To Republish A Custom Domain, You Do Have To Add A Second "CNAME"

One of the challenges of using Blogger involves following the instructions. Blogger / Google personnel provide Help instructions which are not always updated - sometimes they simply write a new Help instructions document, leaving the old Help instructions in place.
The policy of leaving old Help instructions in place - and sometimes conflicting with new displays and procedures - occasionally causes confusion. One scenario where this causes a problem is in re publishing - or setting up - a blog to a custom domain.

I've seen instructions that when you buy a domain from Blogger / Google, using "Buy a domain", you don't need to add or find the CNAME.

One of the advantages of using "Buy a domain" is the ease of setup. If you use "Buy a domain", you don't have to bother with any of the details. This is generally - but not always - true.

Sometimes even the "Buy a domain" wizard can have a problem. One of the known problems with "Buy a domain" results in a partially setup domain - and with a partially setup domain, you may have to re publish the blog to the domain, to get the new domain to work completely.

To re publish the blog, you have to verify your ownership of the domain - even if you previously used "Buy a domain". And the additional step of adding a second "CNAME" overrides the old Blogger Help instruction

When you buy a domain from Blogger / Google, using "Buy a domain", you don't need to add or find a CNAME.

When you are instructed to re publish the blog using "Advanced settings", that 's what you must do. And, when "Advanced settings" contains instruction to add a second "CNAME", then please - add a second "CNAME".

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Redirecting The Traffic From Your Blogger Blog

Some Blogger blog owners are confused about their ability to redirect traffic to, or from, their blogs. Sometimes this leads to problems, as in the need to report a problem with spam classification, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken

Why was my blog just deleted, for "Malicious JavaScript"?

Other people will want to know why, after renaming their blog, all the search engine references now point to a dead URL. Still others may want to rename specific posts, and yet have the post URLs match the new titles.

Blog URLs, and Post URLs, are complex details, for Blogger blogs. By default, both are managed for you. Not everybody understands how to manage blog and post URLs, when necessary.

Not every blog owner understands that ones readers are not possessions, to be manipulated at will. Many spammers would love to use various Blogger blogs as gateways, redirecting their readers either to other Blogger blogs, or to non Google controlled websites. In order to discourage spamming activity, neither type of redirect is permitted, by the Blogger spam classifier.

If you rename your blog - and publish to a new URL, your only recourse is to publish a "stub" (empty) blog to the old URL, and visually redirect your readers.

This blog is now published as "blogger-status-for-real.blogspot.com". Please update your bookmarks.

You can, if you wish, redirect the blog feed, after renaming the blog - but this should be done under specific circumstances.

There are several specific cases where the blog feed should not be redirected.

• Change the URL of the feed. Redirecting the blog feed, to simply change the URL, causes the feed to redirect to non existent content - or a dead feed.
• Publishing the blog to a non BlogSpot URL. Custom domain publishing provides automatic redirection of the blog URL - and by extension, the blog feed URL. Adding a feed redirect causes an infinite loop.
• Randomly expose the blog to new audiences. Redirecting the blog feed to a random redirector causes the blog readers to report a hijacked Reading List - and later, to simply remove the blog, using a redirected feed, from the Reading List.

Blogger recently provided us the option to redirect traffic from one blog post to another - but the syntax used by the post redirect wizard explicitly prevents redirection outside the base blog URL. That said, we have seen some imaginative redirections - between different URL constructions.

• Label search URLs.
• Page URLs.
• Post URLs.

Use of this redirect can generate interesting problems, not all of which can be prevented, easily.

So you can redirect some URLs - but you need to understand what you can, and cannot do - and why you cannot do everything.

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Your Blog Address Is Unique - Though Many Other Identities Are Not

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we see signs of people who don't understand the concept of unique Blogger identities - or contrarily, Blogger identities which won't be unique.

I can't publish my blog to the name that I want.

or

Another blog is using the same name as mine!

or

Someone is impersonating me!!

Some of these complaints are reasonable - and could keep a team of judges and lawyers very busy, for a while, when properly reported. Other complaints come from people who don't quite understand what identities in our Blogger blogs are uniquely our property - and what identities are not uniquely ours.

When you setup a Blogger blog, one of the first things that you must choose - and choose carefully - is the blog Address. Once you have chosen the Address for your blog - and until you successfully give up this Address, the chosen Address is yours, for eternity. Nobody else can use this Address, in publishing their blog.

You can change the Address (also known as the URL) of your blog, whenever convenient to you - but any change that you make is subject to availability, based on Addresses which may have been chosen by other people. And it is worth your while to plan any Address change, carefully.

When you setup a Blogger blog, and choose the Address, you also choose a blog Title, and Template. Anybody else, setting up their blog, may choose the same Title, and / or Template. Many people will choose the same Template as you do (and later customise their template, using the Template Designer). Similarly, anybody is free to choose any Title (and later change the title, whenever convenient to them).

A blog which simply uses the same Title as yours is probably not Impersonating you. A blog which contains content scraped from your blog, and with the same Title, may constitute Impersonation. Contrarily, a blog which simply contains content scraped from your blog, without impersonating, may constitute a copyright, or DMCA, Violation.

The Internet, in its ability to bring people together, is going to cause conflict. Some conflict will come from many different people, simply not understanding other peoples lifestyles and traditions. Other conflict will come from people intentionally abusing you.

You need to understand the differences between the various abuses, before attempting to report any perceived offense. You are responsible for reporting any offense to the right agency.

It's up to you to report impersonation, copyright violation, or other abusive content to the right agency - and it's up to each individual agency to decide whether or not to act upon your complaint. You must report any problems properly, for any action to be taken.

Comments, posted to various blogs, are handled differently. Blogger / Google considers comments published to blogs (and not dismissed as spam) to be a freedom of speech issue. Comments are jointly the property of the blog owner, and the publisher of each comment.

If someone else, publishing a comment, offends you, that is a concern which can be handled only by the blog owner. Blogger / Google, without a court order, will not get involved. If the blog owner permits anonymous comments, anybody can use any identity that pleases them. This may lead to apparent impersonation - but any impersonation conflicts will be up to the blog owner to resolve.

The bottom line here is that some Blogger / Google hosted problem content may require discretion and patience by you, for you and other people to receive appropriate treatment.

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After You Publish Your Blog To A Custom Domain, Should You Update Internal Links?

One interesting question, which comes up from time to time in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, is about Custom Domain Publishing - and what to do, after Transition completes.

Now that my blog is successfully transitioned to the domain URL, should I update the internal blog links, in the post contents?

This is a question that deserves some thought. From an aesthetic sense, it makes sense to do this - hoping that you will be paying for the domain, for eternity. But, is it worth the effort?

There are several issues, which may be relevant, when asking the question, phrased above. Remember that updating the internal links is a manual effort - this has to be done on a post by post basis.

• How much time do you have to spend, updating the link URLs?
• How much effort will this take? How many old posts do you have, with how many internal links?
• How likely are you to go ever back to the BlogSpot URL?

Remember that one of the features of custom domain publishing is the DNS Based redirect, of the BlogSpot URL, to the domain published URL. This is an automatic feature, it's total and immediate - and it will continue to work, only as long as the domain continues to work.

As you continue to publish posts in your blog, your new internal links will use the domain URL - unless you manually convert each one, as you edit each post. If you ever opt to publish back to BlogSpot, all of the links, pointing to the domain URL, will be problems - when the domain stops redirecting. If you spend time manually updating each link now, that's the same amount of time that you'll have to spend reverting the updated links, when you publish back to BlogSpot.

Remember that your BlogSpot URL continues to operate, forever - regardless of the domain published URL.

From what I can tell of the DNS infrastructure used by custom domain published blogs, the domain DNS settings are cached locally, for all readers of any given custom domain. If the BlogSpot to domain redirect is similarly cached, it's unlikely that there are any reader experienced performance issues, from people reading blogs and clicking on BlogSpot targeted internal links, that redirect to custom domain URLs.

As far as I can tell, when thinking about this carefully, there is no real reason - other than esthetics - to ever update the BlogSpot based internal links, to directly point to the domain URL. Spend your time, after Transition has completed, profitably. Work on the blog, and get it re indexed, under the new URL.

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Troubleshooting Your Custom Domain Problems

Of the many accessories and features in Blogger, Custom Domain Publishing is possibly the most problematic. Looking at the Labels index in this blog, I see the Custom Domains label on 283 posts (as of 2012/11/29) - which makes it one of the most heavily labeled single topics here. There are several challenges with diagnosing and resolving a custom domain problem.

• It has various different causes.
• It leads to many different symptoms, which can easily be confused for other problems.
• Its symptoms can be chronic or intermittent- and may be immediate, or may take months to exhibit themselves.
• It may involve action by any blog guest, by the blog owner, by Blogger Support, and / or by a third party such as the domain registrar, to correct any given problem.

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As you read this article, click on some of the many links in the text, and read the linked articles. Please think of this article as the first chapter in a very large book - in this case a book with 283 chapters.

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How To Use This Guide

• Always start properly, with righteous DNS addresses.
• Verify DNS addresses, using Dig. If any doubt about Dig results, compare logs from multiple Dig utilities, including a Dig against the authoritative domain server. Possibly 90% of all custom domain problems are caused, directly or indirectly, by spurious DNS addresses.
• If examination of multiple Dig logs shows righteous DNS addresses, look at HTTP traces against the BlogSpot and domain URLs.
• If neither Dig nor HTTP traces provide a definitive diagnosis, consider that you have internal database corruption.
• As you diagnose your DNS setup, only look at "A" and "CNAME" records.
• As you diagnose and / or fix the problem, do not delete the Google Apps administrative desktop account.

These are the known custom domain publishing diagnoses. Here's a brief, one line summary of the problems, which are discussed, in some detail, farther below. Click on any one, if it looks promising, to jump to the detail discussion.

• Domain Purchase Unsuccessful
• Only Name Registration Purchased, No DNS Hosting
• Domain Addresses Not Defined
• Domain Ownership Not Verified
• Non Google DNS server Part Of Configuration
• Domain Addresses Not Properly Chosen
• Domain Previously Registered, And Used In Blogger
• Domain Registration Expired
• Blog Published To Domain, Using Mixed Case URL
• Domain Redirected To Google Ad Services, Sites, or Start Page URL
• Domain Published, Partially
• Internal Blogger Database Corruption
• The Blog And Domain Are In Transition

Domain Purchase Unsuccessful

• The domain will not be setup. The blog may, or may not, be published to the domain.
• This will follow use of "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptoms will vary. We see both "404 Not Found", and "Another blog is already hosted at this address", fairly common for this problem.
• This will be an issue for newly purchased domains.
• It will be diagnosed by use of the WhoIs log showing "xxxxxxx.xxx appears to be available", and verified by examination of the Google Checkout logs, and bank account ledger entries.
• The blog owner generally has to correct a problem with his bank account, then repeat the purchase of the domain.

Only Name Registration Purchased, No DNS Hosting

• The domain will not be setup, nor the blog published to the domain.
• This will follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar.
• The primary symptom will be the query "What are the DNS servers for Google?", "I need 2 IP addresses for my domain!", or "I can only change NameServer1, NameServer2 in my domain setup!".
• This will be an issue for newly purchased domains.
• It will be diagnosed by the stated symptom, with the blogger confirming the diagnosis by checking the registrar's invoice to see what services were paid for.
• The blogger will have to arrange for DNS hosting - free or paid - but choose the right DNS hosting service. A free third party DNS hosting service may be useful, in this case.

Domain Addresses Not Defined

• The blog will not be successfully published to the domain.
• This will follow domain registration using "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptom will be "Another blog is already hosted at this address", in the Settings - Basic - Publishing display.
• This will occur for new custom domains.
• It will be diagnosed using an excerpted Dig log, for both domain URLs.
• Here, the blogger will be advised to contact Google Apps Support, for any domain purchase issues.

Domain Ownership Not Verified

• The blog will not be successfully published to the domain.
• The primary symptom will be an "Error 12" or variant (we have observed "Error 12", "Error 13", "Error 14", and "Error 32", in reported various forum topics), when using the the Settings - Basic - Publishing wizard.
• This may follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar, or using "Buy a domain".
• This will occur for new custom domains - as well as for mature domain being re published.
• This will be diagnosed using an excerpted Dig log, for both domain URLs. Base DNS addresses should also be verified, to ensure a righteous setup.
• The blog owner will be advised to add or verify presence of the proper domain ownership verification "CNAME". This may involve adding an updated "CNAME", and / or carefully examining the format of the "CNAME", as entered in the "Zone Edit" registrar display. Some blog owners may need to use a free third party DNS hosting service, to allow for registrars who cannot support the necessary "CNAME".

Non Google DNS server Part Of Configuration

• The blog may, or may not, be successfully published to the domain.
• This will follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar.
• The primary symptom may be "Another blog is already hosted at this address" (for new custom domains, in the Settings - Basic - Publishing display), or conversely "404 Not Found" (for long existing custom domains, when viewing the blog). The symptoms will be observed intermittently, when the non Google server is referenced.
• Possible secondary symptoms:
  • Blog feeds, intermittently not redirected from the native BlogSpot URL.
  • Commenting problems.
• It will be diagnosed using an excerpted Dig log, for the domain root.
• It is typically resolved by a 4 step process. For best results, follow this procedure religiously.
  1. Publish the blog back to BlogSpot.
  2. Correct the DNS addresses.
  3. Wait for the DNS latency period to expire. This is important. Failure to consider DNS latency may later lead to Internal Database Corruption. This period will vary, as a result of the TTL setting in the "A" / "CNAME" referral.
  4. Republish to the domain URL.

Domain Addresses Not Properly Chosen

• The blog may, or may not, be successfully published to the domain.
• This will follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar.
• The primary symptom may be "Another blog is already hosted at this address" (for new custom domains, in the Settings - Basic - Publishing display), or conversely "404 Not Found" (for long existing custom domains, when viewing the blog).
• Possible secondary symptoms:
  • Blog feeds, unreliably redirected from the native BlogSpot URL.
  • Commenting problems.
• It will be diagnosed using an excerpted Dig log, for both domain URLs.
• It is typically resolved by a 4 step process. For best results, follow this procedure religiously.
  1. Publish the blog back to BlogSpot.
  2. Correct the DNS addresses.
  3. Wait for the DNS latency period to expire. This is important. Failure to consider DNS latency may later lead to Internal Database Corruption. This period will vary, as a result of the TTL setting in the "A" / "CNAME" referral.
  4. Republish to the domain URL.

Domain Previously Registered, And Used In Blogger

• A Blogger blog was successfully published to the domain, at one time - by a different person. It is now not successfully published.
• This may follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar, or using "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptom will be "Another blog ...", when attempting to publish / re publish the blog to the domain.
• It will be diagnosed using an excerpted Dig log, for the BlogSpot, and both domain, URLs.
• It will be resolved using the Custom Domain Reset form - and much patience by the current domain owner.

Domain Registration Expired

• The blog was successfully published to the domain, at one time.
• This may follow domain registration, long ago purchased from a third party registrar, or using "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptom may be unexpected content, displayed by the blog. The nature of the unexpected content will vary.
  1. In most cases, and when the blog owner is lucky, the domain will be dead, or maybe display a page of ads or an "Offsite Warning" interstitial display.
  2. In rare cases, and when the blog owner is not lucky, the blog will display contents of another blog, another website, or an "Offsite Warning" interstitial display.
• It will be diagnosed using a WhoIs log, which shows expiry and last update dates, for the domain.
• There are two possible resolutions (see two primary symptoms, above, for possible variants).
  1. With the blog owner being lucky, it is in the control of the registrar. After domain registration is renewed, the problem is resolved by the 4 step process. For best results, follow this procedure religiously.
     1. Publish the blog back to BlogSpot.
     2. If necessary (and possible), contact the registrar, and renew the registration. Then, correct the DNS addresses.
     3. Wait for the DNS latency period to expire. This is important. Failure to consider DNS latency may later lead to Internal Database Corruption. This period will vary, as a result of the TTL setting in the "A" / "CNAME" referral.
     4. Republish to the domain URL.
  2. If the blog owner was not lucky, the domain may now be in the hand of an unknown party. This will be a subject for another article.

Blog Published To Domain, Using Mixed Case URL

• The blog will be successfully published to the domain, but will not be visible from either BlogSpot or domain URLs.
• This may follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar, or using "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptom will be a "404 Not Found", when attempting to view the blog using either the BlogSpot or domain URLs.
• This will, typically, occur for new custom domains, immediately after the end of the 3 Day Transition Period.
• It will be diagnosed using a RexSwain HTTP Trace, starting from the BlogSpot URL.
• It is typically resolved by publishing the blog back to BlogSpot, then re publishing to the correct URL, using all lower case letters.

Domain Redirected To Google Ad Services, Sites, or Start Page URL

• The blog will not be successfully published to the domain.
• This may follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar, or using "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptom will be "Another blog is already hosted at this address", in the Settings - Basic - Publishing display.
• This will typically occur for new custom domains.
• It will be diagnosed using a RexSwain HTTP Trace, starting from either domain URL.
• It is typically resolved by deactivating or resetting the Ad Services, Sites, or Start Page service, using Google Apps.

Blog Published Partially, To The Custom Domain URL

• The blog will appear successfully published to the domain.
• This may follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar, or using "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptom will be "404 Not Found", when viewing the blog using one of the domain URLs - and the blog will still be published to the BlogSpot URL.
• It will be diagnosed using an excerpted Dig log, for the BlogSpot, and both domain, URLs. If each of the above diagnoses are eliminated, one by one, and "404 Not Found" is still observed, internal database corruption is the only remaining possibility.
• It is typically resolved by re publishing the blog to the domain. This symptom may mask a Service Redirect, or Internal Database Corruption.
• As you diagnose the problem, re publish the blog to the domain, and / or recycle the domain settings, please do not delete the Apps desktop account.

Internal Blogger Database Corruption

• The blog will not be successfully published to the domain.
• This may follow domain registration, purchased from a third party registrar, or using "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptom will be "Another blog is already hosted at this address", in the Settings - Basic - Publishing display.
• It will be diagnosed using an excerpted Dig log, for both domain URLs. If the above diagnoses are all eliminated, one by one, and "Another blog ..." is still observed, database corruption is the only remaining possibility.
• It is typically resolved by recycling the domain settings in Google Apps, and / or use of the Custom Domain Reset form.
• As you diagnose the problem and / or recycle the domain settings, please do not delete the Apps desktop account.

The Blog And Domain Are In Transition

• The domain will be setup - but will not redirect. The blog will be published to the domain URL.
• This will follow use of "Buy a domain".
• The primary symptom will be seen only by the owner (when properly logged in to Blogger). When clicking on the "View Blog" dashboard button / link, the owner will see an "In Transition" display.
• This will be a temporary issue, for newly purchased domains, successful purchased.
• It will be diagnosed using an excerpted Dig log, for the BlogSpot, and both domain, URLs.
• It will go away, when Transition expires, 72 to 96 hours after successful domain purchase and registration. The blog, and the domain, will then redirect properly.
• While you wait for Transition to expire, spend time reading what you will want to do, when Transition is complete.

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And if it's not too late, read Setting Up A Custom Domain, before you start.

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The Missing / Invisible Pages Index Gadget

Occasionally, a blog owner wants to add the Pages Index gadget to the blog, but just can't.

I go to add it - and I see "Already Added" - but where is it?

The first thing to check, when this happens, is the "Show pages as" option in the dashboard Pages display. Sometimes, you'll find "Don't show" selected. Other times, you'll find "Top tabs" - but the template may lack the code which houses the "Top tabs" gadget. This will be a problem for older templates, installed before the Pages index gadget was offered.

Try selecting "Side links" (or change from "Side links", to "Top tabs", and back to "Side links") - and see if the gadget shows up, in the sidebar. Each time you change the setting, remember to hit "Save arrangement". When viewing the blog, to verify success, you may need to clear cache, and restart the browser.

Once you get the gadget to show up in the sidebar - and if it matters - change the option to "Top tabs", and see if it shows up there. If not, you'll have three possible options.

1. Upgrade the template, to a newer version.
2. Set the Pages Index back to "Side links".
3. Reset the widget template.

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Troubleshooting Custom Domain Issues

If you are trying to make your custom domain published blog work, see my guide Troubleshooting Your Custom Domain Problems.
If you want to know how to setup a custom domain properly, from the beginning - and avoid the need for Troubleshooting - read Setting Up A Custom Domain. Avoid the most basic mistakes made - read The Simplicity Of A Custom Domain Setup.
If you just setup your custom domain - and want to minimise the effects of the URL change upon your search engine relationships - read Managing The Migration.
If you're just browsing, then read on - but get a good cup of coffee first. And welcome, to Nitecruzr Dot Net.

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The Internet Has Created Various Opportunities For Conflict

Before the Internet became a reality, if you were to report a crime which involved a physical threat to you or some one whom you knew, chances are that you would be reporting a friend or relative - or at least a neighbour or somebody geographically close to you. Most physical threats used to require physical proximity, to be seriously taken.
Now that the Internet is part of our daily lives, many Blogger blog owners, readers, and comment publishers - all of who use the Internet for various networking activities - have no idea of the dangers that can arise from their activities. With the Internet involved, these dangers can come from somebody in another city, state, or country, who is a complete stranger to the potential victim.

Many people, offended or threatened by an abusive comment or post in a Blogger blog, immediately report their concern to Blogger or Google - frequently in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken. The assumption made is that Blogger, when informed in the forum, will immediately remove the offensive or threatening content.
Not everybody realises that the varying nature of any given abuse, even when expressed in a Blogger blog, won't always be the responsibility of Blogger / Google to provide action. Some abusive content still requires immediate contact, to somebody in your local area.
Some abuse can be handled by your reporting it to Blogger / Google - and other abuse must be handled by the court system - lawyers and judges, or by law enforcement.

• Assault, or serious threat of imminent physical damage / death, is a criminal issue, and should be handled by your local police.
• Battery, or actual physical damage / death, is likewise a criminal issue, and must be handled by your local police.
• Defamation (ridicule, slander, trash talk) is a civil issue, and must be handled by a lawyer and the courts system.
• Impersonation (identity theft) is a Google TOS issue, and can be reported using the Google Content Removal procedure.
• Harassment would be a very mild form of assault. It's probably a civil offense - and should be handled by a lawyer.
• Spam is a Google TOS issue, which generally cannot be reported, as it is automatically detected by the Blogger / Google Spam Classifier.
• Stalking is a criminal offense in many locales. It is a mild form of assault, and if you feel seriously threatened, may be handled by your local police.
• There are a variety of other Blogger / Google TOS issues, which are reported using the various Blogger / Google Abuse Reporting procedures. And, there are a variety of other civil and criminal issues, which must be handled by the courts system, and / or your local police.

You need to understand the differences between Defamation and Impersonation, and other abuses, before attempting to report any perceived offense to Blogger / Google. You are responsible for reporting any offense accurately, and to the right agency - not solely to Blogger / Google.

The bottom line here is that some Internet conflicts may take time and effort to resolve. The court system, which is currently based locally and nationally, may have to change as the Internet brings strangers together - and creates conflict.

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Blogger Magic - Verifying A Blog Feed URL

It's a fairly simple matter to determine the base feed URL, for any given blog. Besides the base feed, a blog may publish an extensive array of additional feeds, which won't be listed directly in the blog template code.

Starting with the URL of my feed, what do I do? I could just open my favourite feed reader, or social networking web site, and paste the URL in place. But what if the feed reader or web site wasn't working properly, or I misunderstood the instructions? What if I see

Invalid URL

or the like, what do I do?

The smart thing to do, before you setup a FeedBurner feed or a similar non Blogger service, is to test the feed. Many modern browsers (Firefox or Internet Explorer, for instance) will give you a formatted display, when you are loading a feed URL.

This blog is The Real Blogger Status http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/.

This blog has 4 site posts feeds.

• Atom (classic): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/atom.xml.
• RSS (classic): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/rss.xml.
• Atom (new): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default.
• RSS (new): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss.

                 

            












Besides the blog posts feed (in the many aliases), each individual post may publish a comments feed. And the blog, using a number of labels, may publish a number of label feeds. Any properly formatted feed URL, referencing a published feed, will likewise produce a formatted feed display - in a browser which formats feeds.

Here we see a known oddity with Chrome, which does not, natively, render a feed as a formatted display with Subscription options. To do this with Chrome, you have to install an add-on accessory.

Click on the above feed link, for instance, and the browser should inform you, explicitly, that you're viewing a feed. If you load what you think is your feed URL into your browser, and you don't see a similar display, recheck your URL.                        

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Blogger Magic - Custom Domain Publishing And Search Engine Reputation

There's a lot of confusion seen in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, about our blogs, and how they are treated by the search engines, after being published to a custom domain URL.

Does the Page Rank transfer to the new domain?

and

Is the blog automatically indexed after the change?

and

Will my readers be able to find my blog after the change?

Each of those questions has a simple answer - but each simple answer leads to interesting detail.

The basic facts to consider are quite simple.

• Search engines index our blogs, and calculate page rank, by domain / subdomain URL. Better search engine reputation leads to better search listing placement, and more traffic.
• When you publish the blog to a custom domain, you are giving it a new URL.
• With the blog published to a new URL, it has no page rank, and is not indexed.

So, the immediate answer is quite simple.

Like a new blog, and like a blog renamed within BlogSpot, a blog newly published to a custom domain has Zero page rank, and is not indexed.

Now, look at the details.

• Unlike a completely new blog, a blog newly published to a custom domain has reputation, in the minds - and links in the blogs - of the readers.
• Unlike a completely new blog, there is an existing BlogSpot blog that is indexed, and has search engine reputation.
• Unlike a blog renamed within BlogSpot, a blog published to a custom domain has a DNS based redirect, from the BlogSpot URL, to the domain URL.

And here is where the magic starts.

When you combine the assets, held by the BlogSpot URL

• Links, in our readers blogs.
• Reputation, in our readers minds.
• Reputation, in the search engines.

with the DNS based redirect - applied against a properly setup domain, and using a proper complement of sitemaps - you get a blog which acquires indexing and page rank from the existing reputation of the former BlogSpot URL, as that BlogSpot URL, and our readers blogs, are being re indexed. And, there is the magic.

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Account Recovery, Authentication, Contact, Privacy, And URL Availability Are Related Issues

Every day, we get various impassioned pleas from blog owners (active, former, and would be), in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, requesting assistance.

How do I get access to my blog, that I published 10 years ago?

and

How do I keep my blog from being visible in Google?

and

How do I contact the owner of a blog that was published 10 years ago (and never updated)?

All of these are valid concerns - and answering one question sometimes involves referring to various other concerns.

Blogger Support, some time ago, confirmed our right to privacy, as blog owners.

Our policies aren't pro-stalker, they are pro-respecting the privacy of user information. We simply can not release information without due process.

The concept of Internet privacy in general, and blog owner privacy specifically, has legendarily been part of some major world political events. If we as blog owners are going to retain our rights to privacy as blog owners, we have to be aware of the limitations, and the repercussions.

Not all blog owners are aware of the complex natures of Blogger authentication. We have two long used authentication options - account name / password (primary), and backup email access (secondary). Some owners routinely ignore the primary option, and use the secondary, regularly. When their email host changes because they change employer, graduate from college, or change ISP, we see the plaintive cry from former owners

I need Blogger to send the recovery email to my new address!

or

I can't use my previous email account!

To prevent the latter issue, Blogger / Google recently introduced a tertiary authentication option - SMS / Voice Recovery. This allows us to use a text message (SMS transmitted), or a voice message ("home" phone transmitted), to the "cell phone" or "home phone" of our choice. This approach, not universally popular, causes another privacy concern.

• It requires advance action. People currently unable to use the primary or secondary authentication options are not going to find a solution here.
• It requires the blog owner to register a "cell phone" or "home phone" number. People with privacy concerns don't appreciate this.

  I'm not giving Google my phone number!

  as if Google intends to add us to another phone spam database.

Another privacy issue involves people who think that blog ownership involves some minimal publishing activity, and who require use of the Blog URL to match their blog subject and title.

I need contact to the owner of blog xxxxxxx!

Here, the would be blog owner ignores the owner's right to privacy, in requiring contact information.

Some people request that Blogger monitor posting level, and contact inactive blog owners.

Can Blogger just email owners of blogs with no posts for a year, and ask them to confirm their intention to continue? Those who don't respond can have their blogs taken away, so somebody else can make better use of the URL.

These would be owners seem to think that all Blogger accounts are based on active and valid email addresses, and that all URLs should be universally monitored.

The bottom line here is that there are several limitations, that we may have to learn to live with.

• Blogger won't disclose blog owner details, gratuitously.
• You, and you alone, are responsible for maintaining control of your blogs.
• If a given URL is not available, find one that is available now, and start your blog, today.

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Why Can't Blogger Just Tell Me The Email Address, When I Ask For It?

We see the pain, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, of blog owners who do not understand the need for keeping the name of their Blogger account a secret.

I forgot the email address that I was using. Why can't Blogger just tell me the address??

and some ask

How did this unknown person "xxxxx xxxxx" get control of my blog?

Years ago, the local police would have to convince home owners

Please, stop leaving a spare key under a rock, near the door!

Both many blog owners (today) - like some home owners (years ago) - had the same basic problem - naivete.

Like the home owners of years ago, who kept a spare key under a rock near the front door, for emergencies, blog owners will use tricks to remember their password. One favourite technique, for remembering the password, is so obvious.

Pick a password based upon something that you can remember.

For a blog owner who is married, the answer is obvious.

What is my spouse's name?

and there's your password. If you forget that, you have worse problems, that cannot be addressed here.

If the name of one's spouse was a secret, using the name would not be a problem. But knowing that many blogs either contain the name (and picture, even) of the whole family - or lead to a Profile page with similar information - how secret is the spouse's name going to be?

Knowing both the Blogger account name (email address) that owns any blog of interest, and the URL of the blog, any hacker has a simple enough task.

1. Scrape blog content, into a text analyzer.
2. Extract a few hundred details (spouse's name, and others) from the blog content, as analysed.
3. Run the known details through a password generation program.
4. Now, the hacker has a database, containing "10,000 good possible passwords", specifically relevant to this blog.
5. Go to "www.blogger.com", plug in the account name, and try out the 10,000 passwords, one by one.
6. That's a simple brute force password attack.
7. Sit back, and watch any botnet, controlled by the hacker, go to work.
8. Given enough time, the hacker very likely gets access to the Blogger account, and to the blogs owned by the account.
9. Note that steps 1 - 8, for any experienced hacker, will be summed into one step.

   Plug in the URL of the blog.

   Everything else is just more programming.

Besides using a "strong" password (which carries it's own risks such as forgetting the password - and now we're here, again), the best way to prevent a brute force attack is by preventing step 5.

Keep the account name / email address a secret.

If you need to recover access to your Blogger account, don't expect to use the Blogger "Forgot?" wizard, plug in your blog URL, and get a reply

Email was sent to your address xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz

And, if you post in the forum.

Please email me advice, to "xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz"!

expect to get a stern warning

Please, do not post Blogger account names, or email addresses, in the forum.

And people objecting to the recent Blogger policy of masking email addresses, in Blogger commenting and similar services, as "no-reply @ blogger . com", may also need to consider this very real issue.

And, if your Blogger / GMail / Google account is disabled - and you get a mysterious notice about

Suspicious / Unusual activity on your account

this could well be the other side of a brute force attack against your account, intercepted by Google.

None of this is fiction or paranoia - it's based on some very real, recent events - and causes some very real conundrums.

You will get no sympathy, when you post into Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, and complain how unsupportive Blogger is. You have to make some effort, and remember some basic information, if you are going to maintain a Blogger blog.

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