Confusion About GMail Vs Non GMail Based Email

Long ago, when diagnosing a problem thought to involve email, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, we would ask a very simple question

Is your Blogger account based on a GMail - or non GMail - email address?

And we would carefully add

Please, do not state your email address, here!

The latter request was to prevent theft of peoples Blogger accounts.

Now, in many cases, we must qualify the question of email address. We also ask.

Is your email provided by your employer, ISP, or school network?

and even

Do you read your email in a browser window, or a local email client?

Modern email distribution is not always homogeneous.

Both questions reflect the complex nature of email delivery, that is a part of Internet reality.

Few people can accurately diagnose their problems, based only on the simple question

Is your Blogger account based on a GMail - or non GMail - email address?

The lines between GMail, and non GMail email accounts - and addresses - are not absolute, any more.

Both GMail and non GMail addresses may be used in a local network.

GMail, and non GMail addresses, alike, may use GMail browser based email, in delivery and display. And GMail accounts may use non GMail email systems, for addressing, delivery, and / or display.

These variations can lead to interesting scenarios such as mysterious loss of blog membership invitations, and of email subscriptions. And options for Blogger account recovery become more complicated - with password synchronisation issues, between the email account and the Blogger account.

Thanks to Google Apps based domains, and the ability to provide non GMail addresses which use GMail, anybody can use a non GMail address with GMail based delivery and display. Some people have even setup Blogger accounts, based on Google Apps based email addresses (again, appearing to be non GMail based) - though this is not recommended.

Managed domains may use GMail delivery, and a non GMail email address.

Corporate email systems, ISP provided email, and schools (of all grades, elementary through university) may use Google Apps based email. Many large local network based email systems have been "upgraded" to use cloud based email, such as GMail, for delivery and display. The results are not always beneficial.

And, thanks to "push / pull" GMail options, where an individual GMail account can be configured by a knowlegeable account owner, even individual account owners can use a GMail address, with non GMail delivery and display - or can use GMail display, for non GMail based address / delivery.

With computer owners who do not care or know about what email system they use, with where the individual messages may be filed, and with security filters that update without notice, loss of email messages is common.

Bounced email does not get dropped into the "Bulk" / "Spam" folder.

Note that "bounced" email may not be treated as spam. Some "bounced" email never gets as far as a spam filter - it may simply be rejected. You will look, in vain, in the "Bulk", "Inbox", and "Spam" folders.

This will interfere with account recovery - if you can't find the password reset email, how do you recover control of the account?

The simple question

Is your Blogger account based on a GMail - or non GMail - email address?

just is not accurate, when diagnosing all Blogger problems.

A Google Account Does Not Have To Be GMail

Blogger uses the Google "One account" login to identify you, when your identity is important.

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we still see evidence of confusion.

Some time ago, Google started making users to sign in with a Google address. I did not want a Google email address, but since Blogger was requiring it, I had to make one. I never had any intention of using it, but only wanted to use Blogger. Why did Google make the sign in procedure for Blogger the same as Google mail?

This person, as with other Blogger blog owners, does not understand the difference between a Google account, and a GMail (Google email) account.

When Blogger changed their login screen, and started instructing us to

Sign in with your Google account

they were making the term "Google account" more inclusive - not making the term "Blogger account" obsolete, or less inclusive.

Your Google account may be based on your Blogger account.

A Google account, in this case, is based upon your current Blogger account. A Blogger account can be based on a GMail email address - or it can, just as easily (more easily, actually) be based on a non GMail email address.

What the %^&&? I do not use GMail!


Your identity, using Blogger, is provided with a Blogger account.

Whether you are going to use Blogger for commenting, as a blog Follower, as a blog owner, as a private blog reader, or a team blog member, your identity needs to be verified. This requires a Blogger account - it just does not have to be a GMail account, if you don't want GMail.

Please, allow your identity to be provided - when necessary.

You will need to use a computer that permits your identity to be checked. Computers with excessive security, that needlessly anonymise you, will be a problem, with many Blogger / Google features and services.

When you see a reference to "your Google account", don't spend time complaining about violation of your right to choose your email address. Just use your Blogger account.

Blog Owners Report Disabled Blogger Accounts

This week, we're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, of disabled Blogger and GMail accounts, again with ominous warnings of "suspicious activity" or "unusual activity" on your account.

Besides a disabled Blogger account, loss of AdSense, Blogger, Picasa, and other services is reported. This is similar to an earlier experience from May 2011.

In many cases, people with disabled accounts should be automatically redirected to Google Accounts Help: Account has been disabled.

Start with the generic "disabled account" instructions.

You can start there, where you are advised, generically, why accounts are being disabled.

If your account was not righteously disabled, you'll find the appropriate instruction in the last paragraph.

Please start by reviewing the relevant Terms of Service. Then, if you think your account should not have been disabled, please contact us.

Clicking on "contact us", you see Google Accounts Help: My account is disabled. Here, you are advised

Please summarize what happened when your account became disabled so we can investigate. We'll follow up with you only if we require more information or we have additional information to share.

Make sure that you can be contacted - anonymity is not possible, now.

Be sure to provide an active email address, for contact. When you fill out the form, this is not the time for insisting on anonymity. Selecting "No", for

Do you currently have access to the email address that you use to sign in to your account?

you are asked for

An email address we can use to contact you

If you truly want your account reactivated, provide an email account which you use, or check, frequently.

You'll have to wait, patiently, for account and blog review.

Having filled out the form, and hit "Submit", you wait, as patiently as possible. The number of similar reports, combined with the time of year (such as the first week following end of year holidays, when many people receive new computers), may cause the queue, from this form, to be processed relatively slowly.

Note that fuzzy spam classification may result in various Google accounts and assets being taken off-line and even deleted - and the accounts and assets may not all be restored immediately - or even simultaneously.

Specifically, we have noted latency on restoration of Blogger blogs, after the owning Blogger accounts are brought back on-line. If your Blogger account is a victim of "suspicious / unusual activity", allow for your blogs to be off-line 24 to 48 hours after the account has been restored. Blogger Engineers are aware that this is a problem.

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Blog Owners Report Disabled Blogger / GMail / Google Accounts - January 2012

GMail Combined With Mail-to-Blogger

The Mail-to-Blogger feature of Blogger has intrigued me for a while. It's a neat way to get people to send email to your blog, and can even be used to have more than 100 named individuals publish to a private blog. But there are several limitations that have always bothered me.

• If you give a common MTB address out to everybody, and one misguided person abuses it, you have to change the MTB address, and pass out the new address to all but the abuser. And everybody has to change their email address for MTB.
• Explaining to everybody that they need to use a "blogger.com" email address, and worse, one of the form "xxxxxxxx.yyyyyy@blogger.com", is not user friendly.
• Of course, you can setup everybody as individual authors, go through the invite / accept membership process, and everybody can setup their own MTB address (and you get to hope that you can instruct everybody how to set that up without somebody making a mistake), but there's the 100 author limit again.

So let's add a component into the posting process - GMail.

• Setup a GMail account, and filtering rules for each person that you want emailing to your blog.
• Give everybody the GMail address ("whatever@gmail.com").
• If anybody offends you, setup a filter with their email address, to drop their posts into the trash.
• Forward the incoming email to the MTB address, using the GMail filter. Your blog authors never know about MTB, just "Send your posts to this email address.". Your blog authors never have to be disturbed if you filter one of them out. You can filter, given a moments notice.
• Since you can have multiple accounts with blog author membership, you could even have a pair of MTB accounts, one with ability to post drafts, the other with ability to post immediately to the blog. The former gives you post moderation ability. You can, selectively, forward email from some blog authors to post as Drafts; and email from others, whom you trust, can be forwarded to post immediately. And you can move specific authors from one group to the other, with no trouble.
• Manage your blog authors from GMail, and a much easier to use author list (the GMail filter list).

The one downside here is you'll have to pick a unique GMail address, and one that's easy for your blog authors to remember. But, you may be able to improve on that.

If your blog is published to a custom domain, you can setup and use an email address in the domain, which gives you complete control over the mailbox name (the "xxxxxxx" in "xxxxxxx@yourdomain.com"). GMail, again, is the interface for custom domain based email (aka Google Apps domains), and has the same filtering and forwarding ability.

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