We periodically see hopeful - yet naive - requests from blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, asking about comment moderation improvement.
How do I add a disruptive commenter to a killfile list - and never see his/her nonsense ever again, without moderating every comment, being published?
This would be a popular feature - if it could be provided, in any way that would achieve results.
Using a killfile, to filter disruptive / malicios commenters, is not a likely possibility.
Anybody who does not want to be identified can comment as desired.
It is not possible to reliabily identify a comment publisher, who does not wish to be identified.
- Blogger / Google identity.
- IP address.
Disruptive individuals can't be identified, with any chance of success. Anybody who wants to publish comments can do so, using multiple accounts, and / or IP addresses.
Both Blogger / Google accounts and IP addresses can be easily cloaked.
Using either multiple Blogger / Google accounts - or IP addresses - is a trivial exercise for anybody who is determined enough to persistently publish unwanted comments.
Given the impossibility of identifying people who don't provide effective identification, Blogger is unlikely to provide a feature that would accomplish nothing - and possibly interfere with legitimate commenting.
The only solution for blocking unacceptable comments will always involve collaborative, fuzzy filters, trained by each blog owner.
Some #Blogger blog owners would like to use a killfile, to filter unacceptable comments. They don't understand that anybody who wants to persistently publish disruptive or malicious comments can easily mask their identity - and make killfile use an exercis in futility.
One of the least understood Blogger features is the Stats visitor counters, and the various displays.
We see the confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, periodically.
The "weekly" Stats numbers don't add up, properly!
or
Why is "Popular Posts" so out of touch, with reality?
Magic is fun to watch, when it's just for amusement. When your numbers seem to have magical quality - changing from day to day, or display to display - it becomes annoying.
With its many lines and pages, the various Stats displays look like they could be part of one big balance sheet - but they are not.
With a balance sheet, you'll have detail lines in one page, that can be added up and reconciled against totals, in another page. This makes some balance sheet components redundant.
With Stats, nothing is redundant. Whether provided in a dashboard page, for you to examine - or in a gadget, to encourage your readers - all numbers are significant, exactly as displayed.
What you see for each day cannot be added up and balanced against a week - nor can a collection of weeks add up to a month. Nor can detail lines in "Pages" add up to totals, in "Audience".
- Components and features are provided for different purposes.
- Different dashboard pages reflect different details.
- Time periods do not begin and end equally.
- You may, or may not, be able to ignore your own pageviews, consistently.
- Social sharing activity will cause confusion.
Components and features are provided for different purposes.
The "Popular Posts" gadget displays popular posts, for the convenience of the blog readers - and there is no "Popular Pages" gadget, for people who choose to build a blog, based on static pages. The dashboard Stats pages are displays for informing the blog owner.
The (3) time range selections in "Popular Posts" also differ from the (5) selections in the dashboard Stats pages - further preventing comparison between Popular Posts and dashboard displays.
Different dashboard pages reflect different details.
The "Posts" dashboard page lists (only) the 10 most popular posts ("dynamic" pages), and the 10 most popular pages ("static" pages). "Pageviews today", and "Pageviews yesterday" reflect all blog activity - all index pages, all "pages", and all "posts" together.
Time periods do not begin and end equally.
"Pageviews today", and "Pageviews yesterday" counts are reset based on the global day - not on any local clock. Your "today" will never be the same, all days of the year - if ever. 23 / 24 of the world will never see their "today" equal to "Pageviews today", and "Pageviews yesterday".
And everybody knows that weeks, months, and years never begin and end in synch. You cannot add up weeks into months - nor months into years.
"Pageviews today", and "Pageviews yesterday" are the best known objects of confusion - but by no means the only - in the Stats data complement.
You may, or may not, be able to ignore your own pageviews, consistently.
Even given the recent improvement to the "Don't track" option, not all blog owners will be able to ignore their own pageviews. Every blog owner has their own required complement of performance and security products, which may interfere with the Stats "Don't track" code.
Social sharing activity will cause confusion.
Blog owners who use social sharing services for community building - and who follow activity in their stream - will observe various inconsistencies. Both inflated counts, and deflated counts, will be perceived, when reconciling stream activity and blog visitor counts.
The bottom line.
Everybody needs to accept reality - that Stats will simply perform differently, for every different blog, and for every different owner of every team blog. Enjoy and use Stats for what it is.
Many #Blogger blog owners become concerned, when they add up detail Stats numbers on one display, and find the numbers do not agree with the totals from another display. They do not notice that the numbers have different origins, and purposes - and simply cannot add into any different display, with any degree of accuracy.
Recently, we've seen signs of confusion, from people who have problems with their Internet service, which shows them moving around their geographic region.I logged in to Blogger, with no problem, yesterday. Today, after logging in successfully, I am asked for more details, to prove my identity!!
This blog owner has a problem with location based security.
Not all Blogger blog owners or readers understand that Country Code Alias Redirection, and the ability to access one's Blogger / Google account (and prevent others from accessing it), both depend upon the ability to determine the geographical location of each blog reader.
Various Google features, like Country Code Alias Redirection, and Google login, use geolocation, to identify the location of each reader.
For people using the Internet, Geolocation uses the Internet connection, to determine physical location. Unfortunately, for many blog owners, the Internet Service Provider, the Internet connection, and the Internet customer (or Blogger blog reader) may each be in a different location.
My own location - even when I am at home - may, at times, appear to move in a 30 mile radius. My ISP routes my connection through any of half a dozen different connection points, in my region, depending upon current network activity.
Some smaller ISPs, located near a country border, may actually get service through a larger ISP in another country. Customers of the smaller ISP may appear, through geolocation, to reside in the other country.
This can be an unfortunate problem, with country code alias redirection, with language detection, with login authentication, and / or the Location option in Post Editor.
People located in one country, reading an unfamiliar language, or seeing their latest post show up in the wrong province / state - or even country - may not appreciate the confusion which is caused. And people who login, and appear to move from city to city in the region, grow tired of having to prove their identity - after successfully entering account name and password.
Thanks to domain based filtering, this may become a security issue for some blog owners, near country borders, who may not be able to maintain / publish their blogs.
Unfortunately, geolocation, using the Internet Address (aka "IP" address), will never return consistent and precise results. Any location based processes will always provide fuzzy results, thanks to Internet services which load balance their network connections.
Much of what we do in life - and what we do when using Blogger - is based upon, and limited by, choice.
Some choices we get to make, for ourselves. Other choices are made for us, by people who make their own choices.
Some blog owners do not want their readers to have to login to Blogger, to comment on their blogs. Other blog owners do not want their readers to have to solve a CAPTCHA, to comment on their blogs.
A few blog owners do not want their readers to have to do either.It seems anyone who wishes to leave a comment, will have to do some form of login, either via Google or a CAPTCHA, to do so! Is there a reason for this, would it not be easier, for anyone to just leave a comment?
And the answer here is simple.It would be easier, if neither were required.
But reality - involving activity by spammers, and activity to counter spammers - leaves some of us with less choices.
Long ago, Blogger allowed anonymous comments, without a CAPTCHA to solve. Spammers benefited from that possibility.
Later, Blogger added the ezCAPTCHA, to be required at the owners decision. Some owners chose to not select the CAPTCHA, because their readers were inconvenienced. Spammers continued to benefit from blogs which allowed anonymous comments, and no CAPTCHA.
Recently, Blogger added the non optional reCAPTCHA. This requires anybody not logged in to have the choice - login, or solve a CAPTCHA.
Unfortunately, the latter change made the third party cookie filter issue more critical. People who are already logged in, but are subject to third party cookie filtering, have to login, or solve a CAPTCHA. This requirement may vary, according to the variant of the commenting form, used by the blog.
Now, a blog owner has 4 choices, to control anonymous comments.- Don't allow anonymous comments, and don't require a CAPTCHA. People who are not logged in will have to login, to comment.
- Don't allow anonymous comments, but require a CAPTCHA. People who have not logged in will have to login, and solve a CAPTCHA.
- Allow anonymous comments, and don't require a CAPTCHA. People who have not logged in will have to either login, or solve a CAPTCHA.
- Allow anonymous comments, and require a CAPTCHA. People who are not logged in will have to solve a CAPTCHA.
Some people will have to either login, or solve a CAPTCHA, to comment. Depending upon what choices are made by the blog owner, the readers may have any 2 of 3 choices.- Solve a non owner optional reCAPTCHA.
- Solve an owner optional ezCAPTCHA.
- Login.
You'll like the ezCAPTCHA a lot more than the reCAPTCHA.
People who are logged in to Blogger / Google, and are not subject to third party cookie filters, may not see a CAPTCHA - and will not have to login to comment. People who are logged in, but are subject to third party cookie filters, will have to either login, or solve a CAPTCHA.
Owners of blogs which attract readers, who choose to maintain their cookie filters, will benefit more from the new CAPTCHA, than owners of blogs which attract readers who do not choose - or do not care - to maintain their cookie filters.
To make the choices easier to understand, Blogger would have to make "Require CAPTCHA" a binary option, for at least 3 comment authentication levels.- Anonymous.
- Require CAPTCHA.
- Don't require CAPTCHA.
- OpenID.
- Require CAPTCHA.
- Don't require CAPTCHA.
- Google account.
- Require CAPTCHA.
- Don't require CAPTCHA.
- Members.
- Require CAPTCHA.
- Don't require CAPTCHA.
If Blogger were to offer this binary option, too many owners would select "Anonymous" / "Don't require CAPTCHA" - and spammers would continue to flood the spam filters - as they were, before the latest update.
As long as spammers choose to do business - and choose to target our blogs, in their business - our choices, as blog owners and readers, will be limited.
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I've always been an advocate of redundancy, with essential components and features.
One essential feature of a website is the ability to remain aware of where your readers come from, and what they are reading, on your blog. Besides Blogger Stats, I've advocated both SiteMeter and StatCounter, in a complementary role to each other.
A while ago, SiteMeter decided to add video advertisements to their blog / website agent, that tracks the clicks.
Spending a few moments Googling the issue, I learned
- Many people have complained, to SiteMeter Support.
- The complaints are being ignored.
I took the only responsible action, and removed the SiteMeter agent from my blog.
You may wish to do the same, on your blog or website, if your readers do not have ultra fast computers and fat Internet connections. I guess the old saying
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch
has now, once again, been proven true.
Unwanted videos (invisible, in many cases) are even worse than unwanted music. Both produce noise, when you expect it least - and videos inhale bandwidth.
And recently, SiteMeter has been implicated in other, even more annoying oddities.
My apologies to those of you who have tried to read this blog, and found themselves with bandwidth and memory resource issues.
Occasionally, we see a report in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, that reflects on the reader audience - not necessarily only the blog content.Why is my blog behind a Content Warning?Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable.
Occasionally, a quick eyeballing of the blog in question may turn up some dodgy content, which may be suggested, in the forum, as problematic.
This story may not end immediately.But, I've had that picture gallery, for years! Why did I just get the Content Warning?
Here, the blog owner is not considering changing standards - or the possibility that the blog, becoming more popular, may be adding readers who don't appreciate a photo gallery started years ago.
As your blog matures - and when you are successful at encouraging reader and search engine reputation - your reader audience should be increasing.
If your reader population expands, some readers may be less tolerant.
If you are now advertising your blog to a more selective audience, some folks in that audience may object to some blog content, enjoyed or ignored by your earlier audience.
If you spend time perusing your visitor logs - and if you have a more robust visitor log than Stats, you may find some interesting clues. StatCounter (not SiteMeter) shows, among other details, the "Exit Click" for each visitor. If you see any one post abnormally represented, among the "Exit Click" inventory, you may be looking at content that's possibly not appreciated by some portion of the reader community.
Here, I'll note that you won't necessarily see any statistics for a post that is posted entirely on the main page. If your main page is a significant portion of the blog, you may wish to add Jump Break to your posts, to encourage your readers to click to the individual post pages, and read each individual post.
Be aware of your reader population - and consider their needs.
Whatever your strategy for advertising your blog, be aware of changing visitor interest. Don't "spice up" your blog with "eye candy", and expect to remain free of a Content Warning, forever.
Encourage your readers, with informative, interesting, and unique content. Don't abuse them with eye candy, then demand removal of the Content Warning, without compromise.
One of the oddest displays of naivete we see, from some blog owners, asking in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, would beHow do I let anybody post to my blog?
These owners have no idea how popular they would be, with spammers, were this to happen.
If you have a blog, and you want to let up to 99 of your closest friends publish their thoughts to your blog, you can setup a team blog, and have fun. Beyond that limit, you cannot - nor should you - go.
Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? we see the anguishWhere did the spam, on my blog, come from?
These queries come from people whose blogs have been successfully attacked, by hackers or spammers, and who now see content which they do not appreciate, being posted in their blog.
Leaving blog open to public authorship will make your blog spammer friendly.
If you were to voluntarily let anybody post in your blog, without requiring that anybody hack to gain control surreptitiously, your blog will become very popular with spammers.
After spammers saturate your blog content, your genuine friends will find elsewhere to post - and your remaining friends will be spammers. And your new friends (spammers) will tell their friends (more spammers), about a blog which accepts ads (posts) from everybody.
Your blog will be late classified as a spam host.
Shortly after this happens, your blog will be - righteously - classified as a spam host, and taken offline. And if you cannot show any non spam content, it will likely stay offline.We're sorry, but your blog cannot be restored. It was recently confirmed as spam. Blogger suggests that you read the TOS.
You are responsible for content distributed by your "guest authors".
Another thing to consider, as the owner of a "host" blog, where "guests" post contributed material, is that you will be responsible for the content posted by your guests - whether you let the world post - or designated members.- If you allow guest posts in your blog, you, as the blog owner, are responsible for the content of those posts.
- If your "guest" posts the same material elsewhere (as in his own blog, or a third person's blog), and search engines index both blogs, both blogs may receive "duplicated content" penalties.
- Nobody benefits, from duplicated content.
Unfortunately, you have to develop your blog content, yourself. Don't expect the public to provide your content for you - and plan to keep your blog online for long.
Not all blog owners realise how unique Blogger Stats is, in its design.
Some owners may idly suggest that Stats can easily be replaced by any third party visitor activity log / meter.Why bother to use Stats? Since Blogger Stats shows referrer spam, it's pretty useless - just use SiteMeter, StatCounter - or Google Analytics.
They have no idea why Stats was designed as it is, nor what information Stats provides, that no competing product can possibly provide.
Every add-on accessory, such as any visitor activity counter / log / meter, has to be manually installed in your blog.
Most visitor activity counter / log / meter products require installation.
Simple accessories, which depend upon your visitor clicking on a link, can be installed easily - just add a clickable link on your blog - either in a post, or anywhere in the body of the blog. Visitor logs or meters such as SiteMeter or StatCounter, in order to produce usable statistics, can't depend upon the blog readers clicking on a link.
Most such accessories use add-on JavaScript code, installed in the body of the blog (as an accessory gadget), or in the blog template (installed using "Edit HTML"). With add-on code, that references any external server, the installed location on the blog page, of the accessory code, is crucial.
- Install the add-on at the top of the web page (or in the template code), and as your reader loads each page, he / she gets to watch the page load pause, as it waits for a distant accessory server to respond (while recording the visit).
- Install the add-on at the bottom of the page, and any reader, who closes the display before the page finishes loading, will not be counted by Analytics / SiteMeter / StatCounter.
In either case, the page takes longer to load. This causes reader impatience, and motivates the reader to close the display before the page finishes loading. The result - your blog gets one less new reader.
Most visitor activity counter / log / meter products are affected by filters.
Besides reader impatience causing statistical inaccuracy, all third party accessories that use JavaScript have a second problem - script filtering by our readers.
Analytics, SiteMeter, and StatCounter are known to be explicitly blocked, by some browser setting or third party application that may run on any given client computer. Some security products specifically list "sitemeter.com" or "statcounter.com" in their Block Lists.
A lot of malicious activity, encountered when surfing the web, can easily be blocked by proactive script filtering - just permit scripts, from any given domain, only when explicitly told to do so.
Every reader uses security accessories in the browser and on the computer - and many security accessories and settings provide script filtering. Most security is now provided as "deny by default, permit only on demand".
Most security products update automatically, as updates are produced - and this leads to other problems. Many of our readers, who are concerned with security, or who use computers that are well protected, may not be counted, consistently, by Analytics, SiteMeter, or StatCounter.
Stats does not require installation, and is not affected by filters.
Blogger Stats avoids the issues of page load delay induced impatience, and client filtering, by not using JavaScript add-on code. Since Stats is a Blogger accessory, it can retrieve data directly from the access logs produced by the Blogger servers. Access to server access logs:
- Does not cause page load delays.
- Is not subject to page load delay impatience.
- Is not subject to reader security settings.
- Does not require installation of any accessory, on individual blogs.
Besides the problems of our readers visits not being counted, we have the issue of what information is provided, and for what period of time. If you have installed SiteMeter or StatCounter on your blog, look at the displays provided. Each product will mention a limit of either 100 or 500 log entries - and will display details or statistics based upon the log used.
Many Blogger blogs get more than 500 visits in a single day - requiring blog owner visits to the log website at least daily, or to pay for extra service, to provide any benefit. And of course, that log was started only after the product was installed.
Blogger Stats, on the other hand, is able to provide statistics for the current day, week, month, and for "all time" (starting in May 2009, for all blogs in existence at that time).
Stats does not discard old statistics, they just extract from the server access logs, for any time range provided.
- All time.
- Last 30 days ("Month").
- Last 7 days ("Week").
- Last 24 hours ("Day").
- Last 2 hours ("Now").
Any blog owner can see any available statistics, at any time. Stats never has to be installed, by any blog owners - it is already there.
Stats is vulnerable to bogus activity records, created by spammers.
Unfortunately, the biggest strength of Stats - use of the server access logs to gather the visitor activity data - leads to its best known weakness - abuse by referer spammers, which leads to inflated blog read counts.
It may help to understand that referer spam did not start with Stats - nor is referer spam unique to Stats. Referer spam has been around ever since people published websites, and displayed a visitor log extract ("My Recent Visitors") to make their website more interesting to new readers (The suggestion that "This website should be more interesting to YOU, because it has readers from all over the world!").
Stats, like every visitor activity counter / log / meter product, resets totals.
Besides the concern of referer spam, we see various evidences of confusion about Stats displays.
All of these limitations are simply the direct result of how Stats is designed.
Every visitor activity counter / log / meter product differs, from every other product.
In reality, both Blogger Stats and third party visitor activity logs or meters have their respective advantages - and neither choice can ever replace another.
- If you want to see demographic details about some readers of your blog, you can use Analytics, SiteMeter, StatCounter - or any number of third party visitor activity logs and meters - after the chosen accessory has been installed.
- If you want to see comprehensive statistics about all readers of your blog - without being limited by install time or reader security policy - only Blogger Stats will help you.
Fortunately, all products are free - and Stats requires no installation. Your Stats data is there, waiting for you - on the Blogger dashboard menu.
Periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, we see a naive query.How do I report a person who posts nasty things, in comments, on my blog?
And the unfortunate response here isYou can't report unwanted comments. There is no comment censoring agency.
Blogger considers comments to be protected as freedom of speech. Outside of moderation for spam - which is a collaborative activity - comments are up to you, the blog owner, to treat as you please.
You, the blog owner, may choose what level of authentication to require, from each commenter.- Anyone - includes Anonymous Users
- Registered Users - includes OpenID
- Users with Google Accounts
- Only members of your blog
You, the blog owner, may choose how to moderate each non spam comment.- Moderate before publishing.
- Moderate after publishing.
Those are your choices. Blogger won't censor, nor do they accept reports about, undesirable content.
Since Blogger leaves these decisions to the blog owners, Blogger also won't un censor content. There's no comment review process, similar to spam review, where they re activate comments when properly requested by the would be comment publisher.
If you post comments which are not appreciated by the owners of the blogs where you post your comments, and you end up labeled a spammer, that's your problem which you must bear.
Like blocking specific viewers, blocking specific commenters, who choose to make unwanted comments, will be as productive as a game of Whac-A-Mole. Blogger chooses to not play that game.
Moderate the comments on your blog, because Blogger won't do that for you. Moderate, and help train the filters. Don't moderate, and accept the decisions made by other blog owners.
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There are known limitations, to the effectiveness of making a blog private.
The problem of access latency, where a blog made private won't block everybody immediately, is one. Another is the possibility of co workers of a legitimately designated reader being able to read a private blog, on an office network that uses a caching proxy server. But there are other perceived problems with private blogs, that don't actually exist.
One perceived problem is seen when examining the visitor log for a private blog. Some one without access permission, loading a private blog, will load the "Private Blog" interstitial warning on top of the requested page. The visitor log will show the page in question being loaded. But look closer - do you see any other pages being loaded?
A log from StatCounter is perfect for this task. For any visitor to your blog, you can see a record of each link clicked during the visit. For an uninvited visitor to a private blog, you'll likely see one click - the "Entry Page" - and that's it. And even if the "Entry Page" is listed in the visitor log, chances are that all that was actually seen was the interstitial page.
So if you're examining the visitor log for your private blog, relax. Your private content is, most likely, safe.
Just about anybody who owns a blog has, one time or another, wanted to find out more about a specific visitor to a blog.
Generally, we might need to find out about a person who leaves a specific comment, so we can block or take other action to prevent unwanted comments. With a properly chosen visitor log, this isn't difficult.
With a comment, for instance, we start from the comment.- Note the date and time of the comment, and what post it was published against.
- Examine your visitor log, and find all clicks against the post in question, immediately preceding the comment in question.
- Find the visitor log entry that contains a reference to the comment viewing and / or the comment posting process.
- Now, you have the IP address of your malicious commentor, and an assortment of demographic details, possibly including an approximate location.
This is a key process in keeping malicious comments out of our blogs. But note the limitations here.- You cannot say, for sure, that two clicks from the same IP address are, in reality, the same person. On a shared computer, say in an airport or a library, one IP address could be shared by any number of readers.
- You cannot say, for sure, that two clicks from two different IP addresses are, in reality, two different people. One person could have Internet service that provides a dynamic IP address assignment. In a space of 30 minutes, one person could, sequentially, use 3 different IP addresses.
- In no case can you say, for sure, exactly where a person is located.
And if you examine the visitor log of your choice, you might observe the URL which was viewed by one or more visitors immediately before they viewed yours. This is known as the "referer" URL. Try not to be concerned or offended, if you see indications of visitors from an unsuitable website name - or maybe from a country or geographic region known for inhabitants who engage in hacking and other misbehaving. People in China, India, Russia, the USA, and other countries, have legitimate reasons for reading your blog - just as people in other countries do.
Neither the demographic details, nor the "referer" URL, should by themselves indicate any hacking activity taking place, in an attack against your blog. And there is no law or regulation which restricts the right to link to any website on the Internet. If you have a public blog, and you spend time publicising your blog, then you're going to get visitors.
So use a visitor log - but use it wisely.
Every day or so, we see reported from concerned bloggers, about unknown content in their blogs.Where did those ads come from? I didn't add them!
orHow do I keep this other blogger from posting porn links in my blog?
As we add content to our blogs, and make them fun, interesting, and shiny, to attract readers, we risk adding undesirable content. This is a constant problem.
The bad guys are out there - and the more fun, interesting, and shiny your blog is, the more it's likely to have readership, reputation, and value.
The more readership, reputation, and value that your blog has, the more attractive it is to the bad guys. And the bad guys have various ways to attack a given blog.
- Malicious Comments
- Malicious Posts
- Malicious Accessories
- Malicious Blog Members
- BlogList / Feed Gadgets
Malicious Comments
One of the easiest way to add third party content to your blog is from allowing comments.
Comments are contributed by people who, at best, you simply do not know. Any content from someone who you do not know can always be malicious, or obnoxious in some way.
Some blog owners will try to identify and block individual commentors. I will continue to insist that anybody who you should fear will not be bothered greatly by anything that you can do here.
You absolutely must moderate comments, or risk having a blog known for hosting malicious links - or worse.
Malicious Posts
Besides comments, posts are a constant concern. If you have a team blog, you have to be able to trust the other members in the blog.
Post moderation, using post editor to publish, isn't an option. Anybody who you make an author can publish what they feel like publishing. You can only moderate posts after they are published, when using post editor.
An alternative to using post editor to publish is Mail-to-Blogger, where contributions are emailed to the blog. If Mail-to-Blogger is setup to publish straight to the blog, and the bad guys figure out your MTB account and password, you'll have malicious content a plenty.
You can moderate before publishing, using Mail-to-Blogger.
Malicious Accessories
Any time that you install third party accessories of any type, you are placing your blog at risk.
Don't be overly paranoid - you have to make your blog interesting to your readers. But do keep the risks in mind.
This is similar to layered security for your computer, which is a related concern here.
Malicious Blog Members
Sometimes, possibly having unwisely installed a third party accessory, the install process may have enabled the addition of an unknown member to the blog. The unwanted content may be added by the attacker, using this unknown blog member.
If none of the above advice offers you an explanation for the existence of unwanted content, check your blog member list.
BlogList / Feed Gadgets
Occasionally, we may Follow a blog where the owner will later decide to try to get more traffic to the blog, and will redirect the blog feed to a cloud of random blogs. If you are Following such a blog, or have such a blog in your BlogList or Feed gadget, you'll see your BlogList or Feed gadget show odd content - and frequent spam.
Once we get our blog working, with lots of steady reader traffic, we want interactions with our readers.
Eventually, we get tired of native Blogger commenting, and its inability to use comments to conduct casual and meaningful conversations with our readers. Sometimes, our thoughts turn to having a forum, where we and our readers can chat with each other.
One very light weight forum can be embedded in the sidebar.
CBox and Meebo are chat rooms embedded in HTML / JavaScript, and an IFrame. It's very easy to setup CBox or Meebo on your web site - just register and get the code for either, and add it to an HTML / JavaScript page element. You can see Cbox in action on my home blog, and Meebo on my Layout Test blog. ShoutMix is a similar, alternative product.
If you want a full featured forum, Google Groups lets you setup a forum - and then embed it into your blog - as easily as you can setup a blog. Or any other forum will do just as well. It all depends upon what you want.
A full featured forum, using industry standard software, will involve hosting a phpBB based forum.- Load the phpBB software onto a suitably setup server.
- Configure the software to provide your forum, as fits your personal vision of your forum.
Having setup the forum which pleases you, it's now a matter of combining your new forum and your blog, just like any two web sites - using blog feeds, iframes, and / or links - and your imagination.
As a Google customer, we have access to a very useful set of tools, which help us develop and maintain a healthy relationship between our blogs and the Google search engine spiders.
Google Webmaster Tools (now Search Console) provides us with tools to measure our visibility, and it provides us with helpful hints on how to improve our visibility.
You can use Google Webmaster Tools for any active URL that you administer.
If your blog is published to BlogSpot, you use the "xxxxxxx.blogspot.com" URL; if the blog is published to a custom domain, you use the primary URL for the domain.
Using Google Webmaster Tools for any web site requires that you are the administrator of the web site.
Google doesn't want anybody who's not the administrator, of any web site, accessing search engine diagnostics for that web site.
The meta tag provided in the verification process is a token, and it must match the URL that you are verifying. If you change the active URL for the blog (rename it within "blogspot.com", or publish it to a custom domain), you will need a new Google Webmaster Tools entry, with a new verification tag.
The meta tag is as important a data element as the clickable link that you get in your email, when you're offered membership in a blog - or when you verify an email address, for an account. You click on the link, which opens the token, and applies it to your account.
With a Blogger blog in Google Webmaster Tools, you install the token into the blog template, to verify ownership of the domain (blog). Only a blog administrator has the authority to update the template. If you don't install the token into the template, you can't prove that you own the blog, and you can't use Google Webmaster Tools for your blog.
Elsewhere in Google Webmaster Tools, you'll find the Web crawl logs. Some information in the web crawl logs can be very useful to you, while other is informational only. It's to your advantage to separate the two categories. The "Preferred domain" setting in "Site Configuration" is a very small setting, that can have a big impact. And most of us setup our blogs on GWT so we can add a sitemap to the blog.
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