Calling all computer experts
As a blogger I’ve been forced to learn quite a bit about computers and even about HTML, but I’m still rather easily stumped. So I’m asking for help from you readers who might be able to cast light on a phenomenon that’s very annoying to me.
I began my blog in 2004 at a free Blogger template with the URL http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com . And then when I first transferred to WordPress at neoneocon.com in 2007, the older links to the old blog still worked and there was no need to change them or do any sort of redirect.
There was no problem with that for a long, long time. But a few months ago I noticed that my older Blogger blog had disappeared, and when I tried to go there it changed quickly to a page that asked me if I wanted to buy the domain “blogrolling.com.”
No I do not, thank you very much. I want my old blog back. But clicking on any link to it gets me to that invitation to buy the blogrolling domain.
On that original Blogger blog I used the now-long-defunct blogolling tool to list my recommended blogs. It seemed a harmless enough thing to do at the time, but I’m assuming that has something to do with my old blog’s disappearance. And it hasn’t only disappeared on the front end – that is, what the reader might see – but also on the back end, what the blogger sees.
Well, not “disappeared” exactly. What remains is a small skeleton of a blog, and the URL has been changed (without consulting me) to https://neoneoneocon.blogspot.com . Take a look. No blogroll, no old posts, no description of myself, no photo, nada but a couple of newer posts.
So I can’t even go back to the old blog template and delete the blogroll there and see if the blog pops back up. It’s disappeared even on what’s called the “back end” – that is, the innards of the blog to which I have access.
But the weirdest thing – at least, I think it’s the weirdest thing – is that I know the old Blogger blog actually hasn’t disappeared. It’s there somewhere, as a somewhat wispy ghost. How do I know that? If I (or you) click on any of the old links, the old post in the old Blogger format appears for one brief shining moment as a sort of teaser before the screen changes to that ghastly offer to sell the blogrolling URL. Click on this and you’ll see what I mean.
What does this mean? Does it suggest any remedy? I hate losing all those links, although it might be unavoidable. But I’m curious whether anyone here can offer some advice on how to make those old posts visible again at the old links. I’ve already tried changing the URL of an old link to neoneoneocon instead of neo-neocon, and it doesn’t work. It still takes me to the wretched “blogrolling.com for sale” site.
[NOTE: I still use that old blog as a backup site in an emergency, so please update your notes accordingly to use the URL https://neoneoneocon.blogspot.com if there is some sort of emergency when this newer site goes down for more than a few moments.
And just to clarify: all of my older posts are here at the new blog with thenewneo.com as their URL. They are not lost when thenewneo URL is used. It’s just the oldest pre-2007 links within the old posts, that occur when I link back to something in another post of mine pre-dating the 2007 move, that fail to work because they all use neo-neocon.blogspot.com as their URL.
I hope that’s clear. Nothing is actually lost. The posts just can’t be accessed with those older links to neo-neocon.blogspot.com.]
” Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
Have you tried turning it off and then on?
Looks like your neo-neocon.blogspot.com domain is pointed to a CNAME, which is set to blogspot.l.googleusercontent.com. I imagine Google told you to do this when you set it up with their blogging service. Then, that CNAME is pointed to this IP: 172.217.9.161. I’m guessing therein lies the issue with the redirect that is causing your problem. Do you have instructions from Google or the blogging service on setting up the custom domain? It’s possible that they know how to fix it.
Blogspot.com is a Google service for blogs. It is connected to your google account, which is typically setup under a gmail email address. Open any google service where you’re logged in and click on your account settings. You can find your way to the Google Dashboard, and find all your active google services including your blog. You can also try http://www.blogger.com which should also take you to your blog setup (assuming you’re logged in to that gmail/google account).
Under the blog settings, you can find the publishing settings which will have the blog address, a domain option, and an https redirect. I’m guessing this will solve the mysteries.
You might try the Internet Wayback Machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190806200345/http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/
Huh. Something is screwy.
I pasted in ..
http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2006/
and then hit the escape key the instant, and I mean INSTANT, your material showed up, and the page did not roll-over to the scam site. Which is kind of interesting in that neither did it continually pulse and flicker. So the redirect attempt was not continuous and unceasing.
Releasing the key a few seconds later, I noticed the page stayed as it was.
However left-clicking on any links brought the roll-over problem back. Right- clicking and choosing “open in new window” from the drop down box, produced a clean link to the material, EXCEPT if the link was to your own blog.
In copying one of the external links [right click copy], and then pasting it into a browser, [http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2006/12/blogosphere-at-war.html] I found the link also worked.
So there was no code attached to the link per se.
I also copied the whole page to WordPad and Open Office. In the latter the links appeared after pasting, and when edit hyperlink was looked at, the link looked pure. However clicking on the link, even from a Word type context producing the entire blog page, introduced the flash/roll-over phenomenon, from a word processor, of all things.
As I say, when escape was used and the blog page came up, I could right-click and open outside links in a new window with no trouble.
Well, that superficial examination is about all I have to offer.
I don’t know what it is. Looks like a virus hijack of your server’s blog address or whatever the proper terminology would be. But what would I know.
OK! Your old blog opens and stays open with the new version of “Brave”, and a notice says “Insecure content blocked. This page is trying to load scripts from unauthenticated sources.”
You’ve been hijacked.
Hmmm. This is a little low-tech, but I’ve been told that a left-handed smokeshifter can solve the problem. If you don’t have one, go over to Cabin 14, they always have one.
To follow up on what DNW said, I use Brave as my browser and block scripts on any new site. I was able to open your old blog link with no issues, and no redirects. I’d suggest using a script-blocking extension (perhaps temporarily; it can cause annoying issues at times) when you’re planning to visit the old site. (Or you could download the Brave browser — it’s free — and use it for times like this.)
I viewed http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com using Firefox with the NoScript addon, which allows me to select which scripts will run on the page being viewed.
When scripts were enabled for both neo-neocon.blogspot.com and blogrolling.com the page was redirected to blogrolling.com. Otherwise it displayed normally.
Yeah … where is the script code located though? I have no idea; though you might have.
I right clicked on the page margin and went to “View page source”, but my eyes glazed over before I noticed anything remarkable.
This will be an education for those of us, like myself, less well versed in this business.
I am no expert but I had a cursory look at this. It seems in April 2006 you posted these articles:
american-idol-day-after
another-suicide-blast-another-heroic
calling-all-horticulturalists
chayefsky-ahead-of-his-times
cia-leaks-and-press-iraqi-compromise
critical-thinking-is-critical
cuban-missile-crisis-vs-iran-making
election-in-italy-another-close-one
euston-manifesto
exclusive-neo-neocon-rerats
for-your-viewing-pleasure
happy-easter
how-many-does-it-take-to-tango
in-celebration-of-freedom-passover-and
kidnapping-coercion-and-mind-control_04
kidnapping-coercion-and-mind-control
long-long-reach-of-vietnam-ellsbergs
mark-steyn-on-iranians-believe-what
maybe-they-should-have-named-him
more-kipling-history-repeats-itself
more-on-mccarthy-and-washington-post
move-along-no-terror-connection-here
next-changepost
no-more-mr-nice-guy-ahmadinejab-and-un
on-forgetting-unpersons-and
only-shadow-knows-seymour-hersh-on
perfect-war-perfect-peace
question-authority-part-i
question-authority-part-iii-daniel
question-authority-part-ii-my-lai-and
return-of-word-verification
rudyard-kipling-new-englander-grieving
scilla-goes-wild
sea-of-faith-ebb-and-flow-of-religion
slight-delay
some-comments-on-comments
spamming-101
testing_24
those-poets-have-way-with-words
tony-blair-defining-moment-that-was
united-93-premiere-not-too-soon-for
un-through-looking-glass-its-getting
usual-suspects
wafa-sultan-jacksonian-vs-boston
waiting-for-ab-after-bush
weaving-tangled-web-of-deception
we-few-we-proud-we-psychobloggers
women-and-perpetuation-of-female
your-toothbrush-is-your-friend
They are all there and it took about 30-mins to download them all. Here is a sample from a randomly selected post.
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2006
Tony Blair: the defining moment that was 9/11
Maybe this isn’t exactly and precisely an example of a changed mind. But it’s an excellent description of that moment of insight and clarity that comes with a watershed event whose significance can’t be denied (for some, at least).
Tony Blair describes (via Austin Bay) what happened to him on 9/11, and it’s remarkably similar to what happened to me, and to so many of us:
…9/11 for me was, ‘Right, now I get it. I absolutely get it.’ This has been building for a long time. It is like looking at a picture and knowing it was important to understand it, but not quite being able to make out all its contours. And suddenly a light was switched on and you saw the whole picture. It was a defining moment.
He continues, about Britain:
We stood shoulder to shoulder with America because my belief then, and my belief now, is that America was attacked not because it was America – but because it was the repository of the values of the Western world, and it was the main power embodying them. It was an attack on all of us. And I don’t mean that in a sentimental way.
posted by neo-neocon @ 12:47 PM 67 comments
67 Comments:
At 1:13 PM, April 25, 2006, Anonymous Spanky the Magnificent said…
If you’re curious about why the US was attacked on 9/11, I highly recommend you read Ayman al Zawahiri’s book “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner.”
Your “click on this” example link will work WHEN you change the link to https.
This will do the bad redirection …
http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2006/04/question-authority-part-iii-daniel.html
This will load the correct blog link …
https://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2006/04/question-authority-part-iii-daniel.html
I know Google is pushing https and has likely changed your old blog to use https. As to why redirection happens, I have not figured that out yet. My theory is that someone has figured out how to inject some code into the http version of blogs.
Yes exactly, your browser settings are still allowing you to load http urls (which are considered outdated and insecure) instead of defaulting to an https url, plus it’s not blocking parts of the page that are linked to http (insecure) resources.
I couldn’t recreate any of the problems you are describing no matter how hard I tried. I reached the archived article you linked at neo-neocon.blogspot.com with no redirections. All the internal links to archived articles worked; the few external links I tried also worked. At first, I attributed the lack of redirection and other problems to the privacy addons I’m using, but even when those were disabled, I had no problems. Notably, the blogroll was empty, so this part of the page was blocked from loading, and that may be why I had no problems with loading or redirection.
You don’t need to mess around with complicated no script addons. The latest versions of both Firefox and Chrome (with default settings) are able to pull up neo-neocon.blogspot.com articles with no issues. This is probably due to the fact that they default any link to an https address if those are available, plus they block any page elements that refer to unsecured http: resources, like possibly the blogrolling.com redirection script.
If you are running the latest Firefox and Chrome and still having problems, it might be that some old setting is carrying over, so maybe try deleting cookies and cache.
“I used the now-long-defunct blogolling tool to list my recommended blogs” that’s your problem.
The domain is abandoned and somebody must have bought and parked it. They then updated the script you used to create your blog roll to redirect any page using it to the parked domain.
At least that’s my theory. It’s completely possible, but a cursory examination of the code behind your website didn’t clearly reveal the culprit.
If you can still edit the template of the website, start going through any <script> tags looking for that blog roll tool. Worst case scenario, locate each tag and start removing them to see which one is the offender. If you’re unlucky, you’ll have one with a bunch of javascript, somewhere within being the culprit line.
Gloria Bolger:
Thanks. I think you are basically correct. However, I don’t see a way to get to the template of the blog anymore. I read this article late last night and yet I have no idea how to follow the instructions. When I look at the backend of the blog, even if I use a browser like Brave that lets me see the full front end with all the old posts, the posts disappear on the backend and only a skeleton blog remains. That’s the puzzling thing. It’s not just the front end display that the problem is affecting.
“The domain is abandoned and somebody must have bought and parked it. ”
Neo doesn’t own the blogspot domain. She was just publishing on it.
http://www.blogspot.com is still active.
I think that Robert Szkolnicki figured out where the redirect problem originated, and that was with the insecure code of the older http address.
See, https://www.quora.com/Can-I-use-HTTPS-instead-of-HTTP-for-Blogger-Blogspot
I typed https://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/
… using the Palemoon browser… and using the Edge… and using IE11… I see the whole site.
Right clicking on any of the blogroll links – like this one “just-checking-up-on-my-backup-blog” – and choosing copy link… and then pasting the link in the URL (do NOT choose paste-and-go) and editing the http:// to https:// before clicking Enter, got me to your complete, still working, still all there, old blog.
Here’s a link to another page
https://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2017/01/just-checking-up-on-my-backup-blog.html
… and yet another link
https://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2005/03/so-why-neo-neocon.html
… and another back in ’04
https://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2004/09/
I noted my old fairwhether.blogspot.com was already using https:// and that whole site was still there (along with the other two I used back in the day).
So I presume that Blogspot asked us all to do something back in the day, and you might have missed that something? (Hmm. Having typed that I do vaguely recall having to do something or other at some point per their requirement.)
At any rate, JayBean33 (heh), you can still reach the whole blog.
Oh. And this link gets me to the editing page of my old blog
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=0000000#classictemplate
…and if you substitute those seven 0’s (zeros) for your blogID ##, you can probably get to your template and do some fixin’ up? You will need to logon with your Gmail account to get into the editor.
Just email me if you need further help with it, and I’ll see if I can puzzle it out.
brdavis9:
Thanks. When I get a free chunk of time, I’ll look into that. It sounds simpler than some of the alternatives.
🙂