Some blog owners, possibly unaware of the recently added Country Code Top Level Domain Aliases, are seeing the aliases in their visitor logs / meters, and various non Google search engines - and are afraid that their blog has been hacked.
Those of us aware of the CC aliases, and how they are being used by Blogger, will understand that simply seeing a non canonical alias in our referer lists, in any search engine or visitor log / meter, is not an indication of malicious activity. People long used to seeing only "blogspot.com" and "google.com", and not yet experienced with the CC aliases, may become confused, however.
Blogger blogs owners with long established blogs that have audiences outside the USA are probably used to seeing all references to their blogs based on the canonical URL, such as "mybloggerblog.blogspot.com". Now that BlogSpot published blogs are being served using the CC aliases, in many countries outside the USA, the readers of BlogSpot published blogs are seeing each blog under non "blogspot.com" URLs in some search engines, and in many visitor logs and meters.
Most major search engines, which reference the "canonical" tag in the blog header, are aggregating all SERP entries to use the "blogspot.com" URLs. Our important search reputation is not being fragmented, such that readers in Australia provide reputation to "blogspot.com.au", readers in India provide reputation to "blogspot.in", readers in New Zealand provide reputation to "blogspot.co.nz", and so on. Every hit from every reader in every country still provides reputation to the canonical alias, "blogspot.com".
Some specialised search engines like Alexa, DMOZ, etc - and most visitor logs like SiteMeter, StatCounter, and Stats, may not be designed to reference the canonical tag. It's also possible that visitor logs, by their nature, should not aggregate CC aliases to the canonical URL - as the country code, relevant to the individual readers, may be important to some blog owners.
Until the use of the canonical tag, and the CC aliases to our readers, becomes mature, it's possible that we will see various oddities like a perceived problem with Alexa, SiteMeter, or StatCounter. It's likely that not all Internet services will ever reference the canonical tag consistently, and aggregate all statistics and visitor demographics, canonically.
Given the latter probability, this may be yet one more reason why Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken may never go out of business.
My SiteMeter logs show that I've had incoming traffic from "mybloggerblog.blogspot.in". Clicking on one of the links in SiteMeter, I see my blog, "mybloggerblog.blogspot.com". Has somebody cloned my blog?In reality, the scenario is not so ominous.
Those of us aware of the CC aliases, and how they are being used by Blogger, will understand that simply seeing a non canonical alias in our referer lists, in any search engine or visitor log / meter, is not an indication of malicious activity. People long used to seeing only "blogspot.com" and "google.com", and not yet experienced with the CC aliases, may become confused, however.
Blogger blogs owners with long established blogs that have audiences outside the USA are probably used to seeing all references to their blogs based on the canonical URL, such as "mybloggerblog.blogspot.com". Now that BlogSpot published blogs are being served using the CC aliases, in many countries outside the USA, the readers of BlogSpot published blogs are seeing each blog under non "blogspot.com" URLs in some search engines, and in many visitor logs and meters.
Most major search engines, which reference the "canonical" tag in the blog header, are aggregating all SERP entries to use the "blogspot.com" URLs. Our important search reputation is not being fragmented, such that readers in Australia provide reputation to "blogspot.com.au", readers in India provide reputation to "blogspot.in", readers in New Zealand provide reputation to "blogspot.co.nz", and so on. Every hit from every reader in every country still provides reputation to the canonical alias, "blogspot.com".
Some specialised search engines like Alexa, DMOZ, etc - and most visitor logs like SiteMeter, StatCounter, and Stats, may not be designed to reference the canonical tag. It's also possible that visitor logs, by their nature, should not aggregate CC aliases to the canonical URL - as the country code, relevant to the individual readers, may be important to some blog owners.
Until the use of the canonical tag, and the CC aliases to our readers, becomes mature, it's possible that we will see various oddities like a perceived problem with Alexa, SiteMeter, or StatCounter. It's likely that not all Internet services will ever reference the canonical tag consistently, and aggregate all statistics and visitor demographics, canonically.
Given the latter probability, this may be yet one more reason why Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken may never go out of business.
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