One of the more intriguing questions, that we see in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, involves the Blogger / WordPress dichotomy.Should I migrate my blog to WordPress, where they provide SEO optimized themes, and various plugins?
My answer to that question starts with the suggestion, that the blog owner should ask himselfWhy do I publish a blog?
This question has many possible answers - but I will focus on two possibilities.
To me, the choice of Blogger vs WordPress starts with asking why the blog is being published.
Blogger blogs are personal websites - and provide the best results when published with informative, interesting, and unique content. People read Blogger blogs, because they are written by people, who have something to say - and the readers provide the SEO activity.
WordPress offers a cornucopia of SEO enhancements, from clever themes, to plugins - and support groups that encourage the novice owner to develop a blog with little to no content or planning.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I'll suggest that, if you wish to publish a blog with little to no original content, you should move the blog to WordPress - and make use of their SEO optimized themes, and various plugins. Leave Blogger blogs to people who actually have something to say.
But, that suggestion has a downside.
One day, Google will take the next step beyond Panda, and further emphasise content over clever marketing schemes, and traffic enhancement techniques. As that happens, people who build blogs and websites based on themes and plugins will find their blogs and websites getting less traffic from actual people.
As actual people tire of reading cleverly marketed blogs with no content or focus, the owners of these blogs will turn to more innovative techniques for getting traffic. Hopefully, the WordPress Support forums will be more sympathetic to the novice spammers who askWhy was my blog deleted by WordPress?
orWhy does my blog not appear at the top of the search list?
Blogger blog owners can organise their blogs, dynamically - based on how they want to present the content, and how their readers can choose to read the content.
Help Blogger to encourage the spammers to move to WordPress - and the people who have something to say can continue publishing Blogger blogs.
I've been using affinity analysis, and differential analysis, as tools for diagnosing intermittent problems with custom domain published blogs, for several years.
Some people may be using a browser which is more forgiving of DNS problems than others - and people who use the right browser, when accessing a domain with righteous DNS addresses, should expect to generally get more consistent service. But that's only a small part of the story.
DNS is the basis for custom domain publishing - and DNS is used in a number of ways. This creates a number of bases for inconsistencies.- Inconsistencies From The Browser
- Inconsistencies From Individual DNS servers
- Inconsistencies From Large ISP DNS Servers
- Inconsistencies From The Google Name Servers
- Inconsistencies From WorldWide DNS Services
- Inconsistencies From The WorldWide Internet Infrastructure
The Browser
Some browsers, if they have a problem getting an IP address for the domain root (using the 4 x "A" servers) may automatically use the "www" alias.
If your domain provides only 1 x "A" address, it may be more susceptible to problems, when this aliasing of the domain root and "www" host are in use - since an outage which involves 1 "A" server may be more common than an outage which might involve all 4 x "A" servers simultaneously.
If your domain is not setup with both the domain root and "www" host properly addressed - or if the domain root to "www" host redirect is not enabled, the domain may not perform consistently.
Individual DNS servers
No people (you, or your readers) access the domain registrar's servers directly, to get the address of your domain. You use "local" DNS servers - the DNS severs provided by your ISP (or maybe a custom third party service like like GoogleDNS or OpenDNS). The "local" DNS servers that you use retrieve DNS addresses from the "authoritative" DNS servers provided by the registrar. The registrar servers reference the 4 x "A" / "CNAME" servers, provided by Google, using "referral", to get the address of your blog.
The servers that you use only access the registrars servers periodically, thanks to DNS cache. That's the mysterious TTL, which your domain's authoritative DNS servers specify. If the address for your domain is in cache, on any local DNS server, and cache is not expired (the address was retrieved any time in the previous TTL period) the local DNS server that you use simply issues what it already has.
Since almost every different reader of your blog uses a different "local" DNS server, you're going to see inconsistency in problem reports, from your readers.
Large ISP DNS Servers
If your domain is popular, people accessing your domain from a large ISP - or an ISP that is close to you geographically (if your readers are geographically concentrated) - is more likely to have the DNS addresses, for your domain, in cache. In this case, no retrieval from the registrar's servers will be necessary. The higher the TTL, the greater the chance this will be the case.
The Google Name Servers
If your readers are accessing your domain using the "www" alias, they are using the "ghs.google.com" name server for accessing your blog. The design of "ghs.google.com" means that everybody on the Internet, accessing any Blogger blog published to a custom domain, uses the same DNS addresses, cached locally. This too means that large ISPs - who are more likely to have somebody (if not you) accessing some Blogger blog published to a custom domain - are more likely to have the address for your blog in cache.
Your blog, and your domain, are addressed separately, and require separate DNS servers. This is why a righteously addressed domain uses "CNAME" referral, when mapping your domain to your blog. And this is why you have to purchase (or setup) DNS hosting, when you register your domain.
WorldWide DNS Services
Some of the 4 x "A" and "CNAME" servers, provided by Google, are not completely unique. Many large DNS infrastructures - like those provided by eNom, GoDaddy, and Google - have "unique" IP addresses replicated worldwide, using "Anycast DNS". This feature can sometimes create regionally concentrated outages, with some domains - as we have seen periodically, with eNom.
The WorldWide Internet Infrastructure
The combinations of browser used, domain popularity, ISP size (customer population), and regional outages, will always cause discrepancies between domains, and people in different locations and using different ISPs. What you (one person) see, where you are, may be completely different from what one of your readers (or my readers) sees, when using a different ISP, in another country, and a different browser.
Thanks to the transient nature of IP networking, you may "test" or observe problems over minutes or hours - but many DNS problems can appear and disappear in seconds. That''s in spite of what you would expect from cache / TTL latency.
All of these seemingly insignificant details, when fully understood, may help to explain why I continually insist on using righteous DNS addresses, whenever a custom domain publishing problem is encountered. Righteous addresses won't necessarily solve all of the above problems - but it may eliminate some of the inconsistencies, and make it possible that we could, eventually, diagnose the problem.
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That is the unfortunate truth.
Every day, some new member of Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken asks, innocentlyWhat is all this traffic from dodgy websites?
and after we explain what the dodgy traffic is, and why it does not reflect real traffic, the next question isSo why doesn't Google block it? Why should I have it polluting my Stats displays, and be unable to find actual traffic in my counts?
and the unfortunate truth is simply that Google cannot block it, because it's not significantly different from normal traffic - and the insignificant difference is not easily detected.
Referer spam cannot be identified, because it is identical in structure to legitimate Stats pageviews - and because its content changes, constantly.
What does a normal blog page "pageview request" look like?
When you click on a link from, say, a post in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, to this article, your computer sends a single message to the Blogger server, containing three essential details.
- The IP address of your computer.
- The URL of a forum discussion, which contains a link to this article.
- The URL of this article.
From the message, the Blogger server creates a server activity record.
- An IP address.
- The URL of the page containing a link to the webpage requested.
- The URL of the webpage requested.
That server activity record, in the Stats display for the blog, is known as a "pageview".
Finally, the Blogger server starts sending web page content back to your computer, so your computer can display this article to you. As the webpage content is sent back to your computer, your computer receives, and displays, the received content - and asks for more content.
What does a referer spam "pageview request" look like?
Simple enough? So, what is referer spam? Simply, a single message from a spammer computer, to the Blogger computer, containing three essential details.
- An IP address - possibly, but not predictably, of their computer.
- The URL of the website being pimped (the spammed website).
- The URL of the blog being spammed (your blog).
From the message, the Blogger server creates a server activity record.
- An IP address.
- The URL of the page (supposedly) containing a link to the webpage requested.
- The URL of the webpage (supposedly) requested.
That server activity record, in the Stats display for the blog, is also known as a "pageview".
Finally, the Blogger server starts sending web page content back to the IP address provided. If the IP address does refer to the spammers computer, what is received is simply ignored. The spammer computer moves on, and sends another fake pageview message to another server - maybe referencing this blog.
The "pageview request" is generated, before referer spam discontinues.
The problem is simply that no web server can detect a message from a client computer, that results in a response that is just ignored. Web traffic is lossy, and clients drop offline constantly. Even if the response could be detected as ignored, the ignored request might still reflect legitimate activity, initiated by a client that immediately went offline.
There is simply no way for Google to block the spam - because the spam is simply one message that results in a response, by the Blogger server, that is subsequently ignored by the client computer.
That's it.
So why can't Google block the numbers generated by referer spam, as the referer spam hits the servers? Simply because the numbers may not really represent actual spam. They can, just as easily, reflect intense, legitimate activity - or possibly a devious attack against a legitimate website.
Google can only detect referer spam in context, against multiple blogs.
Specific pageview counts and details are observed in context - are blocked only after the same activity is observed against multiple blogs, over long periods of time (similar, in concept, to stateful network traffic analysis) - and the numbers are removed, retroactively.
All of this is a simple unavoidable side effect, of blog owners needing site activity figures that are not affected by script filtering by the blog readers, complicated by fraudulent activity by hackers and spammers.
Referer spam is not unique to Blogger - it is simply tuned to abuse Stats logs.
Please note that referer spam did not start with Blogger - it's an Internet wide problem. Even though it appears mindless and random, some of it is craftily designed and executed.
For a comprehensive look at how referer spam works, outside Blogger, see Wikipedia: Referer spam.
The problem here is threefold.
- Too many blog owners obsess over raw pageview counts.
- Too many blog owners do not understand the origins of referer spam.
- Too many blog owners are not interested in understanding the real problem.
That's it!
One of the most constantly seen discussions, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, involves people who have forgotten their Blogger account name or password.
Generally, it's a rather simple task to recover access to one's Blogger account, should you forget / lose access to any one Blogger authentication token.
The Blogger Forgot your username or password? wizard will send, upon request, an account recovery email message, to the email address associated with the Blogger account needed, for any active and online blog. Just provide the blog name, read the email, and follow instructions.
Unfortunately, not all Blogger blog owners can always use email based account recovery.
Some blog owners, when advised to recover access to their Blogger blog by opening the account recover email message, are still unable to recovery access to their Blogger accounts.
Excuses abound - and there are so many different excuses, provided in the problem reports.
There are several reasons for using Blogger / Google email account based account names.- Account name uniqueness, benefits Blogger / Google.
- Identity verification, benefits Blogger / Google.
- Name retention, benefits the account holder.
Unfortunately, not all Blogger blog owners appreciate those advantages - and some actively avoid them.
If you want to own or publish a Blogger blog, read a private blog, or comment on some Blogger blogs, you have to have a Blogger / Google account. For your convenience, you can have a Blogger / Google account name that's based on any mutually suitable email address.
If you don't want to use a single, active email address - or if changing your Blogger account, each time that you change email accounts, is not convenient - you won't be forced to use your active, current email address. You can use any available non GMail email address, for an account name - though there are advantages, in choosing an account name, carefully.
You can have as many GMail or non GMail email accounts, as you wish. However, keeping track of your email accounts is your responsibility - and only your responsibility. Blogger cannot support or track your multiple identities.
If you choose to not use your active, current email address in your Blogger account, and you ever forget the account name or password, please do not write into Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? and askWhat's my email address? Can I have a hint?
orCan somebody please send me email to my current address?
Blogger Support cannot, legally, help you, in this case. When you're toldNo.
please, don't complain.
We see the pain, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, of blog owners who do not understand the need for keeping the name of their Blogger account a secret.I forgot the email address that I was using. Why can't Blogger just tell me the address??
and some askHow did this unknown person "xxxxx xxxxx" get control of my blog?
Years ago, the local police would have to convince home ownersPlease, stop leaving a spare key under a rock, near the door!
Both many blog owners (today) - like some home owners (years ago) - had the same basic problem - naivete.
Like the home owners of years ago, who kept a spare key under a rock near the front door, for emergencies, blog owners will use tricks to remember their password.
Don't - please don't - use a guessable password!
One favourite technique, for remembering the password, is so obvious.
Pick a password based upon something that you can remember.
For a blog owner who is married, the answer is obvious.
What is my spouse's name?
and there's your password. If you forget that, you have worse problems, that cannot be addressed here.
If the name of one's spouse was a secret, using the name would not be a problem. But knowing that many blogs either contain the name (and picture, maybe) of the whole family - or lead to a Profile page or website (FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, ...) with similarly useful information - how secret is the password going to be?
Hackers love blogs with guessable passwords.
Knowing both the Blogger account name (email address) that owns any blog of interest, and the URL of the blog, any hacker has a simple enough task.
- Scrape blog content, into a text analyzer.
- Extract a few hundred details (spouse's name, and others) from the blog content, as analysed.
- Run the known details through a password generation program.
- Now, the hacker has a database, containing "10,000 good possible passwords", specifically relevant to this blog.
- Go to "www.blogger.com", plug in the account name, and try out the 10,000 passwords, one by one.
- That's a simple brute force password attack.
- Sit back, and watch any botnet, controlled by the hacker, go to work.
- Given enough time, the hacker very likely gets access to the Blogger account, and to the blogs owned by the account.
Steps 1 - 8, for any experienced hacker, will be summed into one step.Plug in the URL of the blog.
Everything needed is just more coding - and a nice robust botnet or two.
The hacker, of course, will be targeting thousands of different blogs, simultaneously. So what if he (she) fails to find what details she (he) needs, to steal your blog? He'll (she'll) gladly settle for another - while the botnet works on yours.
Besides using a "strong" password (which carries it's own risks such as forgetting the password - and now we're here, again), the best way to prevent a brute force attack is by preventing step 5.
Keep the account name / email address a secret.
Additionally, if you have a blog and a business - or otherwise exchange email with strangers, separate your Blogger / Google account and your email account. Use two separate email addresses, for Blogger and email.
Learn to appreciate efforts made, by Google, keeping your account and blogs safe.
If you need to recover access to your Blogger account, don't expect to use the Blogger "Forgot?" wizard, plug in your blog URL, and get a reply
Email was sent to your address xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz
And, if you post in the forum.
Please email me advice, to "xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz"!
expect to get a stern warning
Please, do not post Blogger account names, or email addresses, in the forum.
People objecting to the recent Blogger policy of masking email addresses, in Blogger commenting and similar services, as "no-reply @ blogger . com", may also need to consider this very real issue. Possibly, even use Google+, instead of Blogger commenting, for networking with ones peers.
Google tries to identify brute force attacks, and takes action when possible.
And, if your Blogger / GMail / Google account is disabled - and you get a mysterious notice about
Suspicious / Unusual activity on your account
this could well be the other side of a brute force attack against your account, intercepted by Google.
Don't be offended by the various precautions.
If you find the precautions and problems to be unacceptable, consider using Google 2-step verification, to protect your account against brute force hacking.
This is not fiction here - it's all very real.
None of this is fiction or paranoia - it's based on some very real, recent events, and even involves a recent National Scandal - and leads to some very real conundrums.
Similarly, we have a very distasteful answer, to a seemingly worthy need. And another apparently "ceremonial" but necessary answer, to somebody in need of understanding and support, that can't be provided.
You have to make the effort, to maintain and protect your blog.
You will get no sympathy, when you complain how unsupportive Blogger is.
You have to make some effort - and remember some basic information - if you are going to maintain a Blogger blog. And, encourage your friends to keep their accounts and blogs safe.
One of the reasons why Blogger code is so "unstable" (judging from the threads in the help forums) is that, as I wrote long ago, it involves code and data that starts on Blogger computers ("servers"), but is processed from other computers ("owned" by bloggers) which are connected to the Blogger computers over networks that nobody owns or controls.
Some of these factors Blogger can accept responsibility for. Others we (the blog owners, or blog readers) have to accept responsibility for. And still others are the fault of the network owners, and many of those are problems which nobody will accept responsibility for.
And that's the problem with diagnosing the ever common bX- codes. Of late, some bloggers are pumping themselves up, and declaring to the worldFinally the solution to the BX error codes of blogger.com
Don't know who and why it works and why google/ blogger have failed to recognize such simple tricks. But still that doesnt reduce its efficacy..
as if they themselves developed the simple process of clearing cache and cookies.
The frustrating part of this is that, in a very limited number of cases, clearing cache and cookies may produce positive results. But using that procedure as a general solution is so wrong, because it's limited to very specific scenarios. We need to understand the scenarios which generate the codes, before we can truly understand this.
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