Account / Blog Recovery, With Team Blogs, Requires Well Managed Membership

We've known for a while, about account recovery for team blogs.

We've sent login instructions for the blog at http://mybloggerblog.blogspot.com/ to you and the other blog authors.

Apparently, team ownership recovery has its limits.

I used "Forgot?", and got the advice

Your blog has too many authors to email them all. Please enter your email address into the form below to look up your account information.

The blog has too many contributors. Since some of these contributors' accounts are no longer active, there's no way for me to easily identify the account which has now has the administrator rights.

Like account recovery for a blog with inactive team members, the "Forgot?" wizard won't work well with large membership lists, which are not well maintained.

In this case, the would be owner (former owner?) now has two possibilities.

1. If he was the only administrator, the blog now has no administrators - and any author can now claim ownership of the blog, by using “Forgot?” and providing the proper email address.
2. If the blog still has administrators, the former owner now has to identify an administrator who is active and accessible, and who is willing to restore his account to administrator status.

What to do, now?

Once again, we see the advantage of keeping the membership list well maintained.

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When You Setup A Custom Domain, Please Know And Observe Your Limits Of Expertise

Too many blog owners, when they setup a custom domain for their blog, do not consider the details.

We see signs of the problem, too often, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

Can someone give me step by step instructions for setting up a custom domain with xxxxxxx registrar? I contacted xxxxxxx customer service - and they told me a lot of things I didn't understand! Would it be easier just to transfer the domain to GoDaddy?

The short answer here would be

Yes, it would be easier just to transfer the domain to GoDaddy.

Unfortunately, that answer is not completely correct - and the correction may leave you with a broken domain.

Too many blog owners, eager to setup a non BlogSpot URL for their blog, do not consider the details involved, when they bypass "Buy a domain".

Part of the blame, for this problem, has to fall onto Blogger's head. People using "Buy a domain", for their first domain purchase, see the domain purchase as such a simple process. They never become aware of the complexities involved in a domain purchase, until they setup their second domain, and decide to "roll their own".

Let's look at the levels of experience needed.

• Beginner: Use "Buy a domain".
• Intermediate: Use the Google Apps or Google Wallet wizard - or alternately, buy a domain from one of the 8 identified registrars.
• Advanced: Buy a domain, directly, from any of the thousands of registrars, worldwide.

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As of 2013 June, "Buy a domain" is not offered, as part of "Add a custom domain". This will leave everybody with one option - "Advanced".

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Beginner blog owners are strongly advised to use "Buy a domain". Choose an available domain, provide payment details, and your domain is setup. Wait until Transition expires, and get to work referring your readers, search engines, and other Internet services, to your new, non BlogSpot URL.

Intermediate blog owners, able to understand simple instructions, should be able to use the wizards provided by Google Apps or Google Wallet. Alternately, Blogger provides reasonably complete and simple instructions for setting up a domain with the 8 most popular registrars.

Advanced blog owners are free to choose any registrar, of the thousands out there. But beware! You are on your own, when you do this.

• Use of any non designated registrar does not free you from the constraints of the three custom domain models.
• It will be your responsibility to determine the syntax used by the Zone Editor, that's provided by the registrar.
• It will be your responsibility to ensure that the registrar, that you choose, can provide the required DNS address entries.
• It will be your responsibility to verify the precise sequence used, in any DNS host / registrar setup task.
• It will be your responsibility to research the details, before you start.
• Once you have purchased the domain of your choice, that domain will remain with that registrar, for 30 to 60 days. Very few registrars let you buy a domain - then immediately transfer registration.

So choose your registrar according to your needs - and according to your skill level. Don't start a custom domain project, before verifying that your experience is complete. Make the right choice, before you sign on the dotted line.

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Redirecting The Home Page, And Mobile Templates

Everything has its limits - even Blogger features. For a while, we've been seeing hints that mobile templates don't support a redirected Home page.

How do I disable the Blogger mobile redirect "/?m=1"?

Some blog owners would prefer their readers, using a mobile computer, see a redirected Home page, with a desktop template - instead of a mobile display with a dynamic Home page.

Apparently, the mobile redirect

/?m=1

overrides the Home page redirect

/

Actually, this makes sense. "/?m=1" (the redirected mobile template URL snippet) is not equal to "/" (the redirected Home page URL snippet).

For those blog owners who have forgotten how they set the mobile template on their blog, you need to remove the mobile template, using the "Template - Choose mobile template" wizard, from the gear icon beneath Template - Mobile. Simply select "No. Show desktop template on mobile devices.", and Save - and that's that.

Now, everybody - including your readers using mobile computers - will see the standard desktop template (with optional Home page redirect), when viewing your blog.

This probably won't remain a difficult choice, for all blog owners, for long. Newer mobile computers - PDAs, phones, tablets, and such - have rather sophisticated display units, which approach the clarity of normal high resolution devices previously seen on desktop / laptop computers, from just a few years ago. One's readers simply have to get used to a computer with a 6" to 12" touch screen, instead of one with a 12" to 16" no touch screen with keyboard.

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CAPTCHA Verification Required For Excessive Posting Volume

Occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we see a query from a confused blog owner.

I made a large number of posts today, and Blogger is now requiring me to solve a CAPTCHA, for every post. I tried to find the form to submit, so that my website could be reviewed, but I could not find it. What do I do, now?

This blog owner, like too many, does not understand the spam mitigation policy.

Long ago, we first became aware of the Blogger policy on excessive posting volume. At the time when the anti spam policy was first publicised, we were told that CAPTCHA screening would be required, for any new posts exceeding a count of 50 in any day - and that the counter would reset at the end of the day.

Recently, we have some blog owners explicitly state that they are publishing less than 50 posts, and still being subjected to CAPTCHA screening. There are two possibilities, here.

• The Blogger anti-spam policy is dynamic, and the threshold may vary, dynamically, depending upon details not being stated.
• The breaking time of the day may not coincide with the local clock observed by any blog owner. It's possible that some activity from the previous local day might contribute to a count of 50 posts, as observed by any given blog owner.

It may not be accurate, to advise any blog owner, reporting this problem, that exactly 50 posts, in any day, will consistently trigger CAPTCHA screening.

In complete accuracy, we can only note that excessive posting volume, approximating 50 new posts in any 24 hour period, will trigger CAPTCHA screening - and that sometime during the next 24 hours, the count would reset - and normal posting would then resume.

It's possible that the "24 hour" period is calculated according to a local clock - but the reset, following a period of acceptable activity, is a worldwide process for all blogs, simultaneously. This would make the reset period more like "48 hours", for some blog owners.

The exact time span of the "48 hour" period is not known. This is simply a reality of the 24 hour, worldwide, use of Blogger.

Other cases where high posting volume may be a problem include use of Mail-To-Blogger, and the Blogger app on smart phones. Mail-to-Blogger now produces Draft posts, which can be published from the Posts menu. We have reports that the Blogger app is also saving Draft posts - but we're not yet sure what options are provided for Publishing the Draft posts.

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