Jump Break Is Visible Only In An Index Page

Some blog owners are unsure what a Jump Break looks like, when applied to their blogs.

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, we see the confusion.

Where's the Jump Break?

or

I added a Jump Break to several posts, but it never shows up!

When asked for a screen print of what they're seeing, they may provide a image of the post, in the Post Editor Preview window - or possibly, the published post, but in post page view.

Jump Break is visible in one type of display - index view.

• An Archive retrieval list.
• A Label search list.
• Main page display.

Jump Break does not show up in post page view - or in any Preview display.


Now, you see it (or don't see it).

Now, you don't see it.
Jump Break provides a snippet of a post - when displayed in a post list. When the "Read More" caption is clicked, the post page, scrolled to the Jump Break, is displayed.

Unlike many "Read More" blog accessories, "Jump Break" is added to each post, one post at a time.

• Jump Break does not require extra JavaScript code.
• Jump Break can break precisely at the end of sentences or paragraphs.

The break itself is only visible, in the index page - and it's visible there, because "Read More" shows up, in place of the rest of the post - after it is properly added to the post. If you're looking for a logo in the post, "Here's a Jump Break!", you'll look in vain.

Account Recovery Is No Good With Legacy Accounts

Supported legacy account migration ended in 2012 - after many years of repeated warnings.

Blogger Engineering ended support based on unresolvable technical issues - and not without considerable deliberation.

For a number of technical and operational reasons, we’ve decided to finally end our support for migrating legacy accounts and blogs after December 5, 2011.

There were many technical details involved with "legacy" account migration, which prevented a more aggressive migration strategy.

Blogger Engineering having gone with a more permissive migration (migrate when you feel the need), this leaves a few Blogger "legacy" account owners unable to migrate.

The longer people leave their "legacy" accounts unmigrated, the more account owners will forget login details.

Trying to migrate a "legacy" account, when the account name and / or password is not known, is going to present a problem.

• Legacy account migration starts with a valid account name and password.
• Legacy account migration requires a valid Google account.
• Account / blog recovery only works with Blogger / Google accounts.

Legacy account migration starts with a valid account name and password.
The legacy account migration process starts with the account name and password. This is an essential, and intentional requirement.

If you are not the blog owner, you can't migrate the account. If you don't know the account name and password, you can't prove that you are the account owner.

Only accounts that need to be migrated can be migrated. If the Blogger account has already been migrated - or simply does not need migration - the owner may or may not receive appropriate advice.

Legacy account migration requires a valid Google account.
The purpose of migration is to associate any owned blogs with a current Google account. If you don't have a Google account, you setup a Blogger / Google account, when you migrate.

Account / blog recovery only works with Blogger / Google accounts.
The "backup" email address, for an account recovery, is most reliable when used with a Blogger / Google account.

A Blogger / Google account starts with an account name that is predictably based on an email address - though the email address may, or may not, exist.

A Legacy account allowed use of any desired account name - and may or may not have used a genuine backup email address. Some Blogger account owners may have even used a bogus email address, intentionally.

If you have a "legacy" Blogger account, the recovery process will try a GMail account, possibly based on the "account name" that you use. If you are not the owner of that GMail account, you can't receive the recovery email, and you can't recover account access.

The bottom line is bleak.
You may be unable to recover account access. If the blog is so old and owned by a legacy account, it may be unrecoverable.

You may have to let this one go. If you're trying to re use the blog, you may have to make a new blog, and merge the two blogs. If you're trying to delete the blog, that may simply not be possible.

All Blogs With Readers May Not Get Comments

Not every blog, that gets readers - or pageview counts - is going to get comments.

We see the disappointment, periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

I have received over 2,000 page views, but only close friends comment. Is there a setting or something that makes sense as to why I'm not receiving comments?

And yes, there are various settings, which may restrict your readers abilities to comment - but that may not be the only possible problem.

I can think of maybe 3 reasons why some blogs have pageview counts - but no comments.

1. Some readers can't comment.
2. Referer spammers don't comment.
3. Some readers won't comment.

Some readers can't comment.
If there are settings that you can check, they will fall under this category. If your blog is not properly setup to allow and to encourage comments, your readers, who might wish to comment, just won't be able to do so.

Referer spammers don't comment.
Some pageview counts do not represent real people. Referer spam represents fraudulent access and misuse of Blogger computers, to get return traffic.

People who publish referer spam are not reading your blog - and won't be commenting on your blog.

Some readers won't comment.
Some blogs, by design or by subject matter, just won't encourage comments. Readers will come and go - but simply will not feel the need to comment.

Comments should not be used as the primary measurement of reader activity or popularity. Actual visitor activity should be measured objectively, using one or more visitor logs or meters.

The bottom line.
Whatever you see, work on your blog, and work on getting more readers. If you have something to say, say it - comments, or no comments.

If you have silent readers, so be it. Next weeks new readers may be more communicative.

The Stats "Don't track ..." Option Is Still Unreliable

The Stats "Don't track ..." option continues to draw complaints.

Various blog owners have recently complained, anew, that the previously reported low level problem is now affecting their blogs. The two problems, though having a common primary symptom, appear to have different victim populations.

• The previous problem seemed to primarily affect custom domain published blogs, this problem may be BlogSpot only.
• This problem, according to a majority of the blog owners reporting, appears to have started during the last two to three weeks.

It may be wise, therefore, to treat this as a new problem.

Whenever Blogger code is changed, we see reports of problems from some filter, that's part of some security product, located on various computers.

Sometimes, the security products, updated automatically, detect problems with Blogger code - without any changes having been made by Blogger. There are dozens of different security products - each provided by a different company, and each updating their filters separately from the others.

It's not a given, unfortunately, that Blogger will be able to make any one change, to make this symptom go away - immediately, permanently, or universally. The last "Don't track" problem appears to have been replaced by this problem.

It would be wise to at least acknowledge several previous posts, discussing this issue.

• Make The Stats "Don't track ..." Option Work.
• Stats "Don't track ..." Option Does Not Work, Reliably.
• Stats And The "Don't track your own pageviews" Option.

We have a new Problem Rollup topic, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, where we are requesting details from everybody who is experiencing this problem.

---

(Update 8/2): Blogger Engineering suggests that this problem has been fixed - and several blog owners state the same. That does not mean that we will completely never again see

I can't get Stats to ignore my pageviews!

There will always be folks whose computers filter cookies, inappropriately.

---

Add A Custom Redirect, If You Change A Post URL

When you rename a blog, the most that you can do, to keep the old URL useful, is to setup a stub post, with a clickable link to the new URL.

Yo! The blog is now at xxxxxxx.blogspot.com!!

Blogger forbids gateway blogs, and similar blog to blog redirections.

When you rename a post, you can setup a custom redirect - and automatically redirect your readers to the post, under its new URL. You should take advantage of this option, if you change a post URL.

Whenever I rename a post, and anticipate a URL change, I add a clickable link to the old URL, in the post.

If you save the old URL, you can test the redirect, later.

The clickable link gives me the old post URL, so I can later add a custom redirect conveniently - plus, it lets me test the redirection, after it's added.

A little extra work produces a slightly more reliable renaming process.

Renaming a post becomes just slightly more complicated.

1. Edit a post, and save the current post URL, in a clickable link, in the post.
2. Save the post as Draft, using "Revert to draft".
3. Edit the post, and change the permalink, post date, and / or title.
4. Re publish the post.
5. Setup a custom redirect using the saved URL.
6. Test the custom redirect.
7. If you're like me, you will sleep just slightly better.

That's maybe an extra 5 minutes / post. How long might some readers take, before updating their bookmarks? How many unnecessary "404"s, from unsuccessful search engine indexing, can you prevent?

If you can change it, you can test it.

Keep your readers, the search engines, and you happier - setup and test a custom redirect, after you change the URL on any post, for any reason.

The Review / Restore Cycle Is A Learning Process

As Blogger continues to detect and remove more abusive blogs proactively, we're seeing a gradual shift from blatantly abusive blogs, to blogs that, 5 years ago, would not have been considered to be a problem.

The decrease in abusiveness has several results.

• It's harder and harder to casually decide if a given blog needs to be reviewed - and if it's likely to be restored.
• Blogs which are marginally - instead of blatantly - abusive are more likely to be subject to repeated classification and review.
• The owners become less patient with reviews, as they endure each successive review.

Which ever the possibilities for a given blog, when review is requested, this will require changes in the final review process.

The more times you have a blog repeatedly deleted, requiring repeated review, the more carefully review will be conducted.

Repeated reviews take longer - as the filters become better trained.

It will take longer to get a blog reviewed - and the owner will suffer the consequences. And the automated filters will become better trained.

This process will have benefits.

• The Blogger Policy Review team will learn, how to review classified blogs better.
• Blog owners will learn, how to produce informative, interesting, and unique blogs.

The Blogger Policy Review team will learn, how to review classified blogs.

Blogger Policy Review personnel have to keep up with increased internationalisation, and with expanding audiences for various blogs, and resulting easily offended blog reader populations. They have to become more sensitive to the issues of the blogs, and the reader populations, and review the blogs more thoroughly - yet take less time in conducting the reviews.

Blog owners will learn, how to produce informative, interesting, and unique blogs.

As a blog is repeatedly classified, reviewed, and restored, the blog owner will eventually observe what content is not appreciated, and will develop new sources for content. A blog with any future will become less marginally abusive - and will encourage less abusive content, in other blogs.

The long term result.

Eventually, abusive blogs will become rarer - and the lifetime of each abusive blog will become shorter. And Blogger will have less of a reputation as a abusive blog haven.

Wrapping Text Around A Photo

One of the neatest ways to combine photos (images, pictures) and text is to display a photo in the middle of the text.

It takes very little work to make text "flow" around a photo, or to wrap the text around the photo.

Working in HTML mode, it's easy to see the settings in the code, to make text flow around a photo.

Here's a section of my earlier post, Possible Resolution For The bX-w7tr63 Error, which contains wrappable text.


See how the text "flows" around the photo? That's such a simple task.


Here's the section, in more detail. See how the text floats, to the right of the photo? See how the following paragraph breaks?


All that you need, for text to flow from the right and under the photo, is for the photo to float to the left.

That's a selection in "Choose a layout", when you use "Insert image".


After the photo has been uploaded, just choose "Left", for "Image alignment".

I use "Medium" for "Image size", to make the photo readable, and leave room for the text - as you can see here.


And here, we have the code section, with the photo uploaded, and inserted properly.

Blogger Engineering is testing some fixes, in Draft Blogger, that may resolve some of the more common causes of this ubiquitous error code.
<br /><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsjsAISjp-ENJsBGAVkJT7wb-E-MoDHSksWzJ-92e8OiCa4kc0wtrhCQilQtUCzbrFCGe3hypLpWTomAh3ab0WuElKMix6U0Db0r3Ra3ePws_TuEYmFykPZCXpyDIEERurX2FY9c0A2UIu/s1600/bX-w7tr63.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsjsAISjp-ENJsBGAVkJT7wb-E-MoDHSksWzJ-92e8OiCa4kc0wtrhCQilQtUCzbrFCGe3hypLpWTomAh3ab0WuElKMix6U0Db0r3Ra3ePws_TuEYmFykPZCXpyDIEERurX2FY9c0A2UIu/s320/bX-w7tr63.png" /></a><br />This is one of the most persistent error codes, being reported in the forums.*<br /><br />
If you are affected by a w7tr63 problem, you may first try temporarily using <a href="http://draft.blogger.com/home" target="_blank">the Draft Blogger dashboard</a>.<br /><br />If you only use "draft.blogger.com" temporarily, you can return to a normal state, by using "www.blogger.com", any time you wish.
<br /><br clear=left />
If you try Draft Blogger, and decide that it is helping you, you can <a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2007/07/draft-blogger-next-frontier.html">select "Make Draft Blogger my default"</a>, and your normal login will redirect to Draft Blogger.  In that case, you can <a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2014/03/getting-out-of-draft-blogger.html">de select "Make Draft Blogger my default"</a>, to return to normal Blogger, if you ever need.

There are two key code phrases, seen above.

float: left;

is part of the photo link.

<br clear=left />

follows the text that you wish to display at the upper right of the photo.

Then, just follow

<br clear=left />

with the rest of the post.

Photo Quality Is Sometimes Degraded By Hosting

We see occasional signs of concern, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, about photo quality in Blogger.

I take high quality pictures with my camera - and when I edit them, using various platforms, they still have the same quality. But the second I upload them to my Blogger post, the quality gets really bad.

This is a very civilised comment, not all are so objective.

Photo quality has been a concern, for years. There are so many ways photos can be degraded, once they hit the Internet.

Photo quality can be compromised, in various ways - and we see differences between a typical photo, as it comes out of the camera, and how it is displayed, as part of a Blogger blog.

• Aspect ratio.
• Compression / encoding technique.
• Hosting service.
• Resolution.
• Sizing.

Aspect ratio.

Any time a photo is resized, the aspect ratio may change. Any change in aspect ratio can affect photo quality. Some changes will be more noticeable than others.

An image that is originally taken with a 3 x 5 aspect ratio will look different, if resized to 4 x 7. A 3 x 5 aspect could be possibly resized (and re compressed) to a 6 x 5 - or a 3 x 10 - since "3 x 5", "6 x 5", and "3 x 10" are integral multiples of each other. A 4 x 7, on the other hand, will produce resizing artifacts, more obvious than the other three.

Compression / encoding technique.

".bmp", ".jpg", "png" are all going to store photos differently. A photo created as a ".bmp" will look different if displayed as a ".png".

Converting from one format to another will produce conversion artifacts.

Hosting service.

Different hosting services will add their own photo degradation factors, and differing aspect ratios, compression / encoding, and resolutions. Not everybody will use Blogger post editor, and Google / Picasa hosting.

Flickr, Instagram, PhotoBucket, and many others will all have their own oddities - and produce image degradation.

The Google+ "Auto Enhance" feature was not welcomed by all serious photographers, who use Blogger and / or Google+. Other hosting services may have their own "tweaks".

Blogger / Picasa has their own oddities. Blogger uses a special photo library, which resizes a given photo when displayed - to serve multiple thumbnail sizes, plus the "full" size, of each photo.

Little icons / watermarks, added by the various hosting services, will compromise photo quality. PhotoBucket, Pinterest, and others may add little icons.

Resolution.

Some images, with reduced resolution, won't ever look the same. A 16MP resolution in the camera, just will not look as crisp in Blogger, using 4MP. Some compromise, to reflect the reality of limited bandwidth suffered by your readers, is always going to be necessary.

Photos displayed on the Internet won't be identical to photos hosted by you, on your local camera / computer combination, in your home or office.

Sizing.

Blogger has a special photo library, which gives us multiple dynamic thumbnail sizes - plus the full size, linked from the thumbnail displayed in the post.

1. Small (200 x 200).
2. Medium (320 x 320).
3. Large (400 x 400).
4. X-Large (640 x 640).
5. Full size (1600 x 1600).

A photo that starts out in a size that is not a precise mathematical multiple of any of the 4 sizes, when resized and added to the Blogger / Picasa photo libraries, is going to show artifacts. The artifacts will be seen as "poor quality".

Small - 200 x 200 px.

Medium - 320 x 320 px.

We see Large - 400 x 400 px, X-Large - 640 x 640 px, and XX-Large - 1024 x 1024 px, below.

If resizing involves a larger size than initially provided, you'll see blurring and pixellation. If a smaller size, then random irregularities - some you may not realise - but they will be present. The less integral the change in "aspect ratio", the more degraded quality of the photo.

The full picture.

If you publish your photos (images, pictures) on Blogger (Google Photos, Picasa), and various non Google services, be prepared for some compromise in "quality". The more times you copy, upload, download, etc, the more chances for "degraded quality".

Blog Owners Can't Always Re Publish Deleted Posts

Even after being able to find a deleted post in cache, and retrieve the BlogID / PostID, some blog owners may find themselves unable to restore a deleted post.

Until Blogger gives us an actual recycle bin / trash can for deleted pages and posts, some deleted pages and posts just may not be re publishable. It appears that all deleted content is not retained consistently, similar to the legendary "90 days" for deleted blogs.

If you are able to retrieve PageID / PostID, and to retrieve page or post content in a post editor window, you at least have the page / post content.

If you can recover the text, you can publish a new post.

Open a new tab or window in the browser, and hit "New page" / "New post". Copy the content, from the deleted content page / post editor, and paste into this page / post editor window. Then Publish.

You'll end up with a new page / post, but the same content. That saves you 99% of the work.

Having re published the text in another post, setup a custom redirect.

Having created a new page or post from the retrieved content, setup a custom redirect, from the deleted URL, to the new URL. You won't have the same URL, for the deleted page / post - but the URL of the deleted page / post will continue to work, redirected.

This will not, unfortunately, recover comments - they are gone.

This will, regrettably, do nothing to restore comments posted to the deleted page / post. Neither Blogger nor Google+ hosted comments will be recovered, if the deleted page / post can't be re published.

Don't just delete - use "revert to draft" first!

And until Blogger gives us an actual recycle bin / trash can for deleted pages and posts, don't just delete! Always Save as Draft, when taking a page or post offline.

Account / Blog Recovery Standards Should Be Tighter

As account / blog hijack activity remains non zero, Blogger Engineers should continue to tighten down the account / blog recovery process.

Some unhappy ex blog owners (or would be blog thieves?) insist that Blogger recovery standards are too strict, and need to be eased back, a bit. My suspicion is that, as long as thieves are able to steal blogs, with impunity, Blogger recovery standards are too lenient - not overly strict.

As long as thieves are successful, security is not tight enough.

Recovery procedures have to keep the wrong people out of our accounts.

The reason for having proper recovery procedures is to limit account / blog recovery to the actual account / blog owners - and to not give blog thieves the ability to hijack peoples Blogger accounts and blogs. Balanced security, IMHO, should be proportional to

Number of people requiring to retain control of their blogs / Number of people desiring to recover control of their blogs.

This proportion should be carefully observed, until

Number of blog thieves able to steal peoples blogs = 0.

If you maintain access to your account, you won't be here.

If you have lost control of your blog, by failing to remember the password - and you recently changed jobs, dropped your phone into the toilet, got a new computer or different Internet service - we are very sorry for your misfortune. That said, your inability to access your blog is caused by your negligence - not by overly strict security.

If you remember your account name and password, and you use Google 2-Step Verification, you are probably not reading this - you are busy working on your blog.

People who maintain their access properly are not here, looking for a way in.

The millions of blog owners who are working on their blogs do not care about the hundreds of ex blog owners who forgot their password, and can't recover because of anal Blogger security. They are busy, working on their blogs.

And, they are thankful that Blogger keeps their needs in mind, in balancing recovery security - so they can keep working on their blogs. Blogger supports active customers - and this is proper business practice.

Be Safe - Save Posts As Draft, Before You Delete!

One of the easiest disasters, that you can make with a Blogger blog, is to delete a post.

Every week, we see the anguish, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

I deleted my post, by mistake. How do I get it back?

It's so easy to just hit "Yes", instinctively, after you hit "Delete" - and once it's done, you're done.

Unlike many computer processes, Blogger has no recycle bin / trash can, for deleted pages or posts. Hit delete, then "Yes" - and it's gone, Jim. But maybe, not.

Until Blogger gives us a trash can, for pages and posts, use the Draft list as a trash can.

When you get rid of a page or post, don't Delete - Save as Draft. You can look at the Draft list, any time, with one more mouse click.

With 2 more mouse clicks, you can Delete everything in Draft. Or, you can scan down the list, one by one, make sure, and delete selectively. Better yet, just leave posts as Draft.

Just find one post, in Draft, that should not be there.

OMG, I'm not deleting that one!

You can recover, from Draft, easily enough (though with a post you will want to check the date, before you re publish).

Re publishing from Draft will be so much easier than the uncertainly of trying to recover a deleted post, from cache. And of course seldom finding a deleted page, anywhere.

You'll thank me, later.

Blogger Magic - Adding A Pages Index

One of the most versatile ways to organise a blog is by using a Pages index.

Long ago, the only possibility, for indexing a blog attractively, was a horizontal table, with manually added links. We called it a horizontal menu bar. Alternately, a vertical linklist might be used.

Then Blogger added static pages - and later, the Pages index gadget.

Adding a Pages index is not difficult.

1. Use the Layout wizard, and "Add a Gadget", to add the Pages gadget.
2. Edit the Pages gadget, and use "Configure Page List" to activate and add pages.
3. Position the new gadget in the Tabs section.
4. Add content to the blog - and to the gadget.
5. Add special pages to the blog - and to the gadget.

Use the Layout wizard, and "Add a Gadget".

In the dashboard Layout wizard, click on "Add a Gadget". Select "Pages", from "Basics".

Use "Add a Gadget" - and select "Pages".



Edit the Pages gadget, and use "Configure Page List".

The new gadget will open as "Configure Page List". If you have already created static pages, you can enable them here, using "Pages to show". If not, just hit "OK".

Position the new gadget in the Tabs section.

To use the Pages gadget as a horizontal link bar, you will want it positioned in the "crosscol" section of Layout. If it's not properly positioned, grab the new gadget using the handle at the left end, and re position the gadget into "crosscol".

With a standard Blogger template, only "crosscol" will display Pages horizontally. All other sections will show Pages as a standard vertical linklist.

Add content to the blog - and to the gadget.

Now, get busy and add content to the blog.

You can use a Pages gadget, with many different blog (or website) elements.

• Archive (date relevant) retrievals.
• Direct searches.
• External and internal single post links.
• Indexed searches.
• Label (category / keyword relevant) searches.
• Professional documents and other externally hosted files.
• Static pages.

All of these types of content can be indexed, using a Pages gadget - and the dynamic retrievals and searches can present blog data in exciting ways.

Add special pages to the blog - and to the gadget.

You can make a special Home page - either a static home page - or a selected posts home page. And you can display the content as one or more special pages.

The Popular Posts Gadget Is Broken

This month, we have numerous reports of problems with the Popular Posts gadget, and its size being out of control.

Some blog owners cannot get their gadgets to display as many as entries are selected - while others have more entries displayed, then are selected. And some report differing success with displaying "Last 7 days", or "Last 30 days", as opposed to "All time".

One forum helper has suggested a CSS tweak, which may help in some cases - but not consistently.

If you look at the bottom of the sidebar, in this blog, you will see the Popular Posts gadget there.

Please count the number of entries, in the gadget.


I count 7 entries displayed. But the wizard shows 10 selected.

One forum suggestion suggests a workaround for the problem, using an added CSS rule.

Add a CSS rule, to the template, adjusted for how many entries you wish to be displayed.

.PopularPosts ul li:nth-child(n+6){display:none;}

The above rule will limit the display to 5 entries - when more than 5 entries are displayed. I don't think it will increase the number displayed.

How do you code that, to get 10 entries, when only 7 are available?

.PopularPosts ul li:nth-child(n+11){display:none;}

I don't think that will accomplish anything. I wonder if this is related to the problem with deleted posts and the Popular Posts gadget, reported earlier this month?

Anyway, Blogger Engineers are aware of the problem. So, we'll just have to be patient.

---

(Update 7/20, 10:00): Blogger Engineering has developed a fix for the problem - and the fix should be in place within 24 - 48 hours.

---

Possible Resolution For The bX-w7tr63 Error

One of the more irritating Blogger problem codes is seen a lot by people who use some versions of Internet Explorer (and oddly, by some users of Chrome and Firefox).

I keep getting this, any ideas??

Whoops, that's an error! (bX-w7tr63)

Recently, we see the suggestion, that there is an end in sight.

Blogger Engineering is testing some fixes, in Draft Blogger, that may resolve some of the more common causes of this ubiquitous error code.


This is one of the most persistent error codes, being reported in the forums.

If you are affected by a w7tr63 problem, you may first try temporarily using the Draft Blogger dashboard.

If you only use "draft.blogger.com" temporarily, you can return to a normal state, by using "www.blogger.com", any time you wish.

If you try Draft Blogger, and decide that it is helping you, you can select "Make Draft Blogger my default", and your normal login will redirect to Draft Blogger. In that case, you can de select "Make Draft Blogger my default", to return to normal Blogger, if you ever need.

Note as always, that Draft Blogger is a testing environment - and should be used, selectively.

Given the importance of the bX-w7tr63 problems, that's hopefully all that is currently being tested in Draft. Most likely, Blogger Engineering will test the specific fixes, then move those fixes to Production Blogger - and hopefully, will let us know when their fixes are given production status.

Customise The "Robots.Txt" File, For Your Blog

The file "Robots.Txt", used to manage search engine access to your blog, is found in the blog root folder.

You can't edit "Robot.Txt" directly - but you can upload a new file. Long ago, you would use Webmaster Tools - which is now called Search Console.

Now, we can update "robots.txt" directly, using the Blogger dashboard "Custom robots.txt" wizard, in Settings - "Search preferences".

Here's the link to the "Robots.Txt" file, for this blog.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/robots.txt

To view / copy the current contents, just click on the link. You can do the same with the file, for your blog.

If I want to change the file for this blog, I start with the current file. Excepting one small detail, your file will be identical - if you have not tweaked it.

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow: 

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Allow: /

Sitemap: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml

Let's look at a simple example - adding a sitemap.

Some people would like to index the static pages, in their blog. That's a simple enough task - just add the sitemap, for static pages, to your file.

"sitemap-pages.xml", like "sitemap.xml", is automatically generated for each blog.

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow: 

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Allow: /

Sitemap: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/sitemap-pages.xml

Start from Settings - Search preferences.



Start with an empty ("[Disabled]") "Custom robots.txt".




Click on "Edit".




Click on "Yes".




Paste in your edited file content.

Note that you will overlay the current contents with what you paste - so paste the entire file, as you wish to have.





Click on "Save changes". And, you're done.




Right now, though, I don't want to change my file. So, I'll leave my custom file in the wizard, and click on "No".




And the custom file is
"[Disabled]", again.




Even if disabled, I can get it back again, easily enough. Just click on "Yes", and there it is, again. For right now, though, I'll leave it
"[Disabled]".


Just be aware of the dangers of editing, without knowing what effect a given entry has, on search engine activity. Remember that you can get the default file back, with a couple mouse clicks.

Plan Before Starting Blogger Account Control Recovery

Too many would be blog owners (blog thieves?) complain how unhelpful Blogger is - and even, that Blogger is fraudulently denying them access to their Blogger account, and their blogs.

They fail to acknowledge that Blogger / Google has a responsibility to millions of blog owners, who remember their login details - and who do not want thieves stealing their blogs.

If you need assistance recovering control of your account and your blog(s), you need to help Blogger to help you. Prepare to provide proof that you are (should be) the account owner.

Plan the recovery process, before you start.

1. Do the research - compile your history, based on email archives.
2. Identify previously used browsers and computers - in the normal location.
3. Prepare the accounts - re activate / recover non Google services.
4. Use the tools, supplied by Blogger / Google.

Do the research.
Spend some time extracting details, from your email archives - and from your friends email archives. Compile timelines, describing what Google services you used, and when.

Be prepared, for questions asked when you use the recovery tools.

Identify previously used browsers and computers.
If you most recently or predominately used Firefox on a Windows laptop, located at your home in Florida, USA, for publishing your blog or reading email, try to use that browser on that computer, from that location.

If you are visiting your friends in New York, USA, and use your laptop, plan to provide more proof that you are the rightful account owner. If you use their guest computer with Safari, provide still more proof.

If you are in a coffee shop in Nigeria or Ukraine, using the Konqueror browser on a computer running Linux and need to recover your account, be prepared to provide a lot more proof.

Prepare the accounts.
If your recovery is based on a non Google email address, make sure that address is active - and that you know what it is and can access the Inbox. When Google emails you a password reset token, you need to be able to receive the token.

Don't post in the forum.

I need to recover my account - but the non Google email address is dormant - and I don't know what it is! Why doesn't Google help me?

Help Google to help you. Have an active email address, ready and waiting.

Use the tools, supplied by Blogger / Google.
Use the tools.

• Blogger "Forgot?".
• Google "Having trouble?".

Blogger isn't just going to hand you control of your account and blogs (or my account and blogs), blindly. The people who use Blogger, confident that Blogger won't give an unknown (ie, you) control of their Blogger account, depend upon responsible verification procedure, by Blogger / Google.

Blogger Magic - Make A Static Main Page

Some blog owners want to publish posts, and display a static main page - and want to view blog content, in one or more tabbed pages.

It's not difficult to create the tabbed pages. The difficulty would come, long ago, when setting up the main page. We had several workarounds for making a static main page - none of them equally easy to use, effective, and elegant.

Then, Blogger created Custom Redirects - and gave us static main pages, that are easy to use, effective, and elegant.

Like a selected posts main page, it's not difficult to publish a blog with a static main page.

1. Create and publish a static page, with appropriate content.
2. Setup a custom redirect, for the Home page to the static page.
3. Link to the blog posts.
4. Add content.

Create and publish a static page.

Use the Page Editor, and create a static page, containing what you like. Use "Configure Page List", if you like, and change the "Home" caption.

Redirect the main page to the new static page.

Add a custom redirect, that targets the static page just added.

From: /
To: /p/Home.html

Link to the blog posts.

Make the static home page part of the blog - and make the rest of the blog accessible.

Add content, to the blog.

Having setup your pages, dynamic and static, publish posts, to "Blog" and to any other labels. That's why you build (dynamic) pages, using label searches.

Authors Cannot Use The Stats "Don't track ..." Option

Just as with a single owner blog, one would not want to count owner activity in Stats - with a team blog, one may not want to count team activity.

Authors, like Administrators, need to use the option "Don't track my pageviews", to avoid Stats recording their activity as a visitor. Unfortunately, the "Don't track ..." setting wizard is part of the Stats dashboard page - and is accessible only to blog administrators.

A team member may be able to perform the action of the "Don't track ..." wizard - even if unable to access the dashboard page.

Just add a cookie, manually, on each browser on each computer, where you need to prevent pageviews from being counted. And make sure that browser security does not improperly block cookie access.

Please remember that, should you ever clear cookies in the browser in question, the Stats "Don't track ..." cookie will need to be re applied, by each author who uses that browser, on that computer.

And keep the issue in proper perspective. Don't become legally entangled.

You Cannot Index Label Searches, Productively

The subject of indexing of label searches comes up, from time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger.

I want the label content to appear, in search engine hit lists.

Some blog owners cannot understand what gets indexed, by the search engines.

Label searches are not unique content - and should not be indexed. Posts are content - and posts are best indexed, as post pages - directly from the automatically generated sitemap.

Post content indexed both using a normal post page URL, and using one (or many) label search URLs, will be detected as duplicated content.

Duplicated content penalties will be applied to content simultaneously indexed using both label search URLs, and post page URLs. We've seen this happen - and it was not a time of enjoyment, for many blog owners.

A few months after labels were added to our blogs, in 2007, blog owners were complaining about lack of search engine activity. Blogger blog owners, in massive amounts, reported that page rank had dropped to zero - and search engines had stopped indexing their posts.

Investigation revealed that Blogger blogs, with newly added label search indexes, were being indexed twice - one using the normal, post page URLs, and a second, using the label search URLs. Blogs with multiple labels / post were rampantly indexed.

And all of the indexing was for nothing. Why? Because the search engines were detecting the duplicated indexing - and applying penalties to both the post page indexed content, and the label search indexed content. And nobody was happy.

Blogger Engineering installed an emergency update, to our "Robots.Txt" files.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Allow: /

Since a label search has the URL "/search/label/whatever", "Disallow: /search" blocks obedient robots from searching, using label search URLs - and "Allow: /" permits all other access.

And there we are. Everybody who understands search engine indexing leaves the "Robots.Txt" code intact, and publishes informative, interesting, and unique content.

If you wish, you may remove that portion - or any other portion - of your file. It's your blog, and your file.

However, if you do remove the necessary entries, and you come later to Blogger Help, or maybe Webmaster Central, complaining of reduced search engine activity, or of no visitors, you'll be instructed to restore to a standard "Robots.Txt" file. And, to spend more time publishing content, in your blog.

The Infamous "bX" Codes Are Simply Diagnostic Tools

One subject of mystery, in Blogger lore, concerns the infamous "bX" codes.

One forum personality, long ago, compiled a blog listing several hundred known codes, and their supposed "diagnoses" - and would later use the blog as a reference, when advising how to solve a given "bX problem". That same person showed complete lack of understanding, in a single sentence.

It's disheartening to see that the bx error code problems are still existing.

The "bX" codes are not problems - they are simply symptoms of problems, identified using a canonical code structure.

In many cases, a "bX" code is simply a case of a Blogger Engineer trying to understand why one section of code is now, magically, causing another section of code to become active.

One of the most intriguing system problems, that I ever worked on, long ago, involved a hospital medical ordering system - and a doctor from Eastern Europe, who instinctively typed a "," when a "." was needed, when he was ordering medications for patients. Computer processes are very syntax sensitive - and a computer system that uses "," to separate sections of data from other sections of data, is going to have a problem with an unexpected ",", where a "." is expected.

To diagnose the problem, I had to keep the entire system (for a 1,000 bed hospital) offline for an hour, while I scanned the "console log", character by character, analysing the transaction that caused the problem. Discovering the cause of the problem required identifying this one doctor, recently arrived from Eastern Europe - and an obscure detail, knowing that people in Eastern Europe write numbers with "," and "." interchanged.

Blogger code is very complex, by necessity - from having to support people using different browsers with out of date versions - to having to support people who "confuse" syntactically essential "." and "," characters, and may write dates differently. And, Blogger code is in use on a 60 x 60 x 24 x 7 x 56 basis.

There is not one second in a 24 hour day, of a 365 (or 366) day year, that the Blogger service could ever be taken offline, worldwide, to diagnose one single "bX" related problem - let alone an entire hour, as was how the unexpected "," was diagnosed, so long ago.

That being the case, diagnosis of many Blogger problems starts with a very distributed and structured "console log", and "bX" diagnostic details. And that is all that many "bX" codes are - structured indexes into the Blogger code base, which are referenced by entries in the diagnostic logs.

There is no magic or mystery here, really. Just standard IT industry practice.

Scribfire Is Another Victim Of The OAuth Upgrade

It appears that Scribfire is one more third party product, that needs upgrading to use OAuth 2.0 authentication.

We have a report in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

I use Scribefire to post to my blogs. It works fine with WordPress, but I have not been able to set it up with my Blogger Blog.

And later,

I have already enabled the "Less secure apps" option. Still no go.

This blog owner is patiently trying to diagnose a problem, over which neither he nor we have any control.

Apparently, the "Less secure apps" option only works for apps which have been updated to OAuth 2.0, for client login.

The "Less secure apps" option, in Google Accounts, simply appears to complement the use of OAuth 2.0. That option was provided, with an emergency upgrade to Microsoft Windows Live Writer, made jointly by Blogger and Microsoft engineers, last month.

Apps which have not been updated, to support the Blogger upgrade to OAuth 2.0, won't work - apparently even with a blog owner using "Less secure apps".

The ScribFire website appears to have been last updated a year ago - so the app may or may not be actively supported. The Home page does provide a possibly useful link.

If you are a ScribFire to Blogger user, you should try the link, and see if you get results. Otherwise, you may have to find another way to use Blogger.

The Many Followers Features Have Their Own Counts

We see regular signs of confusion, about the various Followers communities, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

My blog still shows 0 Followers. I know this is not correct - because I am one, at a different email address, and so are friends and family.

This blog owner does not understand the differences between the communities, and following options.

Blogger provides several features, which let our blogs be followed, read, and subscribed.

• Follow by email subscription.
• Follow using Followers / Google Friend Connect.
• Follow using Google+ Followers.
• Follow using a newsfeed subscription / Reading List.

Given the necessary identities, anybody can Follow a blog, using any or all of the above choices. None of them are restricted.

This blog offers all four choices - as do many blogs. Some people will take advantage of one - others all four, and some in other combinations. All choices are valid, as individually useful.

Subscribe using email.

There are multiple ways to subscribe, by email, to the comments and to the posts, in this blog.

Looking in the sidebar, under "Subscribe to Me", you will find a link Subscribe to The Real Blogger Status by Email - which lets you use a FeedBurner Email Subscription. In the top right margin, you'll see an "envelope" icon - and this is a second "Follow by email" offering.

Join my Blogger Followers / Google Friend Connect community.

If you like your picture being seen by thousands, you can join my (Blogger) Followers community, using the "Follow Me" sidebar gadget. Doing this, you will also gain a Reading List entry, and the newsfeed from my posts feed. And joining this community - and only this community - bumps the dashboard counter.


Who is Follower #5,266? Who is Follower #1?

Examine my Followers gadget, for both answers!

Join my Google+ Followers community.

If you have a Google+ account, you can join my Google+ Followers community, using the "+Follow Me" sidebar gadget. This will give you the opportunity to read my Google+ shares in your Google+ stream (as you like) - and again, you can have your picture seen by thousands (yeah four or five anyway).

Subscribe using a newsfeed.

If you have a newsfeed reader - Reading List or similar - you can read my posts newsfeed. If you use Reading List, and add this blog using the "Add" button, you may choose to follow publicly or anonymously.

If you choose to follow publicly, you again get the opportunity to be seen by thousands. If publicity is not your goal, you may follow anonymously - and not even I will be able to know your presence. If you follow this blog using a third party newsfeed reader, this will similarly produce an anonymous subscription.

Email and Newsfeed subscriptions have multiple options.

Not everybody knows this - but both email and newsfeed subscriptions give you a cornucopia of choices. Besides the blog posts feed, you can have a blog comments feed, a per post comments feed, and even a label driven posts feed. And using FeedBurner, you can make your own email feed, using any newsfeed.

Don't jump all over yourselves, subscribing - but you can, if you are interested, follow / subscribe this blog - and many others - in dozens of different ways - both in choice of content, and of medium.

---

Of Many Followers Features, Each Have Its Own Count
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2015/07/of-many-followers-features-each-have.html

The Many Followers Features Have Their Own Counts

Please, NEVER Share Your Domain Account!

Along with access to your Blogger dashboard, access to your domain dashboard is a sensitive issue.

The domain dashboard, also known as the "zone editor", provides control of the domain, as the Blogger dashboard provides control of the blog. The EPP Code, which allows domain ownership transfer, is generally retrieved using the zone editor.

And, there are other zone editor features that you, the blog and domain owner, do not want being misused by another person.

We tell blog owners to never give someone else use of your Blogger account - and this same advice is equally essential for your domain account. This is part of your relationship with your registrar - and it is your property, alone.

Someone, who is not you, able to gain access to your domain dashboard, could do any of several things.

• Change the DNS addresses, to point to their website.
• Change the email address, for the domain account.
• Retrieve the EPP code, and transfer ownership of the domain.
• Change the password, for the domain account.

Change the DNS addresses, to point to their website.

In general, changing the DNS addresses should result in an alert.

You're about to be redirected!

I would not bet on this happening, consistently, though. Depending upon how the destination of a DNS change is routed, it's possible that your readers would first report the problem.

I'm not seeing your blog, just a faceful of ads!

or worse

My ISP just froze my service, claiming I'm spitting out excessive, malicious traffic!

Who knows what a hacker could do, given control of your DNS settings?

Change the email address, for the domain account.

Some registrars provide an easy to use email address change wizard. This could affect your ability to reset the password, and to retrieve and use the EPP code.

Retrieve the EPP code, and transfer ownership of the domain.

Many registrars provide access to the EPP code, to enable convenient and easy transfer of the domain, to another registrar. A hacker, using the EPP code, could transfer ownership of your domain.

Like a blog ownership transfer by a former friend, you probably would not be able to recover control of your former domain.

Change the password, for the domain account.

If someone changed the password on the domain account, you would be unable to login. If he also changed the email address, you would be unable to recover control, and he would have control of the domain.

Use common sense - do not share your domain account.

I suspect that you would appreciate none of these events, were this to happen to your domain. That should give you reason to never share your domain account.

Push The Limits, Add Content, See More Problems

Some blog owners keep coming back, requesting review, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

My blog has been deleted and restored, repeatedly. Last time, after Blogger unblocked my blog, I received this email

....Upon further review we have determined that your blog was mistakenly marked as a TOS violator by our automated system and, as such, we have reinstated your blog...

That was just last month. This month, the same thing, my blog is gone again.

This blog owner is failing to read the handwriting on the wall.

Unfortunately, to have any future, a blog requires continual new material.

With a blog that is borderline acceptable, it's only natural that some people will complain about its content.

Both old and new readers may object to new or previously published content.

As the readership for a blog increases, new readers may object to old material in the blog. And, as new material is added, both old and new readers may object.

Both old and new material, and old and new readers, will cause the status of the blog to cycle - from borderline acceptable, to abusive, and back to borderline acceptable. And the blog will require repeated review.

For a blog to be useful, new content - and new readers - must be added.

Unfortunately, if a blog is to continue, you have to add new material. More new material, again, produces more exposure to complaints.

And as a blog gains exposure to the world, you should expect to get new readers. New readers, again, produces more exposure to complaints.

Each time a blog is reviewed, the review process becomes more labourious.

And as a blog is repeatedly classified as abusive, and review is requested, Blogger Policy Review has to look at it more carefully - and that takes longer in each successive review cycle. They don't want to keep looking at the same material, over and over, like Sisyphus.

The repeated review cycle will not continue, forever. Eventually, one of two results will take place.

• Blogger Policy Review will decline to continue to examine it, again. The blog will remain deleted.
• The owner will tire of repeated abuse classifications, and will move the blog, to different hosting.

Either way, the blog will have to start over - in a new hosting service. And if the move is forced by Blogger declining to continue, the Blogger blog will remain deleted, and the content will be unavailable for transfer.

Blogger Magic - Republishing A Custom Domain, 2015

Sometimes, you have to re publish your blog, to the domain.

Maybe, you want to change the BlogSpot or domain URL, or change the blog - or maybe the previous publishing did not complete, properly. If the blog is currently published to a non BlogSpot URL, you can't just publish it, again. You have to start by publishing the blog back to a BlogSpot URL, before you can again publish the blog to a non BlogSpot URL.

Given the right planning, and understanding of the tasks involved, you can do all of this in a couple minutes - less time than it will probably take you to read these instructions.

Just read through the procedure, so you don't click on the wrong links - and get started.

Don't start, without righteous DNS addresses. Correct the addresses before you start, for a better chance of success.

If the blog is currently published to BlogSpot, you won't have an "X" to click on. If you do not see something like

nitecruzr-test-couk.blogspot.com redirects

you are wasting time with the first two steps, here. Skip to Step #3.

Get started.




1. Just start - click on the "X".







2. A safety step, recently added. Click on "OK".


OK, you're halfway done. The blog is now published back to BlogSpot.

If you were recently advised to "Click on the "X"" - or you decided, on your own, to publish back to BlogSpot - you are now done. If not, continue.



If you are starting with the blog currently published to BlogSpot, you start, here.

3. In this example, we're working outside Google Domains, so click on "Setup a 3rd party URL".

4. Enter the domain URL (here, we have "www.nitecruzr.co.uk"). Select the redirect ("Redirect nitecruzr.co.uk to www.nitecruzr.co.uk"), and hit "Save".







5. And, we're back where we started - except hopefully, with a better working blog and domain.



And now, get back to work on the domain - and on publishing content, to the blog.

---

Blogger Magic - Make A Selected Posts Main Page

Some blog owners want to publish posts, and have a dynamic main page - but want to restrict specific posts to a tabbed page.

Having created a tabbed page with specific posts, the next question would be

But how do I keep those posts off my main page?

And long ago, there was no good answer for this question.

Then, Blogger gave us the Custom Redirects feature.

Similar to a blog with a static main page, you can publish a blog and make the main page display a select group of posts.

1. Publish some posts to the "Blog" label.
2. Publish some posts to the "Home" label.
3. Redirect the main page to the "Home" label search.

Just identify which posts you want, on each page.

Publish posts to the "Blog" label.

This is simply the process of setting up a blog, within your blog.

Publish posts to the "Home" label.

Make the "Blog" and "Home" pages complement each other. Identify which posts you want visible, on the main page, using the "Home" label.

Redirect the main page to the "Home" label search.

Add a custom redirect, that references the "Home" label search.

From: /
To:  /search/label/Home

Publish content.

And finally, publish more posts, to "Blog" and to "Home". That's why you build pages, using label searches.

Blogger Magic - Reset The Post Template, 2015

In 2010, we learned about the mysterious Post Template - and the problems that can be caused, when it is corrupt or out of date.

We developed magical ways of correcting the problems.

• Revert the widget templates.
• Reset the post template.
• Add or tweak specific template code.

It's now 2015, and Blogger Engineering has rewritten the Template Editor, and given us new possibilities for correcting problems with the post template - and other gadgets.

Long ago, the Template Editor was a simple text editor.

Later, Blogger gave us the Template Editor with hidden code - and the ability to un hide the code ("Expand Widget Templates").

Blogger lets you expose or hide specific template sections.

Now, sections of the template are "folded" - and to see the detail, we must "un fold" specific sections of template code. Unfortunately, that's not the case for the Post Template.

Fortunately, they also gave us a simple reset wizard.


Start from the Template Editor. Select "Revert widget templates to default".



If the problem is with the comments or posts, select "Blog1", and hit "Revert selected widgets".


You can reset all gadgets - or select specific gadgets, at your convenience.

If the problem is with a specific gadget, select that gadget, instead of "Blog1". Or, you can try "Select all widgets". Just finish with "Revert selected widgets".

And, "Save template", then "Back". Clear cache, cookies, and sessions, restart the browser, and test your refreshed template.

Oh yeah, did you backup the template - before and after resetting Blog1? Please, be able to tell us "Yes", truthfully.