Private Blogs Limit Other Blog Features

Private blogs affect other Blogger features - and the combination of results are inconsistent.

With dynamic templates, the private blog selection causes an inoperable display. Conversely, with Google+ Comments, enabling Google+ Comments disables the private blog (designated reader) selection - and vice versa, in the various Blogger dashboard pages.

The two interactions - and differing mutual exclusiveness - contribute to some interesting diagnostic sessions, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

Intriguingly enough, when one of the known limitations with private blogs is diagnosed, some blog owners may treat the limitation as a personal insult.

Not all blog owners understand the technical limitations, with private blogs and other Blogger features. The limitations are based on simple technical interactions.

• Dynamic templates, and private blogs.
• Google+ comments, and private blogs.

Dynamic templates, and private blogs.

Private blogs do not publish blog newsfeeds. Dynamic templates require comments and posts newsfeeds, to generate the displays.

You can make a blog private - and you lose the "Dynamic Template" selection, in the dashboard Template page.

Some of the templates offered on the Template page, for a public blog.
Simple.
Dynamic Views.
Picture Window.
Awesome Inc.

Some of the templates offered on the Template page, for a private blog.
Simple.
Picture Window.
Awesome Inc.



If the blog has a dynamic template already, you can change to private access (edit Permissions, and designate readers), with no warning. The next time the blog is accessed, you will see the Spinner of Death.

My Dynamic Template test blog, set to Private.



Google+ comments, and private blogs.

When Google+ is used, no access to the Blogger permissions database is available. Since Google+ Comments are (or can be) Google+ stream posts, Google+ Comments can only support public blogs.

If you enable Google+ Comments, you will see a warning in the Permissions wizard - and you'll have no ability to Edit "Blog Readers".

Google+ Comments enabled. Learn more

If the blog is private already, you'll similarly see a warning on the dashboard Google+ page.

Google+ Comments are unsupported on non-public blogs and blogs marked as containing adult content. Learn more

So Google+ Comments, and private blogs, are mutually exclusive, on the dashboard - though Dynamic Views and private blogs are not, with intriguing result.

Why won't my blog load? It was fine, yesterday!

And when the blog address is provided with the problem report, we can see the problem.

Learn More.

• More information about Dynamic Views blogs.
• Manage Google+ Comments for Blogger.
• Control access to your blog.

---

The option to designate permitted readers, for a #Blogger blog, affects other Blogger features. Not all blog owners know about or understand the limitations that exist.

Dynamic Templates Require A Full Blog NewsFeed

We see periodic signs of confusion, about publishing a blog to a dynamic template, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

My blog seems to load - but it just sits there, spinning gears!

or

The dashboard Template wizard tells me that dynamic templates are not available, for my blog!!

These are two blog owners who are not aware of the requirements of the dynamic templates - and who can't figure out why they see the Spinner of Death when loading the blog.

Most people know that private blogs cannot be published to a dynamic template - but not everybody realises that this is not an arbitrary or capricious restriction.

Whether you publish your blog as Private or Public - if you do not publish a Full Posts newsfeed, a dynamic view won't work.

Dynamic views retrieve blog content from the posts newsfeed - and without a full posts newsfeed, a blog can't be displayed in dynamic view. This may be one more reason why Blogger eliminated on the fly switching to dynamic views.

The comments section, similarly, retrieves content from the comments newsfeed. If the posts newsfeed is properly set, and the comments newsfeed is not, you (and your readers) will see the spinner of death when clicking on "Add a comment".

Look at the dashboard Settings - Other page. In the "Site feed" section, look at "Allow Blog Feed". You should see "Full". Anything besides "Full", for comments or posts, will eventually be a problem.

Allow Blog Feed: Full.



If you don't see either "Full", your blog (and any comments) can't be displayed, using a dynamic view. Neither "Short", or "Until Jump Break" can be used, with a dynamic view.

For a dynamic template blog, no other setting will do.



It's that simple. Without Full Comments and Posts newsfeeds, you cannot publish a blog using a dynamic template.

Either use the Template wizard, and select a non dynamic template - or use Settings - Other, and enable a Full feed.

Confusion From Feed Gadgets That Don't Display All Feeds In The List

One of the more intriguing subjects of confusion, about feed gadgets, involves gadgets with more feeds in the list then they are set to display.

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we see the petulant query

Why does my blog disappear from (feed gadgets on) other peoples blogs?

This confusion starts with the question of how often and when we update our blogs, as opposed to how often and when the other blog owners update their blogs. It continues with the little known effect of the difference between how many feeds are in the gadget list, as opposed to how many feeds the gadget is set to display.

A gadget which has 10 feeds in the list, but is set to display only 5 feeds, will display the 5 most recently updated feeds.

A feed gadget will display only the count of feeds that it is set for.

The other 5 feeds will not display - and since the display order will vary according to date last updated, so will the set of feeds displayed. As different feeds are updated irregularly, they become the 5 feeds displayed. The other 5 feeds, updated less recently, will seem to disappear from the display.

This blog has a BlogList with 6 entries (currently) - but set to display the 5 most recently updated feeds. There will always be 1 feed which does not display - and the missing 1 feed, at any time, will be the least recently updated.

Look in the sidebar, for the gadget labeled "THE REAL BLOGGER STATUS - POSTS". Below that gadget, you'll find an unlabeled feed gadget, displaying feeds from 6 different blogs.

What displays, over time, will vary - depending upon recent updates.

If you watch this blog over a period of days or weeks, you'll see 5 feeds display, in an occasionally changing sequence. That sequence, seemingly random, will reflect the 5 feeds most recently updated - and the 6th feed will seem to disappear.

If you are an owner of one of the blogs which are featured, in that feed gadget, you may be occasionally asking yourself

Why does my blog seem to disappear from The REAL Blogger Status, from time to time?

The disappearance will not involve your imagination - just how often you update your blog, compared to how often the other blog owners update theirs.

You can look at the gadgets on your blog - and see the effect on your blog.

Look at the various BlogList and Feed gadgets, on your blog. Do any of your gadgets have a list that's longer than the display number? It's perfectly valid to do this - but if you are doing this, consider that somebody who publishes one of the blogs, that you've featured in your gadget, is occasionally asking himself

Why does my blog disappear from (your) blog?

Dynamic Templates And Visitor Information

As the dynamic templates continue to be installed on various Blogger blogs, more and more blog owners are noticing problems with their visitor logs.

I installed a dynamic template on my blog, and my Stats display shows

No stats yet, check back later.

and

StatCounter shows no traffic, now that my blog uses the dynamic views.

These reports come from people who don't realise how the new templates work - and why they don't seem to work, in these cases.

Blogs that use the dynamic views are able to display content faster.

The display speed improvement is possible, because dynamic templates use the blog feed - which is downloaded from the Blogger newsfeed servers, and rendered as a web display on our computers. Non Dynamic templates display static or semi static HTML (with CSS, XML, and other extensions) - rendered into web displays on the Blogger servers, and downloaded as web content.

The differences in web page display are not consistent with how visitor activity is observed.

• Dynamic templates provide less customisation ability, for most blog owners.
• Newsfeed content is simpler than web pages.
• Newsfeed content is read one display page at a time.
• Displayed dynamic pages contain less formatting tweaks.
• Individual posts, when displayed, are already cached on the local computer.

Dynamic templates provide less customisation ability, for most blog owners.

The downloaded dynamic templates are very simple, and contain no custom code for different blogs. Once downloaded for your blog, they will work the same for my blogs, and for my neighbours blog - with all blogs using dynamic views. This makes these blogs very stable.

Newsfeed content is simpler than web pages.

Non rendered newsfeed content is much simpler than rendered display pages. Once the template code is downloaded once, downloading the data is even quicker than downloading the templates.

Newsfeed content is read one display page at a time.

The newsfeed content is read from the Blogger newsfeed servers one display page at a time, and cached on each readers computer. As each blog is read, the most recent articles are at the top. Many readers, as with viewers, will never go beyond the first display page.

Displayed dynamic pages contain less formatting tweaks.

The displayed pages contain very little accessories and formatting, which is so popular with many blog owners, and which generates load on networks and processors.

Individual posts, when displayed, are already cached on the local computer.

When an individual post is displayed, the cached content is already right there, on the computer.

There are disadvantages to having all content cached, however.

The advantages, and the disadvantages, of the dynamic views originate from the same basic details - use of the blog newsfeed, and of a very simple and standard template. People who distribute their blog as newsfeed subscriptions have been asking the same question, for years.

How do I track my subscribers, as well as I track my viewers?

There is no easy answer to this need. With all content cached on the local computer, tracking reader activity is not so simple.

Tracking reader activity is a challenge - for both Blogger and non Blogger features.

Both third party visitor logs and meters, and the Blogger Stats feature, have problems providing details about our readers - with our blogs using the dynamic templates.

1. Older installations of third party products use HTML / JavaScript, installed directly into the blog templates (generally Classic, but some Layout and Designer templates). The dynamic templates will not include this third party code. Newsfeeds contain only very simple text, and pictures, with no scripts.
2. Newer installations of third party products use HTML / JavaScript / XML gadgets, installed as accessories into the header, footer, or sidebar sections of the display. The dynamic templates, right now, contain neither sidebars nor accessories.
3. Stats reads the Blogger server activity logs, generated as rendered display pages are downloaded to the client computers. Newsfeed content may not require the same server activity, and generate comparable activity logs.

None of these features will be easily included in the dynamic views, without some rethinking of the simple and standard dynamic template structure.

1. Blogger has suggested that they will provide support for JavaScript code, in the dynamic templates. We can install third party JavaScript code directly into the dynamic templates, making them more complex, and unique for different blogs.
2. Blogger has suggested that they will provide sidebars, and support for accessory gadgets. We can install third party JavaScript code as sidebar gadgets.
3. Similar to accessory gadgets used for third party JavaScript, or to JavaScript embedded into the templates, Blogger can provide additional code to drive Stats displays, and provide pageview counts, into the template code.

Unfortunately, all of these alternatives will come with a price. We will see increased code complexity, increased downloaded code volume, and increased network and processor activity on our computers.

In short, do not expect to see detailed visitor information, comparable to what we see right now in Stats or third party products, immediately - and watch for increased latency once these features are added.

---

Owners of #Blogger blogs occasionally observe discrepancies in visitor activity, when they change their blogs to use dynamic templates, and examine their visitor logs.

Some - but not all - changes come from reader reaction to the dynamic template displays and features. Other changes involve how the dynamic templates are processed, by the local computers being used by the blog readers.

Blogger Magic - The FeedBurner Redirected Feed

One of the neatest bits of magic in the Blogger trickbox is the FeedBurner (external) feed redirection. A redirected FeedBurner feed requires 2 steps.

1. Setup a FeedBurner feed, sourced from the blog native feed.
2. In Settings - Site Feed, redirect the blog feed to the FeedBurner feed.

The native feed from this blog, "blogging.nitecruzr.net", is

blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default

That's how my blog started out (after I republished the blog to the custom domain URL). I setup a FeedBurner feed

feeds.feedburner.com/Nitecruzr-Blogging

after this blog had been long in existence.

Normally, when you change a URL, half the work involved in the change is going around to all of your readers and saying

Hey, check out my new blog feed, "feeds.feedburner.com/Nitecruzr-Blogging

Informing your readers is the complicated part of this change.

In this case, I spent no time doing that. Many of my readers don't even know about "feeds.feedburner.com/Nitecruzr-Blogging", they think that I'm still publishing "blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default" (which I am, actually).

All that I had to do was change one setting in my blog. In Settings - Site Feed, I set "Post Feed Redirect URL". Blogger took care of the rest.

A post feed redirect is the simple part of this change.

Let's look at a redirected feed, using an excerpted HTTP trace.

Sending request:

GET /feeds/posts/default HTTP/1.1
Host: blogging.nitecruzr.net
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009101601 Firefox/3.0.15
Referer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 74.125.53.121
• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...
Receiving Header:
HTTP/1.1·302·Moved·Temporarily(CR)(LF)
X-Frame-Options:·ALLOWALL(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://feeds.feedburner.com/Nitecruzr-Blogging(CR)(LF)

...

Sending request:

GET /Nitecruzr-Blogging HTTP/1.1
Host: feeds.feedburner.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009101601 Firefox/3.0.15
Referer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 74.125.155.133
• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...
Receiving Header:
HTTP/1.1·200·OK(CR)(LF)

A redirected post feed uses another DNS based redirection.

Yes, folks, another DNS redirected URL. If I ever tire of the FeedBurner feed name "Nitecruzr-Blogging", I just setup a new FeedBurner feed, then change the redirect for the blog. And the instant that I change the redirect, people reading my feed get the new feed.

I could even setup a redirected feed in another service. But be aware that not all online services will use a redirected feed.

Use whatever feed redirect you wish - just make sure that the "Post Feed Redirect URL" setting points to a valid feed URL, and you're good to go.

More Granular Security For Your Blog

I've been writing about Private blogs, and the ability to limit even the readership of the blog, for some time.

What if you want to have some posts accessible by a few people, and others by everybody? Or maybe you would like some of your administrators to have the ability to edit only a portion of your blog.

A content management system might provide security settings on a post by post basis, but Blogger is a blogging platform.

With Blogger blogs, you can set security only on a blog by blog basis.

The ability to set security on a post by post basis was one of the many issues discussed in the Appspot forum, in early 2009. It did not receive a large amount of votes.

But nobody said that you have to have everything in one blog. Having different security levels for different blog sections is similar to having different template objects for different blog posts.

Setup a second blog, as like the current one as you wish - but with different security settings, or maybe as a private blog. Then combine the two blogs for your readers.

To your readers, you'll have 1 blog. To you, you can have many blogs. And your blog members will have only the access that you want each one to have.

Different Template Objects For Different Pages / Posts

Some bloggers like something different, and want to expand the concept of the template.

Occasionally, we see the query

I want to have different pictures in the header, for different posts.

or

How can I have a linklist in my sidebar for some posts, but not for others?

and the immediate answer is

You can't. With a template, everything is the same.

One blog = many pages / posts = one template.

Even though you can have only one template in a blog, nobody said that you have to have just one blog.

You can have as many different blogs as you have different needs. Setup a second blog, give it a different header picture, as you like. Or put a different linklist in one blog. Likewise a third blog, and so on.

If you have any controversial pictures, likewise display them in a second blog. You can have all of the links that you want from your main blog. The second blog may get an "Objectionable Content" interstitial, but the first blog, which contains all of the content to attract the search engines and your readers, can be indexed and viewed freely.

Some people are multi-lingual, and plan to publish identical content, translated into two, three, or more languages. One way to do this is to add a Language Translator gadget to your blog. Another way is to have multiple blogs, each blog published in the desired language, combined with each other using "hreflang".

Sometimes, the proper language setting makes a difference in the way the blog contents are displayed - and can make a blog easier to read for your various readers.

Then, simply combine the different blogs using blog feeds, custom domains, IFrames, links / linklists, and / or template cloning. The limit here is merely your imagination.

To the readers, you'll have 1 blog. To you, you can have many blogs. And your blogs can all have different templates, as pleases you.

Custom Feeds And The Google Sitemap

Custom feed services, like FeedBurner, give you much more than a native Blogger blog feed. You can aggregate content and pull in material from other blogs and web sites, you can provide more user friendly formatting, and you can even track the number of readers who subscribe to a FeedBurner custom feed.

Your Blogger blog even supports your use of a custom feed. If you setup the Post Feed Redirect option, all links in the blog that would reference the native blog post feed are replaced by the custom feed. Your blog readers, when they click on a link that says

Click here to subscribe to my feed!

automatically subscribe to the custom feed. This is good for your readers, and for you.

Unfortunately, use of the feed redirect option isn't a good idea for everybody, immediately. If you're using a Google Sitemap, to make it easier for the search engines to index your blog, and bring you more readers, you'll need to use the native blog feed.

With the blog redirecting all blog post feed references, to a custom feed, the sitemap will be broken. The Google Sitemap requires a feed that has the same URL as the blog. A custom feed has the URL of the custom feed service. This breaks the sitemap, unless you modify the feed URL.

Having modified my feed URL, I can create a Google sitemap that the spider can work from.

>> Top