail-to-Blogger. Mail-to-Blogger will add the photos for you, in Blogger.
5. Use Blogger Post Editor, in HTML mode. Copy and paste back into LiveWriter. Now, the LiveWriter editor has the photos, under the Blogger URLs.
6. Make the final picture and text format changes.
7. Copy, and paste back to Blogger Post Editor, in HTML mode.
8. Preview, then Publish the new post.

When you figure this out - and if you have posts with lots of photos - it will save you having to use Blogger Post Editor "Insert Image", repeatedly. That should make the complexity worth the time.

We were warned of the change - though maybe not as effectively as one would wish. Maybe the latter workaround will take some of the sting away.

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(Update 6/1 21:00): We're seeing reports that the problem with Live Writer is resolved - and people are reporting ability to publish posts with photos. Now, various third party products remain out of service - some may not be upgradable, because they have been abandoned by the publisher.

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Non English Language Blogs, And Abuse Review

With Blogger blogs becoming more popular in countries where English is not the native language, we've seen a lot of blogs classified as spam - both righteously, and spuriously.

Most spam reviews, originally, involved blogs with commercial spam - excessive advertisements, with little subject content. As the focus of spam classification shifted to blogs with content, we've been seeing more non commercial classifications - large blogs with unfocused subjects, and content scraped or syndicated.

Combining the two trends - more blogs in non English languages, and spam classifications which focus on non commercial content, we see blogs which require more people to review. And the people required need familiarity with the languages, and the subjects, of the blogs which need review.

As an expert helper in Blogger Help Forums, I've seen a lot of trends, among the spam review requests, started in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

Blogs written in English are not difficult to review.
With non commercial spam, and large blogs full of non focused content, or scraped / syndicated content, which are published in English, Google is truly your friend.

It is not difficult to identify blogs that are righteously, or spuriously, classified. Nor is it difficult to identify which blogs are classified for commercial content vs non commercial content.

Blogs not written in English will present some challenge.
Blogs which are not written in English, however, are going to be a challenge - both in the initial forum problem discussion triage, and the later Blogger Policy Review final review.

Identifying the blog subject requires familiarity with the blog language, and with the blog subject. And identifying scraped / syndicated content, or reviewing for "objectionable" content, requires ability to at least read the content - then to run the content through Google Search, possibly in multiple languages.

Google will have even more of a challenge, with non English blogs.
Google can automate much of the initial abuse classification - in every language. Blogs which later require manual review will require a human being to sort through the content - and the human will need language and subject familiarity.

As the automated abuse / objectionable content classification process becomes more reliable, some blogs will require manual review after they are classified (righteously, or spuriously), for more subtle content / TOS violations. All of this creates demands, when review is needed.

• Ability to judge abuse / content, in general.
• Ability to judge abuse / content, in subtle details.
• Familiarity with the blog language.
• Familiarity with the blog subject / cultural issues.
• Diversity and size of the blog.

All of these details will be relevant, when answering the question, asked by many blog owners.

How long will I have to wait, before my blog is restored / reviewed?

Some blog owners will wait, with eventual reward; and others may wait forever. And the owners of blogs published in obscure non English languages / relevant to non mainstream cultures will wait longer, as Google expands the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Blogger Policy Review team, to reflect world diversity.

Spammer activity will follow cultural / linguistic diversity, in Blogger.
There are over 300 languages in the world, with Blogger currently supporting 62 languages in the dashboard Language setting. As Blogger expands its linguistic diversity, spammer activity will surely follow.

Spammers will both conceal abusive activity, and target victims, using blogs published in obscure languages. It's possible that blogs published in obscure languages will be less subject to spam classification processes.

The Blogger Policy Review team will have to expand, similarly - if they hope to reliably support requested spam review, using human beings. And as Blogger blogs become more popular in countries where English is not common, blog owners have to be more patient, when their blogs are (righteously, or spuriously) classified as objectionable content / suspected spam hosts.

Put The Post Title Before The Blog Title

Some blog owners want to have the titles of the posts easier to spot, in search hit lists.

The solution, to them, is to have the post titles appear before the blog titles, in the template header. If you want your blog to have the post title in front of the blog title, this is a simple enough change.

It's best to make this change only affect display of individual pages (when indexed), and posts. Other search hit list entries, such as archive, label, and main page displays, should show the default blog page title - and not confuse the potential readers with irrelevant detail, in the search hit list entries.

This change requires a small amount of extra code, to identify the specific search hit entries, where the display change is appropriate.

It's a simple change.
Since none of the code is blog specific, it's a simple "search and replace" change. A check for page type of "item" is all that you need.

As always, I will advise you to backup the blog template, before and after making this change.

Find the default title code, using "Edit HTML".
Use the Template HTML Editor. Locate

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

in the template code.

Add 4 lines of code.
Replace

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

With

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
</b:if>

And hit "Save template".

The change won't have immediate effect.
Now, wait while your "item" pages (individual pages / posts) are re indexed - and this may not happen, over night. Again, "index" pages (archive, label, and main page displays) won't, and should not, be affected by this change.

The change needs to be selective.
If you click on the label (below) of "Blog Title", you get a label search page, with the pageTitle of "The Real Blogger Status: Blog Title". For label searches, you want the blog title to precede the label name - so, you use "data:blog.pageTitle" (the default).

If you're using Jump Break, to shorten main page entries, this change may have more impact. Blogs which display complete post content in "index" view won't have as much attention paid to the posts in "item" view.

A useful alternative / complement, to the title sequence change, would be well chosen search description meta tags. Proper sizing and wording, of all descriptions and titles, may make your search hit entries more distinctive too.

Google Identifies Referer Spam, By Observing Trends

I've discussed referer spam before, and its visibility in Stats logs produced by newer, less popular blogs.

There is always the odd mature and popular blog, also showing referer spam in its Stats logs. Mature and popular blogs, published by experienced blog owners, may still be subject to referer spam.

Referer spam attacks blogs of all age and popularity levels. Experienced blog owners will learn to recognise referer spam - and typically, when they identify it, they learn to ignore it.

Referer spam is less visible, in Stats logs produced by mature and popular blogs - but it is not invisible.

Most experienced blog owners can recognise most referer spam.

Most owners of mature and popular blogs learn to recognise referer spam - by observing trends between their blogs, and over periods of time. Once they recognise it, in their logs, they know to ignore it - and they move on, to more productive activity.

That is similar to how Google identifies referer spam - they can look at thousands of blogs simultaneously, and compare trends. Some trends may be visible by observing referer traffic among multiple blogs, during the same time period - and other trends may be visible by observing referer activity in one or two blogs, over a period of days or weeks.

New and subtle referer spam is not so easily recognised, by all blog owners.

With a new referer spam technique, attacking a few blogs, some owners may mistake the attack for actual reader activity.

Given a few days, the spammers will try the same technique against a different blog. Eventually, Google will identify a trend - and will remove the bogus activity, from the Stats logs on all blogs being attacked.

Activity by Google, removing Stats log entries, leads to spikes in Stats displays.

With a blog that has low genuine traffic, an owner of an attacked blog may observe the changes in pageview counts. Both the initial increase (from the attack) and the later decrease (from action by Google) may cause concern. Again, most experienced owners will ignore both changes - if even visible.

Google does care about referer spam, though they must identify it carefully.

Contradicting the impressions expressed by less experienced blog owners, Google does care about referer spam - they can simply remove spam sooner with obvious trends, than with subtle trends. They need to identify and remove referer spam carefully - because they want our Stats logs to display actual activity, when actual activity is present.

Blog owners who observe only a few samples of visitor activity, in their Stats logs, may confuse transient visitor activity, with referer spam. Again, Google, able to observe thousands of blogs, simultaneously, is better able to identify - and to remove - bogus activity from our Stats logs.

Real people do read our blogs, too. Google is simply better able to identify activity by real people - given enough time.

"Your Content Is Forever" Has Limitations

Many blog owners would like to retrieve deleted blogs - or contents of deleted blogs - or contents of live blogs, deleted.

Some folks just deleted their blog, and immediately realised a mistake. Others deleted a blog, long ago. Some had their blog, deleted by Blogger - and just want the content back, so they can "start over".

Some may delete a post, and realise that mistake. Others make a mistake with content, and find Blogger deleted the blog. And some get a new job, graduate from school, get a new ISP - and realise, too late, that they forgot to update their Blogger account to use the new email address for account recovery.

Blogger tells use that your content is forever.

That promise is generally true - if you observe basic common sense and courtesy.

1. Don't violate TOS.
2. Don't accidentally delete the account, or the blog.
3. Don't lose control of the blog.

Your content is forever - as long as you do not violate TOS.

If you violate TOS - publish malware or spam, copy content rudely from other blogs and websites, include dangerous or dodgy content, or generally act impolitely - both your Blogger account, and any blog(s) are subject to deletion or suspension. Blogger will frequently exercise patience, for some first time offenders - but claiming that you never received a warning email will not entitle you to a second chance.

If you wish to retain a Blogger blog, and publish it, be aware of TOS restrictions. Don't test everyone's patience.

Your content is forever - as long as you do not delete the account, or the blog.

If you delete a blog, you may have up to 90 days to un delete it - from the same account. Don't count on exactly 90 days - and don't count on the URL being made available, to other accounts, after 90 days.

Don't try to transfer control by deleting - and don't ask to have the blog recovered, after 90 days.

And if you select the new option to "Permanently delete", the blog is deleted, immediately - and with no recovery possible.

Your content is forever - as long as you maintain control.

If you forget the account name or password - then get a new email address, lose your phone, or get a new computer, please do not accuse Google of illegally or impolitely denying you access to your blog, if you can't use the Blogger / Google supplied access recovery tools.

Blogger and Google have recovery procedures, to prevent people from maliciously gaining access to other peoples Blogger accounts, and stealing their blogs. If you act like a blog thief, expect to be treated like a blog thief.

Blogger and Google can't protect you, if you voluntarily give up control. If you make a friend a blog administrator, and your friend takes over the blog, it's not your blog any more. In this case, you have legally lost control of the blog.

Treat Blogger Support with respect, so they can return the treatment.

Blogger and Google - and the helpers at Blogger Help Forum - want to help you. Everybody can help you best when you help them, to help you.

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We are advised by #Blogger that our accounts and blogs are ours, forever. This promise is not without some restrictions, however - and it's up to us to observe the restrictions, if we wish to maintain our accounts and blogs, for any amount of time.

Publish A Language Related Blog Cluster

As Blogger blogs become more popular outside the U.S.A., we see various blog owners who are multi-lingual - and who want to publish simultaneously, in multiple languages.

We see the question, occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger.

How do I publish my blog in English, French, and Spanish - and keep a good relationship with my readers, the search engines, and the anti spam bots?

This is not difficult to do - just publish a well balanced and linked blog cluster, with the "hreflang" tag defining the related blogs, to the search engines.

Publishing a multi-language blog cluster is not difficult.

1. Choose a blog name, that lets you publish, and lets your readers identify, the blogs.
2. Publish each blog, in its own specific language.
3. Combine and link the blogs, as a cluster.
4. Identify the members of the cluster, to the search engines.

Choose a blog name, that lets you publish, and lets your readers identify, the blogs.

You'll want a blog name that indicates how each blog is part of a set of blogs, yet differs from the others. You'll need a name that's consistently available (you can't publish a URL that's already being used), and describes the relationship of each blog, to the others.

If I was tri-lingual, I could publish this blog in English, French, and Spanish. I could publish to BlogSpot.

• en-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com
• es-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com
• fr-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com

and maybe, later, to a custom domain.

• en.blogging.nitecruzr.net
• es.blogging.nitecruzr.net
• fr.blogging.nitecruzr.net

Publish each blog, in its own specific language.

Each blog, published in a non English language, needs the proper Language setting. This helps you publish each blog, using the post editor, more consistently - and it helps the search engines index the blogs properly.

Combine and link the blogs, as a cluster.

There are a number of techniques that you can use, to make a blog cluster that is appealing - and functional - to your readers. Combining and linking each blog to the others, yet keeping each blog different from the others, can use a variety of Blogger features and options.

Identify the members of the cluster, to the search engines.

Besides the Language settings to identify indexing characteristics of each different blog, you'll want to use the "hreflang" tag, to indicate which blogs are related. The search engines will index the blogs as a set - and be able to distinguish between the blogs properly.

The end result will be pleasing to your readers - and to the search engines.

When you're done, you'll end up with a set of blogs that help your readers enjoy what you have to say - and help the search engines index each blog properly. And that will lead to more readers - and possibly another language to learn and publish.

Private Blog Conversion Happens At Once

Some blog owners consider changing their blog, to private membership - but have a problem with managing the membership volume, during the conversion.

How can I populate my membership list, with email addresses, before making the blog private?

This is a question seen occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger - and it's a question that can't be answered.

You can only add members, to a private blog. A public blog allows access to all - and has no member list.

Admittedly, it would be useful to stage a blog, being made private.

Using FeedBurner EMail Distribution, to collect email addresses, will get you started.

1. Inform your readers, in a post, that the blog will be going private, on a given future date.
2. Setup FeedBurner EMail Distribution, to collect everybody's email addresses - and add a gadget to the blog.
3. Start collecting email addresses, and inviting members, as they add themselves to your FeedBurner database.
4. When everybody (up to 99 members total plus you) has accepted, and joined, you are ready to pull the switch.
5. You then make the blog private.
6. Nobody else can read the blog.

Unfortunately, there are several flaws, to the above project plan.

• You cannot send out invitations, to a public blog.
• You cannot accept membership, in a public blog - even if you have an invitation.
• After the blog becomes private, nobody else will be able to request membership.

The best that you can do is to use FeedBurner to collect email addresses, while the blog is public. As soon as you make the blog private, there won't be a blog feed - and FeedBurner will be inoperable, for the blog. And with the blog inaccessible, nobody will be adding their email addresses to your FeedBurner email address database.

1. Inform the regular readers, that the blog will be going private, on a given future date.
2. Setup FeedBurner EMail Distribution, to collect everybody's email addresses.
3. Start collecting email addresses, as they add themselves to your FeedBurner database.
4. You then make the blog private.
5. Nobody else can read the blog.
6. Start inviting members.
7. When everybody (up to 99 members total plus you) has accepted, and joined, you will have a functioning private blog.

There are several flaws, to the latter plan.

• The more members that you have, the longer the gap between Steps #4 and #7 will be - and the longer some members must wait, to resume blog access.
• If you have over 99 established readers (less the administrator / author complement), a private blog may not work, for you.
• After Step #4, and with the blog private, nobody will be able to access the blog, and add themselves to your FeedBurner membership email database.

The bottom line is that a blog with an established reader population can't go private, without inconveniencing you - and your readers. Some readers, inconvenienced, may lose interest - and may discard your membership invitation. This will leave you with an open, and (likely) never accepted membership invitation - and possibly, contribute to the membership invitation latency problem.

Recovering A Blog, That Should Be Corporate Property

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger. we'll see yet another question about account recovery - but with a twist.

I am trying to recover control of our old Blogger account, that became useless when a former employee left the company, taking the login information with him.

Here we have an officer of a corporation, who is left holding the bag - because his management did not exercise proper control of a former employee.

Unfortunately, Blogger accounts and blogs are legally the property of the employee who has (or had) control - and who left the company, while retaining control.

Leaving an employer, and retaining company property, is rude.

Intellectual property is legally owned by the account owner.
Taking real property is theft - but intellectual property, such as a Blogger blog, is the legal property of the one who retains control.

Originally, Blogger Support could legally assist in recovery of company property.
Long ago, corporate officials would provide details about a blog "theft". Blogger Support would politely email to the official a form, that he could have notarised, and submitted with a letterhead memo from a company executive - and Blogger would happily comply.

But technology enables easily forged corporate identity documentation.
Then came the age of PhotoShop and 3D printing - and the ability to manufacture letterhead stationary, and "notarised" documents, at convenience. Blogger Support got caught, once or twice, assisting clever blog thieves.

Retention of corporate property is the responsibility of the corporate officers.
A blog is a corporate asset - and needs to be managed as any corporate property. If a company wishes to retain control, the officials must manage blog access, as diligently as they would manage any real property.

Corporate officers have options, that they must exercise.
A company official has three chances for recovering control of the blog.

Google legally can't become involved, as they have to protect the ownership of the blog - even if the current owner is not acting honestly.

Blogger Sucks - They Can Delete My Blog, At Will

We see signs of anxiety and confusion, every week, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, about blog control by Blogger.

Recently I've heard that you guys can shut down my blog at any time. I was wondering if this is true,

And yes, it's true. Blogger can - and will - delete a blog for righteous cause.

The reality is that thousands of blogs are shut down, each day. 99.99% of the blogs shut down are published by spammers - and Blogger shuts them down, so genuine blogs can remain visible.

Unfortunately, whether the proportion of righteous deletions to total deletions is 99.99% - or 99.99999%, there will always be a non zero number of blogs unrighteously deleted.

There will always be bogus spam classifications - and spam reviews.
Why will the latter number never go to 00.00%? Because spammers make their blogs to look like our blogs.

Why are there lawyers, and judges? Because the police will always arrest innocent citizens, for infractions of which they are not guilty. You can live in any country in the world, you will be at risk for false arrest.

You can move your blog to another platform, if you wish.
Blog publication has the same risks. If you fear false "arrest" (ie, spurious spam classification), you can publish your blog to any Internet service you like.

Whatever you choose, you'll be on a different blogging platform, which will either

1. Be less visible, and of no interest to search engines and spammers.
2. Be of interest to spammers, and have its own spam problems.
3. Be of interest to spammers, and have an already established spam mitigation policy. You may not agree with the filters there, either - and the filters there, already trained by blog owners there, may be harder for you to deal with than the ones here.

You will always see complaints, in the forums.
You'll see whiners in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, periodically. Many complaints are by spammers, recently confirmed and told

Blogger does not want your business.

The other half will be actual blog owners, unable to distinguish the spammers from the victims.

What do you want to do? I can only advise you to look at the total problem report population, in the forums, and see how many problem reports, at any time, are from people reporting

Blogger just deleted my blog!

And how many are from people wondering

How do I get more traffic?

Or

How do I login to my blog?

or

How do I display my blog to my readers?

The latter 3 questions, and other similar forum topics, represent actual blog owners, whose blogs have not been spuriously classified as spam hosts - and they are busy publishing their blogs.

Blogger wants genuine blog owners, and righteous blog content.
It's your choice. Note that Blogger truly does not want to delete blogs, unrighteously - and they will provide multiple chances, to many genuine blog owners.

If you go outside - and even with no storms forecast for your area - the risk of being hit by lightning is never 00.00%. Yet, how many people never go outside?

Occasionally, People Do Read Our Blogs

Real people live in various countries all over the world.

Every country has Internet service - and people who surf the Internet. Some read this blog - and maybe your blog, too,

My blog pageviews today increased from 150 to 1530 !! And almost all the visits were from Canada. Please Help Me!

Why would you dread Canadian readers, eh?

Knowing that your blog may host readers, in a worldwide community, would you fear traffic from unknown countries?

Some blog owners have strange superstitions.

Referer spam causes fear, uncertainty, and denial - with blog owners.

A few blog owners, ever mindful of the threat of referer spam, in their Stats logs, seem to dread reading Stats. Some become nervous, when seeing a sudden rise in visitor count.

Your blog may have reader activity spikes, because of what you write.

Occasionally, you may write a blog post that is particularly well received. I wrote an article about language based blog sets a week ago - and about a blog feed problem, last month - each post getting significantly more attention than others.

Some blogs may show real visitor activity, that coincides with real events.

If your blog focuses on cultural or political events - or otherwise might concentrate on events in any geographical region, it's possible that you might write a particularly intriguing post, that could generate a significant spike in reader activity. If the activity was well received in one geographical region, you might see a spike in traffic from that region.

Alternately, and remembering the way Stats displays pageview count trends, you could see a spike that only appears to be concentrated in one region.

In either event, though, you might have actual human beings reading the blog. You might not be observing referer spam, at all.

You can only recognise referer spam, by analysing relevance to your blog.

You recognise referer spam by a spike in "Traffic sources", with "Referring Sites" and / or "Referring URLs" showing one or two single entries which appear to coincide with the spike - then confirm by viewing the site / URL. Of course, since our #1 recommendation regarding referer spam is

Don't click on the Stats log links!

you may never know for sure what you have.

Google identifies referer spam, by analysing relevance to thousands of blogs.

This is another example why identifying referer spam is left to Google, who can examine traffic patterns for thousands of blogs, simultaneously. If they see traffic from the same site hitting other blogs, at the same time, they can identify it - and remove it, from all blogs Stats logs.

More unique referer spam takes longer, to be identified by Google - and causes a more significant spike in the pageview counts, for any blogs attacked. This, too, is why owners of newer sites report referer spam more than owners of more established sites.

Just consider the possibilities, when you see a trend in your Stats logs.

But when you do see an interesting spike in pageview counts, it doesn't hurt to examine the Posts and Pages lists, for that time period. Examine content of any well viewed posts, and consider if a spike in a recently published post corresponds with any real world events.

The purpose of visitor logs, in general, is to tell us when we write something that the world considers significant. Why not consider that possibility?

Be optimistic - just don't be naive.

Blogger Blogs, And Social Networking Popups

Among blog accessories that are not going to get you good reputation, I can't think of very many more obnoxious than the FaceBook "Like my blog, before you read it!" demand.

Currently popular with some WordPress blogs, this is yet another blog accessory that will eventually get the blog deleted, as a possible malware host.

Useful Blogger blog readers look for blogs with informative, interesting, and unique content. Hiding a blog behind a "Like my blog!" demand, to help you boost FaceBook popularity before the blog can be read, will not get you useful readers.

Similar to bogus page password protection, social networking popularity popups will impede access by malware scanning.

Robotic processes, such as search engine bots, cannot continue.

When a robotic malware scanning process encounters a FaceBook "Like my blog!" popup, it's going to simply add your blog to the queue to have it locked, as a potential malware host. You will later have to remove the popup code, and get the blog into the malware review queue - and suffer the inconvenience, and reputation loss.

Popup windows are not well regarded, in some security products. Popups have been long popular, with devious malware and spam vendors, to convince an unwary computer owner into "Agreeing" to have more malware installed in the host computer.

Even if the blog isn't locked as a possible malware / spam host, it may not be properly crawled. Both the AdSense ads classifier - and the Google Search crawler - may not index the blog. Both ad content - and search engine indexing - may be at risk, with popup windows covering the content.

The "Like my blog to read my blog!" popup is simply a way of buying Likes.

If you advertise your Blogger blog in FaceBook, simply to get people to read your blog and generate one more "Like" for your FaceBook page, so more people will read your blog, you are simply buying Likes. Eventually FaceBook will wise up, and stop encouraging this circular popularity boost technique.

Hopefully, Blogger Policy Enforcement can take action, before Blogger blogs gain one more bad reputation for scammery and spammery - and explicitly add this technique to the malware detection rules.

The readers that you do get won't read the blog content.

In the mean time, the readers that you will get will be similar to "GPT" technicians. These are the people who are not reading a blog, or the ads - because they are busy clicking to get to the next blog, and the next set of ads - because they, like the blog owner, want more money.

Even if you gain a "Like", you'll not be gaining an actual reader.

Make Post Dates Relevant To Historical Blogs

Occasionally, we see a request from somebody who wants to publish a blog with historically significant dates, which precede Blogger compatible dates.

In one case, we see a request in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, about writing a blog, as "published" in the 1960s.

I'm doing a History project, and I'm blogging as if I was in the 1960's. I was excited to see that I could change that date - but soon realized that it won't let me go back further than 1970.

Unfortunately, blog dates will go back no farther than 1970.

If you want to write a historical blog, and precede 1970, you'll have to use fake dates.

The Internet came into existence well after 1970. Tim Berners-Lee did not even start development of the World Wide Web until March, 1989.

If your blog subject needs to pre date 1970, you'll have to use fake dates.

• Disable post date and time displays.
• Write the posts, with the dates in the post titles - or post bodies.
• Change the post dates, to sequence the posts.
• Use label searches, and linklists, instead of an archive gadget.

There will, unfortunately, be limitations.

Disable post date and time displays.
Use "Configure Blog Posts", and disable the post header date (Post Page Option #1), posted by (Post Page Option #2), and the post footer date / time stamp (Post Page Option #3). Don't clutter the blog, with "irrelevant" post dates and names.

Write the posts, with the dates and names in the post titles - or post bodies.
You won't be able to post fake dates above the post titles, because there is no text field, that you could position above the post title, and change for each post. You can either put the "date" in each title, or after the title, in the post body. Likewise, the name.

Change the post dates, to sequence the posts.
As we all know, the best way to sequence the posts is by changing the post dates. You can publish the posts in reverse order to be displayed - or you can write and post in any order, then change the dates as you wish.

If you make a mistake, and have to change the real post dates - and if changing the real dates requires changes in the real URLs, remember to change the posts to draft status, as necessary. This will reset the posts, when you need to change the post URLs.

Use label searches, and linklists, to index the posts.
You won't want to use an Archive gadget, which will, again, clutter the blog with "irrelevant" post dates. You'll need a linklist, to replace the archives index. And you can add label searches, to index posts in date groups.

You can't fake everything.
The post URLs will still contain the actual ("irrelevant") post dates. Posts that you publish this month, for example, will contain "2015/05".

The actual ("irrelevant") dates will always display, in the post URL window. Sorry, the magic goes only so far.

Blogger Gives You A Second Chance - If You Act

As Blogger fine tunes their abuse and spam classifiers, we're seeing chronic abusers admitting their mistakes, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger.

My Blogger account was just deleted! Recently, we received a message from Blogger, advising that one of our articles has been deleted because of copyright issues. We were further advised that if we re published, Blogger would have consider it as an act of rebellion against Blogger's policy.

In most cases, this would represent a non repentant abuser, righteously deleted.

Blogger allows second chances, for abuse and copyright violations - if you act promptly.

The Blogger violation warning policy is not perfect.

Blogger Policy Enforcement sends out notices, with the hopes that the people abusing TOS will act, and avoid additional violations. With some people, who blatantly and multiply violate, avoiding additional notices is not easily done.

The more offenses, the greater chance extreme and prompt action will be taken.

People with multiple violations, in their blogs when an initial violation notice is sent, are more likely to be detected again, generating more notices. The more violations discovered, the greater chance the blog owner will be classified as a non repentant, repeat offender - and the blog will be deleted.

If multiple blogs are published and are offensive, chances are greater that the blog owner will be classified as a defiant, non repentant offender - and the Blogger account too will be terminated.

We'd like to inform you that we've received another complaint regarding a blog that you administer. Upon review of your account, we've noted that you've repeatedly violated the Terms of Service: https://www.blogger.com/go/terms. 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 disable your Blogger service.

This may involve another team blog issue, in some cases.

The more offending blogs, and the more offending blog content, the greater the chance that a defiant, non repentant offense will be determined, by Blogger Policy Enforcement. Blog owners who intentionally and repeatedly test the limits, of Blogger patience, will eventually regret their attempts.

Blogger sends out the notices, for good reasons.

Blogger sends out each notice, for a reason - to have abusive activity stopped.

• Stop doing, what you're doing.
• Remove what you have already done, that may violate TOS - even if not cited, specifically.

The best policy is to not offend, period. The next best policy is to act immediately, when receiving a notice.

• If you're not violating, appeal the notice.
• If you are violating, see the list, above.

If you're truly innocent, use ChillingEffects, and appeal. If you're even slightly guilty, clean up your act. The more guilty you are, the quicker you need to act - and the more cleanup you need to do.

For best results, act before you get a notice.

If you received the first notice, one day - a second notice, the following day - and your account was terminated, on the third day, this is the result of blatant policy violation. Don't wait until you get two notices, in two days, then mull it over.

Gee, maybe I should stop doing that?

Act now, and clean up your blogs - before it's too late. Blogger sends out notices, using best effort possible - and everybody may not get every notice, when sent. Don't take lack of notices received, as permission to continue dodgy practice.

You may get one final chance.

In some cases, an "account suspension" notice may come with a final chance for redemption.

Next steps for suspended accounts: If you believe your access to this product was suspended in error, contact us.

That advice will provide a link, to a final appeal form. Click on the link, and follow instructions. This is not offered, in all cases. If it is offered, take it - and follow instructions, to the letter.

You may get one last chance. If so, use it wisely.


Or the account may be terminated, with no redemption offered.

In some cases, with the Blogger account terminated, you will simply have to start over - and clean up your act, with your new account and new blogs. Even if this does not happen, you'll have to deal with the consequences.

Each Internet Service Maintains Their Own Accounts

Occasionally, we see a cry of anguish, about account recovery, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

I need to publish my blog, but I forgot the password. I can access my WordPress account though - and my photo - -on my WordPress blog - clearly is me. Can I speak to a real person, so I can get my Blogger blog back?

Here, we have a blog owner, who does not understand the relationship between Google, and non Google, services.

Different companies, which use the Internet, and / or provide services which let people use the Internet, have their own standards for account maintenance and recovery.

Long ago, I explored the Blogger policy for allowing non GMail email addresses to be used as account names.

Note differences between GMail based accounts, and non GMail based accounts.
With a Blogger account that uses a GMail email address, the Blogger account, the email address (GMail), and a Google account, are one account. With a Blogger account that uses a non GMail email address, the Blogger account and the email address share a name - but the Blogger account, and the email account, are two separate accounts.

• The Blogger account is a Google account, maintained by Google.
• The email address is part of an email account, maintained by a non Google company.

Setting up a Blogger account is simple - when you use a non GMail email address. You provide a non Google account name on the fly - when you create a blog, or when you accept membership in someone else's blog (in an ownership transfer, as a new author, or as a designated reader).

With non GMail based accounts, you only provide the email address.
You provide any non GMail email address (excepting a Google Apps / Google managed domain) as an account name, state the password that you will use for your new account, and you're done. If I state "nitecruzr@ficticious-domain.com" as my "email address", and provide an accepted password for future use, I now have a new Blogger account.

No verification is done, against the databases of "ficticious-domain.com" - to ensure that I, as a Blogger user, am a real person who should use the mailbox "nitecruzr" - or that "ficticious-domain.com" has a mailbox "nitecruzr" - or even, that "ficticious-domain.com" exists.

Given lax Blogger policy, should they be trusted by the domain owners?
Given that lack of common courtesy by Google, should my new Blogger account be accepted by the staff of "ficticious-domain.com", when I want to recover access to my "nitecruzr" mailbox on "ficticious-domain.com"?

I will email you my account reset request, from my Blogger / Google account. Since my Blogger / Google account is named "nitecruzr@ficticious-domain.com", you will know that it's me.

This seems like such an honest request.

The domain owners will contact Corporate Security, and report a hijack attempt.
Any competent IT staff member, receiving such a request, is going to make an immediate call to Corporate Security - because my "account reset" request is coming from a spoofed address, outside the company. Even if they don't send the local police to my physical address, they are certainly going to ignore my "account recovery" request.

Google should do the same, with someone using a FaceBook account.
Similarly, Google will do the same, when someone suggests that a FaceBook, Google+, or WordPress link to the blog, from the home page of a FaceBook, Google+, or WordPress account - or even from a FaceBook or WordPress account name that references the blog - be used for identity or ownership verification. Just mentioning a company resource - account or blog name - in a non company account or website page - does not prove account or blog ownership.

That is simple - and responsible - IT security policy. Account recovery requests cannot use any outside resources for documentation of identity or ownership.

Renamed Blogs, And Google+ Comments

As Google+ hosted comments become more common in our blogs, we see more questions about blogs recently renamed, and disappearing comments.

Blogs renamed (and URLs changed) from BlogSpot to BlogSpot, from BlogSpot to a custom domain, and from custom domain to custom domain - all become concerns, with blogs that use Google+ hosted comments. This starts with the difference between Blogger, and Google+, hosted comments - and how they reference the host blog.

Blogger hosted comments link to the blog - but Google+ hosted comments (aka Google+ stream posts) link to the URL. Any time you change the URL of your blog, you will lose Google+ hosted comments - from your blog. The Google+ stream posts, however, are still out there - and they still link back to your blog.

Any existing Google+ stream posts, mentioning your blog, will link to the previous blog URL, after you change the URL.

A properly executed custom domain migration will redirect the BlogSpot URL to the Domain URL. Any existing Google+ Stream posts will continue to link to the blog, under the new URL, because of the redirect.

Any other URL changes - BlogSpot to BlogSpot, custom domain to custom domain, or even custom domain back to BlogSpot - will leave you with the old URL going nowhere - and no way to redirect from the old, to the new.

Any Google+ comments, that are associated with your blog, are out there, in your readers Google+ streams. Any readers, who have a Google+ account, have already Circled you - and are Following your comments (and posts) in their Streams.

Your old comments (and posts) are not visible to people who have not Circled you, after a URL change - and they would not be visible with your posts, for people who have not Circled you, before a URL change.

The comments are still in your Google+ Stream, for you to see (and reply) - and they are still in your Followers Google+ Streams, for them to see (and reply). The only thing that is lost is your ability to see all Google+ hosted comments, conveniently, in one place.

The conversations between people, mentioning your blog, can continue - and you can participate - when you are conversing with people who have Circled you (or published publicly). You can't participate in any conversations that are started by people who have not Circled you (and are not published Publicly) - but you could not do this, with the blog under the previous URL, either.

In reality, all that you lose is the ability to associate all of the different conversations about your blog, between the people conversing about your blog. The conversations can still continue - as individual conversations. And you gain the ability for the world (a bit at a time) to learn about your blog, and how it applies to their lives.

It's like comment moderation under Google+ - you lose a tiny bit of control - but you gain visibility.

Navbar Based Blog Search, And Custom Domain Blogs

As Blogger Engineering continues to upgrade Blogger code so our blogs will support SSL (aka "HTTPS" protocol), they are having to update many blog components, at the same time.

Sometimes, they upgrade a component - and the upgrade has a more extensive effect than they hoped.

Right now, the navbar search gadget is broken - for blogs published to custom domains.

If you publish a blog that has a custom domain (non BlogSpot) URL, and you or your readers depend upon the navbar based search gadget to find content, you may have a problem.

Add a blog search gadget, for a quick fix.
If you publish a blog to a custom domain, and your readers use a blog search to find blog content, you'll need to add a blog search gadget. The direct search gadget is most similar to the navbar blog search gadget - though you may find the custom search gadget useful too.

Blogger is making our blogs secure - and this may cause intermittent problems.
In their long and complex effort to upgrade Blogger, so our blogs can provide secure access, Blogger Engineering recently updated the navbar code. Now, blogs published to non BlogSpot URLs produce navbar based blog searches, using "HTTPS" rather than "HTTP", based URLs.

Since our blogs do not support SSL, this leaves the reader (or you) with yet one more "404". Try the search box, in the navbar, for this blog.


Right now, the navbar based blog search is simply broken.

A "Direct Search" gadget can be added to almost any blog, in 10 minutes.
Then, try the sidebar gadget "Search Me, Direct". Look at the top of the sidebar. Adding that gadget is a simple 10 minute project. If you can setup and maintain a custom domain, you can probably add a Direct Blog Search gadget.

We may not see this fixed, immediately. Many owners of custom domain published blogs won't worry about this, as they may be using different indexing / search techniques - custom search gadgets and / or label searches. You can do the same - the inconvenience should be minor.

Just rejoice that Blogger has made this upgrade - though it has broken the navbar based blog search. This brings us one step closer to providing SSL based blog access, which will help our readers to access our blogs, securely.

Reduce reader confusion, and disable the navbar search box - if possible.
Use the Template Designer "Add CSS" feature, and add the following 4 lines. The first line is blank, hit "Enter" before copying the 3 lines of text. Hit "Apply to Blog", and you're done.

#searchbox {
    display: none !important;
} 

---

(Update, 5/17): Please note that this CSS tweak, to disable the navbar search box, may or may not work, with some templates. We are seeing signs that some recent change has broken the "Add CSS" wizard. In some cases, you may have to use "Edit HTML" - and add the CSS, manually, into the template.

---

"hreflang", And Language / Region Based Blog Sets

If you publish a set of blogs in multiple languages, or customised for different geographical regions, you may have concerns about search engine reputation, and / or spurious spam classification.

Blog sets which are legitimately replicated, for either different languages or geographical regions, have been known to be caught in the infamous Blogger spam trap. And blogs which contain duplicated content can be a problem, both in Blogger and in Google Search.

Google provides a tag, which lets you indicate, to Blogger and to the search engines, blogs that are members of a legitimate blog set.

Blogs in sets, which are based on either language or region, can be identified using the "hreflang" tag.

The "hreflang" tag lets you identify legitimate blogs that relate to each other.

This tag will only work with existing blogs - and it will work best with blogs that are intentionally and genuinely related - by either language or geographical region. It won't simply create aliases of an existing blog - but it will let you identify blogs which are related, and which may contain similar material.

The tags are based on codes provided by the International Organization for Standardization - they are not fictitious or imaginative. The URLs of the blogs, in the set, are your choice - the ISO codes, used in the tags, are not your choice.

I could publish an English / French / Spanish set.

If I was multi-lingual (for the record, I'm not), I could publish this blog in English, French, and Spanish.

• blogging-en.nitecruzr.net
• blogging-es.nitecruzr.net
• blogging-fr.nitecruzr.net

or maybe

• en.blogging.nitecruzr.net
• es.blogging.nitecruzr.net
• fr.blogging.nitecruzr.net

In the template header, for each blog, I would add

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://blogging-en.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://blogging-es.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="http://blogging-fr.nitecruzr.net/" />

or maybe

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://en.blogging.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://es.blogging.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="http://fr.blogging.nitecruzr.net/" />

or even

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://en-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://es-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="http://fr-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />

I could publish an Australia / Canada / Great Britain / USA set.

Similarly, if I wanted to publish "Australia", "Canada", "Great Britain", and "USA" regional versions of this blog (all regional dialects of "English"), I might have

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-au" href="http://blogging-au.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-ca" href="http://blogging-ca.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="http://blogging-gb.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="http://blogging-us.nitecruzr.net/" />

or maybe

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-au" href="http://au.blogging.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-ca" href="http://ca.blogging.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="http://gb.blogging.nitecruzr.net/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="http://us.blogging.nitecruzr.net/" />

or even

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-au" href="http://au-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-ca" href="http://ca-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="http://gb-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="http://us-blogging-nitecruzr.blogspot.com/" />

All blogs must be real, and must be maintained as any blog.

Again, each blog must exist, as referenced - and each blog must be published, in equal activity to the others - for actual benefit. The "hreflang" tag won't create logical aliases - nor will it let you blatantly publish duplicated content, or compensate for blogs with no posting activity. You will need legitimate blogs, with genuinely relevant and unique content - each relevant within itself, and in comparison to the other blogs in the set.

If you are prepared to publish legitimate blogs in a set, however, the "hreflang" tag will let you do that - and it should decrease the possibility of bogus spam classification, and duplicated content penalties. And you have one more way to combine blogs, in clusters.

Google Domains Support, And "code CONFLICT"

As domains registered by Google Domains become more popular, we're seeing more problem reports, referencing broken domains, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

If I try to load my blog, I get the error

An error occurred (code CONFLICT). Please try again.

I bought my domain through Google Domains.

We're enjoying the personal support options provided by Google Domains - online chat, email, and voice chat.

It appears that Google Domains now provides a domain reset procedure, that may resolve the "code CONFLICT" error, on a domain by domain basis.

When contacted, and the "code CONFLICT" error is mentioned, Google Domains provides a reset script, that resembles the legendary Google Apps Domain Reset procedure.

1. Clear Google Domains Synthetic records.
2. Re publish the blog, to the domain.
3. Re create the Domain DNS addresses.

From your Google Domains dashboard, click on "My domains" (if necessary). Looking at the menu entry for the broken domain, select the icon in the "DNS" column.

You'll start with the "Configure DNS" page. The "Synthetic records" and "Custom resource records" sections of "Configure DNS" will be used, in this task.

Clear Google Domains Synthetic records.

Using the "Synthetic records" wizard in the Google Domains dashboard, find and delete the "Blogger" entry.

Re publish the blog, to the domain.

Using the "Publishing" wizard in the Blogger dashboard, re publish the blog, to the domain.

• If the blog is currently published to the domain, click on the "X" and publish back to BlogSpot.
• Publish the blog to the "www" host of the domain, using the Publishing link "Setup a Google Domains URL for your blog".
• Redirect the domain root to the "www" alias.

Re create the Domain DNS addresses.

As above, use the "Synthetic records" wizard in the Google Domains dashboard, and delete the "Blogger" entry. Then, use the "Custom resource records" wizard, and add the standard 4 x "A" + "CNAME" DNS address complement. The "CNAME", as recreated, should point to "ghs.google.com", not to "ghs.googlehosted.com".

The script ends with the valuable advice to wait while the DNS changes propagate.

please note that any DNS update can take up to 24 to 48 hours to propagate throughout the internet.

If you are patient and wait, you'll have a better chance of the domain propagating, without recreating the "code CONFLICT" aka "Another blog ..." condition.

The Mail-to-Blogger "Secret" Word Is An Address

Some blog owners use Mail-to-Blogger, for publishing to their blogs, without considering the issues.

Some owners can't get Mail-to-Blogger to work.

I get

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

or

I don't get any error - and the post never shows up in my Posts list.

Other owners have no problems getting theirs to work, and later find posts that they didn't send - and don't appreciate.

Where did all of the spam come from?

Using Mail-to-Blogger seems simple - but maybe should not be treated so. The Mail-to-Blogger email address, at Settings - Mobile and email, is a major part of the challenge, in this case.

The legendary Mail-to-Blogger "secret" word has two complementary - and competing - functions.

• It's an email address.
• It's a password.

You need to keep both requirements in mind - and balance the two, carefully.

The "secret" word is an email address.
Email addresses need to be kept simple. Similar to URLs, remember that any email, that you send, will be passing through various email systems.

• You (and any other authors) will send email, through an outgoing email system.
• Blogger will receive email, through the Google email system.
• Depending upon the location of the system that you (and the other blog authors) use, there could be other email systems.
• Each email system will have its own rules, for accepting and / or translating addresses.

If you want your email to get to Blogger - and to your blog - you will want to keep the 12 to 24 characters simple.

• 26 lower case letters, "a" - "z".
• 10 digits, "0" - "9".
• Possibly a dash ("-"), dot ("."), and / or underscore ("_").
• Begin and end any "secret" word with an alphanumeric character, only. No leading or trailing dashes, dots, or underscores. Remember, the format of the Mail-to-Blogger address is "public.private@blogger.com" (and "private" is the "secret" word).
• No upper case letters, no special characters, and no non "Roman" alphabetic characters.

WikiPedia: Email address notes

Organizations are free to restrict the forms of their own email addresses as desired, e.g., Windows Live Hotmail, for example, only allows creation of email addresses using alphanumerics, dot (.), underscore (_) and hyphen (-).

If you want to use Mail-to-Blogger successfully, be conservative with the address.

The "secret" word is a password.
Passwords need to be complex, and non guessable.

• First, do not use details from your real life, like your social security number, street address, name of husband / wife, and so on. If you can remember it, the bad guys can - and will - guess it.
• Second, avoid words found in the dictionary of your native language. Dictionary based password guessing is a very popular technique, used by many hackers.
• 12 to 24 character random strings, combining lower case letters (26 character, "a" - "z"), and numbers (10 character, "0" - "9"), are best. It's your blog, just know the risks - and learn to live with the limitations. See WikiPedia: Password strength, for more details.
• See Blogger Help: Post via email, for general guidelines - but consider the password character limitations too.

You want any Mail-to-Blogger posts to be published, so keep the character set simple. You want Mail-to-Blogger to be secure, so keep it non guessable. Keep your blog under your control - but be able to publish to it, as necessary.

When You Comment, You Need To Be Identified

We're seeing questions about commenting, and identification, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

Why do I have to click on 3 pictures of steak, to post a comment?

This blog reader is not enjoying the new CAPTCHA - and has a problem with using it, repeatedly.

When you comment, you now have to identify yourself as a person - not a robotic process (aka "autobot" or "bot"). For most of us, this is not an issue. We login to Blogger (or Google) once a day, and we're done.

The "once a day" solution does not work, for everybody.

Some people have to prove their identity, as a person, repeatedly during the day.

CAPTCHA use is remembered, for most readers - and not repeated.

Long ago, Blogger comments used to allow "anonymous" comments, when selected by the blog owner. That option allowed too much spam comments, so Blogger added a non optional "CAPTCHA" as part of the anonymous commenting process.

To make CAPTCHA use more acceptable, Blogger designed the CAPTCHA to function as an "anonymous" login. with use of the CAPTCHA remembered during the login session. With cookies properly permitted, a reader can identify as a person once - and not again, until cookies are cleared or the browser is restarted.

The original CAPTCHAs are not a challenge - to some hackers and spammers.

The original CAPTCHAs were number or word puzzles, where you would be shown a sequences of letter or numbers in one window, and asked to re type the sequences in another window. This allows each person to identify her/him self as a person.

The person authentication process is trivially duplicated, though, with "CAPTCHA solving" services. "Pay to Verify" is one CAPTCHA solving service, that is part of some hackerspammer portfolios.

The reCAPTCHA should restrict spammer activity, yet permit reader activity.

The new reCAPTCHA requires a sequential solving process of multiple challenges and responses. This "challenge / response" process should force the hackers and spammers to find a new way to provide "CAPTCHA solving" services.

Unfortunately, people who can't manage the cookie filters on their computers will, in some cases, have to "login" repeatedly - and this will require more patience from some people. Proper cookie filter management may require an understanding of what cookies are - and what they are not.

Choices made by both blog owners and readers will affect the new CAPTCHA.

The "login" process will vary, based upon choices of the blog owner and reader. Depending upon the blog hosting the comments, the commenting options permitted by the owner, and the option selected by the reader, a reader may have to enter letter or numbers, have to solve a visual puzzle, or login to Google.

The new re CAPTCHA ("visual puzzle") will require some work, by the blog owner, to install on each blog. And, it won't please everybody - but it should provide an improvement in spam free comments, and better reader options for commenting.

If you have a problem with publishing comments, one of the simplest problem diagnosis starts with checking / correcting the browser cookie filter.

Block Specific Dynamic Views, Using Custom Redirects

One odd question, that has intrigued me for a while, is about dynamic templates, and reader choice.

We see the occasional question, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger.

How do I prevent my readers from viewing my blog, using an unacceptable dynamic view?

This blog owner is overlooking one of the major advantages to dynamic templates.

Using a dynamic template, you allow your readers a choice - how they get to view your blog.

With choices come more satisfied readers - people who spend more time reading what you have to say, who bookmark the blog so they can come back later, and who recommend the blog to their friends. And all of that leads to more traffic - which is not a bad thing.

Use custom redirects, to redirect from non wanted dynamic views.

However, if you truly want to publish your blog using a dynamic template, and prevent access to specific views, this can be easily done. Just add two or more custom redirects, from any dynamic template URL, to a more desirable URL.

First, you have to set a default view. Effective redirection requires a default view set. We'll use "magazine" as our default.

From: /
To: /view/magazine

Now, let's block "Classic" view.

From: /view/classic
To: /view/magazine

And add more views to block, as required.

Test the redirections, in my test blog.

See it in operation, using my test blog. See if "Classic" or "Flipcard" work, for you.

From: /
To: /view/magazine

From: /view/classic
To: /view/magazine

From: /view/flipcard
To: /view/magazine

You can also remove the View menu, from the blog.

Besides redirecting specific views, you can remove the View Menu from Dynamic Views. Use "Add CSS" in Template Designer, and add a rule.

#views {
display: none;
}

Be aware of one need with the "Add CSS" wizard.

As always, if there is a rule in the "Add CSS" window, add a blank line preceding / following this new rule!

Otherwise this tweak will require a bit more work.

Many Blogger features are dependent upon other features. This tweak will not work, with the sidebar tweaked to not hide itself.