Blogger Magic - Followers / Reading List Visibility

When we use Blogger Following, we create a link to our profile, from each blog that we Follow.

That's the primary purpose of Following - to see, and to be seen. We also create links from our Followers profile, to each Followed blog. That's the purpose of having a profile - to describe ourselves, by the blogs that interest us.

Everybody does not want other people knowing about every blog that we Follow, though. To let us Follow blogs without being seen, we can Follow anonymously - or hide a blog, from our profile on other blogs.

When we Follow a blog, we can choose to Follow anonymously, or publicly.

We can change the option, to Follow anonymously or publicly, when needed. If we Follow publicly, we can hide this blog, in our profile, on other blogs.

We can also hide blogs in Reading List, to keep the list manageable.

Change between Anonymous and Public Following.

There are two ways of changing between anonymous and public Following.

1. Use the Followers gadget.
2. Use the Reading List wizard.

Use the Followers gadget.

If you are Following a blog publicly, you'll have your icon in the Followers facepile (the icon cloud in the gadget). You can edit your profile, and Follow anonymously - or continue to Follow publicly, but with this blog hidden from other blogs.

Click on "Options", when you are logged in to Following, as yourself.

Then, click on "Site settings".

Or, if you are Following publicly, you can click on your icon, then "Settings".

Now, you have the Settings wizard, for this site.

Click on "publicly" - since you can see this, when Following publicly.

If you're Following publicly, you can choose to Follow anonymously - or continue to Follow publicly, but not include this blog on your profile.



If you are Following a blog anonymously, you won't have your icon in the facepile. If you want to now Follow publicly, and you are properly logged in, you'll still have "Options" - then "Site settings".

Use the Reading List wizard.

There are two Reading List management wizards - one for Blogger profiles, the other for Google+ profiles.

Changing Reading List, with a Blogger profile.

If you have a Blogger profile, you use the Blogger "Manage Blogs I'm Following" wizard - that you access from the Blogger dashboard.

If you have a Google+ profile, you'll use Google friend connect "Sites I've joined".

Start from the Blogger dashboard home page.

Click on the "gear" icon, to the right of "Reading List".

Some blogs are Followed publicly.

You can make any publicly Followed blog, Followed anonymously.

Just click on "Change to anonymous".

Some blogs are Followed anonymously.

You can make any anonymously Followed blog, Followed publicly.

Just click on "Change to public".



Changing Reading List, with a Google+ profile.

If you have a Google+ profile, you use Google Friend Connect: Sites I've joined. You can't click to this wizard, from the dashboard.

If you have a Blogger profile, you'll use Blogger "Manage Blogs I'm Following".

Start from "Sites I've joined".

Find the blog that's relevant - and click on "Settings".

Some blogs are Followed publicly.

This blog is being Followed publicly.



If you choose to Follow publicly, using a Google+ profile, you can choose to display this blog, as part of your profile - when your icon is displayed on other blogs. Alternately, you can Follow this blog publicly - but make it non visible, from other blogs.

To Follow anonymously, click on "Follow anonymously", and "Save".

Some blogs are Followed anonymously.

This blog is being Followed anonymously.

To Follow publicly, click on "Follow publicly", and "Save".

If you Follow publicly, you can choose to hide the blog from your profile. You'll be visible, on this blog - but your profile, on other blogs, won't point to this blog.



Hide and un hide a blog, in Reading List.

Besides anonymity in Following, we can hide a blog, to make Reading List manageable.

So, be aware of the options for choosing private ("anonymous") vs public Following.

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When we Follow a blog, using #Blogger Followers, we have several options to control our visibility on different blogs. We can make ourselves fully or partially visible - or non visible.

Identifying Yourself, As The Owner Of Your Blog

Occasionally, somebody in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? wonders

Why don't I have a Layouts (or Template) link in my dashboard?

or

How do I setup additional team members, without the right link in Permissions?

and the first question is

Are you logged in as the blog administrator / owner?

It's not difficult to verify the owner of your blog, if you have a public profile, and a standard template.

In your browser, select View, then "Page Source" or "Source". Or, use an HTTP text proxy. Look at the code for this blog, heavily trimmed and broken, for 'link rel="me"'.

<head>

...

<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml"
title="The Real Blogger Status - Atom"
href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/24069595/posts/default" />
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml"
title="RSD" href="http://www.blogger.com/rsd.g?blogID=24069595" />
<link rel="me" href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/08069634565746003311" />

There it is!

https://www.blogger.com/profile/08069634565746003311

or maybe you'd see

https://plus.google.com/114025756997654559499

That's my profile. Click on either link.

Find the Profile URL, and follow the link - and look at the Profile.

So, look at the header code for your blog, locate the "me" link, extract the attached URL, and follow the link- either for a Blogger Profile, or for a Google+ Profile.

If there's no "me" link - which is normal, for blogs under team ownership - look carefully in the sidebar - if the blog has a Profile / "About Us" gadget, you may be able to find a "www.blogger.com/profile/ ..." or "plus.google.com/ ..." link there.

With some team blogs, you may find a list of each individual profile, for the whole team. Each individual profile should have a different Profile ID in the attached URL - again, "www.blogger.com/profile/ ..." or "plus.google.com/ ...".

Then, find the Profile URL from your dashboard - and compare the two.

Take each available "www.blogger.com/profile/ ..." or "plus.google.com/ ..." link, paste it into your browser, and take a look - or click on the link, if possible. Then, go to your dashboard, and find the Profile URL, from the dashboard. Compare the two profiles - are they the same?

If not, you probably inadvertently created a second (or third) Blogger account, possibly as you incorrectly transferred a blog from one Blogger account to another.

Learn to login to Blogger properly - and avoid multi account confusion.

When you login to Blogger, first clear cache, cookies, and active login sessions - then make sure that you login using the proper Blogger account. If necessary, recover the account information, and start over.

Remember that when you login, Blogger will not select the account for you. If you have FeedBurner, GMail, Picasa, or any of the other many Google services under another account, you'll need to use two different browsers - or a different computer.

Note the limitations of the procedure, when the owner wants privacy.

Note that this procedure works only for blogs and profiles that are properly made public. If a blogger has chosen to not make the profile public, or if the blog in question is published as private (with designated readers), you won't get the details needed here. And if the blog has multiple administrators, it probably won't have the "me" meta tag in the header.

In extreme cases, you'll need assistance from Blogger, using the Having trouble signing in? wizard. Now, you have to hope that your account isn't intentionally based on a bogus email address.