Photobucket Drops Free Image Display, Outside Their Website

One of the most popular third party image hosting services, for Blogger blogs, recently changed their photo hosting service.

Photobcket no longer allows embedding of their hosted photos on third party websites, for free accounts. They now require a $399 / year membership, for accounts with photos shared outside their website.

Some Blogger blog owners, publishing blogs which use third party templates that feature images - decorations, illustrations, and wallpaper - hosted by Photobucket - now see their blogs decorated by various demands.

PLEASE UPDATE YOUR ACCOUNT TO ENABLE THIRD PARTY HOSTING



This is (was) a small image, tiled (repeated horizontally and vertically), to fill a larger space. It's now a PhotoBucket ad, similarly tiled.

In many cases, this is simply a third party supplied template, using wallpaper designed by the template publisher. The template publisher used PhotoBucket, to host the image.

The blog owner, and others, now face the need to pay dearly, to publish their blogs using their current templates.

Whether the template objects were created by you - or by the supplier of a shiny third party template - if the images are hosted by Photobucket, they are now unusable, on your blog.

Photobucket, a US-based image and video-hosting website founded in 2003, quietly changed its policy late last month to prevent users from hosting their content on third-party websites unless they pay a $US400 ($526) annual fee.

Photobucket published a brief blog post, on June 26, referring to the service change - buried deep in their website.

We have updated our Terms of Service, effective June 20, 2017. Please take a moment to review our updated terms and policies as they may affect your account.

If your blog uses a third party template with PhotoBucket hosted images, the account in question won't be yours - but your blog will still be affected. You're going to have to find out how your template designer is going to support their product.

Third party template publishers now need to convert their templates, to use images hosted by other services. And Blogger blog owners may need to find other image hosting.

Blogger blog owners, who use third party templates in their blogs, may need different templates. Not all third party template publishers may be able to support their templates, and this change.

The simplest solution is to switch back to a Blogger standard and supported template, using the dashboard Theme page. If you've had your current template for a while, you may not know what possibilities have been added, to the Blogger template selections.

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Photobucket, a popular third party image hosting service used by many #Blogger blogs, originally allowed their hosted images to be embedded or hot linked on Blogger and many other websites. They recently started requiring a $400 USD / year membership, for images to be displayed outside their website.

Many Blogger blogs, with third party templates that use Photobucket hosted images, now have broken templates.

Blogger Resolves The FaceBook Photo Sharing Issue

Blogger Engineers recently added Blogger template code, to provide images in shares to FaceBook.

The added code is included in the standard template header. If you have a custom template, you may need to verify template header content.

If you have added the previously recommended Open Graph Code to your blog, to allow Open Graph based post / photo sharing - and you use the FaceBook Developers Debugger tool, you may see a new diagnostic suggestion.

Given newly added template code, blogs with added OG code may generate ominous warnings in the FaceBook Developers Debugger tool.

Looking at my blog, and the blog main page.

Object at URL 'http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/' of type 'article' is invalid because it specifies multiple 'og:url' values: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/, http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/.

Looking at my blog, and a FaceBook Debug log, for this post.

Object at URL 'http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2016/03/blogger-resolves-facebook-photo-sharing.html' of type 'article' is invalid because it specifies multiple 'og:url' values: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2016/03/blogger-resolves-facebook-photo-sharing.html, http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2016/03/blogger-resolves-facebook-photo-sharing.html.

With Blogger now providing a properly resized image, automatically, from each post, the image provided in the previously suggested Open Graph code is now redundant - and causes duplication.

The browser source listing, for this post.

The FaceBook Debugger log, for this post.



Here's what I see now, in the standard template header.

<meta content='Blogger recently added template code, to properly share content to FaceBook. Learn how this affects your blog.' name='description'/>
<meta content='http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2016/03/blogger-resolves-facebook-photo-sharing.html' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinBb17rkStDcQMf4ySxb5DdvxHQM51ZwDHKE1fpfLBsh4uYuz2XEKgs6Do0mySLXLrQB7j1N-GiquUrzKWMNo3I4GRL-KR79KB0HxBisfjUkYSNW9hSytOiTR3rJmGTOo1c1Hl0j6XjtWv/w1200-h630-p-nu/Screenshot+2016-03-13+at+14.35.32.png' property='og:image'/>

So, what do we have?

<meta content='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinBb17rkStDcQMf4ySxb5DdvxHQM51ZwDHKE1fpfLBsh4uYuz2XEKgs6Do0mySLXLrQB7j1N-GiquUrzKWMNo3I4GRL-KR79KB0HxBisfjUkYSNW9hSytOiTR3rJmGTOo1c1Hl0j6XjtWv/w1200-h630-p-nu/Screenshot%2B2016-03-13%2Bat%2B14.35.32.png' property='og:image'/>

The chosen image - resized to 1200 x 630, to suit the FaceBook recommended 1.9 aspect ratio - and large, to suit the FaceBook recommended size.

Now, 3 data elements (2 Open Graph) may be redundant.

• description
• og:image
• og:url

This makes the immediately previous advice unnecessary.

If one wishes to provide author information, that also becomes slightly simpler.

<!-- BEGIN Open Graph tags -->
<meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='description' property='og:description'/>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.pageTitle' name='keywords'/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<meta content='article' property='og:type'/>
<meta content='https://plus.google.com/nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn/about' property='article:author'/>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.pageName' property='og:title'/>
<b:else/>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.title' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='blog' property='og:type'/>
</b:if>
<meta expr:content='"en_US"' property='og:locale'/>
<!-- END Open Graph tags -->

If you truly want to share author details, you still have some work to do - but photos should now be shared, automatically, if your blog has a template with a standard header.

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Recently, Blogger Engineering added OG code to the standard template header, to allow us to share posts with images to FaceBook, without having to add special code. This should help, for owners of blogs which have standard headers.

Base64 Photo Hosting, And Open Graph Code

Some blog owners make photos an important part of blog content.

When sharing a post to FaceBook, problems are seen with photo content. In some cases, this is because of how the photos were added into the post, when using Post Editor.

We've known about problems with photos installed using drag and drop, and post editor, for a few years. Drag and Drop photos, in some cases, are stored as "Base64" content - with the photo content hosted in the post, instead of Google Photos (or Picasa).

Photos added to posts in post editor, using "drag and drop", have been a problem for many years.

Base64 hosted photos make posts abnormally large.

Posts containing "Base64" encoded photos are abnormally large - and will cause problems with the index pages, and auto pagination. That is a nuisance - but just that.

With posts shared to social media, such as FaceBook and Twitter, photos hosted using Base64 become more than a nuisance. When normal posts are shared to FaceBook, OpenGraph code is used to identify key post content - such as a photo to accompany the shared post.

Open Graph code uses URLs to reference photos.

OG code uses HTML / XML tags, in template code - with a URL identifying a shared photo. A post that contains Base64 hosted photos won't have URLs identifying the photos - it will have the actual photo content.

This photo was installed, using drag and drop. Interestingly enough, it is not Base64. It is possible that Blogger no longer uses Base64 encoding - which would explain why the problem with OG code is rather irregular.

When shared to FaceBook, the photo must be converted to normal Google Photo hosted content, so it can be shared using a URL - as normal photos are shared, using OG code. If shared using Base64 content (if OG were to support Base64), the post, again, becomes abnormally large.

Base64 hosted photos simply present one more complication, when sharing posts to FaceBook, Twitter, and other social services.

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Some blog owners publish posts that contain photos added using drag and drop. Some drag and drop installs result in Base64 hosted photos - which must be converted to Google Photos hosted content, when shared to FaceBook or Twitter.

Problems With Non Google Hosted Photos Are Separate From Problems With Picasa Hosted Photos

We see daily evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, about photo hosting.

How much space do I get for photo storage?

and

What happened to the pictures on my blog?

and

Why does my blog look weird now?

Some of these questions come from photos (pictures) hosted by Google, others from photos (pictures) hosted outside Google - and the uncertainty about hosting leads to confusion about the problems.

We've been exploring various issues with Picasa, aka Google photo hosting, recently.

• Identifying Picasa problems.
• Interference involved in setting up other Google services.
• Loss of Picasa accounts.
• Storage limitations involved in Picasa hosting.

Similar issues exist with photo hosting outside Google - and blaming Google for problems which they don't cause (except, as they provide a service like Blogger, which permits use of non Google services) is not a productive use of anybody's time. Non Google services like Flickr, ImageShack, and PhotoBucket each have their own limitations and policies.

One interesting problem with photo storage, seen occasionally, comes from third party template providers and hosting of background images used in the templates. Loss of a background image, even if it does not result in multiple views of the infamous ImageShack Frog when bandwidth limits are exceeded, can cause problems with blog layout.

There are advantages, and disadvantages, of using Google and non Google photo storage. If you publish a Blogger blog, you're entitled to use any choice which pleases you - but you, as the blog owner, need to be aware of the choices, and possible consequences.

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Auto Pagination Being Triggered By Post Images Encoded In Base64 - Redux

The problem of auto pagination, triggering display page segmentation, has been with us since early 2010.

Even in the beginning, auto pagination was not 100% popular with blog owners. As more blog owners got used to the inevitability of auto pagination, more scenarios were discovered, where it critically affected blogs.

The most recently identified scenario, where auto pagination was involved, was with images hosted as Base64 content - first discovered a year after the initial opposition started.

Having examined enough cases of Base64 hosted photos during the past year, we now see that the problem appears to be related to installation technique.

Both the drag and drop technique, or the "From the web" option in the "Insert image" wizard in post editor, when adding photos to blog posts, appear to consistently add images hosted as Base64 content, into blog posts.

With the causative scenario identified, we can now recommend a technique for resolution. Hoping that any blog showing the problem of critical display page segmentation does not have an unacceptably large number of images / photos hosted as Base64 content, each image or photo has to be identified and removed, and a properly installed image / photo replacing it.

1. Find the original of each photo installed, using drag and drop or "From the web".
2. Copy each photo to your computer.
3. Edit each post containing each photo. Remove each photo, as previously added.
4. Add each photo again, using "Insert image", and selecting the copy on your computer.
5. Re publish each post, so edited.

If the blog in question contains too many images or photos hosted as Base64 content, a possible alternative might be to change the blog to display using a dynamic template. This may provide a solution because dynamic templates, with the content rendered on the client computers, do not appear to be susceptible to display page segmentation.

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Is Blogger Free?

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum, we get the querulous inquiry

Is Blogger free, or must I pay for the service?

or

What upcharges will I have to deal with, after publishing my blog?

To answer the question, I'll say

Yes, and no.

Within limits, and excepting for minor details, you can publish a Blogger blog, and maintain it for a very long time, without needing a major credit card.

There are two possible charge items, that I can think of.

• If you want to publish your blog to BlogSpot, the service is free. Publishing the blog to a non BlogSpot URL will require paying for either Custom Domain publishing, or service from a remote server published using FTP. Both will likely cost you some money, though you will not pay the money to Google.
• If you publish a blog with photos, and you host the photos using the native post editor upload, you'll be using the Picasa service. Picasa is free, to a limit, then there is an upcharge for additional Picasa storage capacity.

For a free service, there are very few absolute limits to what resources you may use. The limits that do exist may be substantial to some, and you have to decide whether they warrant you finding another blogging platform.

And, as I pointed out long ago, Blogger does not charge us directly for the service, but they are not a non profit organisation. They are compensated, to a nice profit level.

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Republishing Your Blog From FTP (External Hosting)? Edit The Posts, To Move Any Photos To Blogger Servers

If you're in the process of moving a blog, currently hosted externally by FTP publishing, back to BlogSpot, you may take for granted the easy hosting change for the blog itself. The text components of the blog - comments, labels, posts - will simply be transferred back to BlogSpot publishing. The photos and other attachments will be another story.

When you upload photos using the Blogger post editor, you're doing 2 things.

• Copying the photos to storage on a server - either Blogger (Picasa) hosting, or your external server (FTP publishing).
• Inserting code into your post, describing where the photos are stored.

When you simply republish the blog, which moves the rendered blog code to a different blog host, the photos stay where they are, because the act of republishing doesn't edit the posts.

So, if your photos were hosted on an external server, they stay on the external server, until you edit the posts and move them.

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