Blogger Changes Top Level Domain Names for Censorship Purposes - .com to .co.uk

If you're a regular blogger you have probably noticed that Blogger has changed its top level domain name based on the country in which a blog is viewed from. It appears that this feature is based on the location of the visitor and not the Blog authors themselves.

Before these changes my blog url was: jensontaylor.blogspot.com
After the recent Blogger changes, my blog address is: jensontaylor.blogspot.co.uk

My blog always ended in .com however it has now changed to .co.uk. I have noticed the same issue for other blogspots as well. The reason my blog url is ending in .co.uk is because I access my blog from UK. If you access my blog from another country you should see the extension of that country, appended to my blog. So if you access my blog from Australia you should see my blog address as jensontaylor.blogspot.com.au


Solution - NCR "No Country Redirect"
To access the .com version of your blog you must follow your blog URL with /ncr (blogname.blogspot.com/ncr). As an example my blog would be http://jensontaylor.blogspot.com/ncr

This stops my blog from redirecting to a .co.uk top level domain address.

Google Blogger Top Level Domain Name Changes and Censorship
The reason behind the change in the top level domain names is to accommodate Google with the facility to censor blogs based on country of access. Although you might think "censorship" sounds evil, this is actually a good compromise on Google's part. Because laws are local to each country so Google only needs to block/censor a blog in one country but still allow the rest of the world to see that content. So the restrictions are not world wide.
Perhaps the ethically correct thing to do would be to boycott countries such as Iran or China but Google's number one priority is financial income and the two countries I mentioned have huge blogosphere communities as well as many users on all the other services that Google offers such as search and GMail.

USA sanctions on Iran and its effect on Google
While on the topic of censorship I like to point that I am very surprised that Google does not have to conform to the business sanctions laid out by the American government against Iran. Seems like there are some double standards. After all Google bribed contributed a lot of money to the Obama's presidential election campaign.

More Info / Resources
Google posted some question and answers on this topic
Google Blogger content policy
Google's 2007 statement on the topic of freedom of expression and its content

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Using Google Analytics with Blogger Tutorial Part 1

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Technology Tuesday
Michael Moral

Tracking visits and activity on your blog is very important. The better the tool the better you can make your blog and when it comes to Tracking web-user statistics "Google Analytics" is the best tool out there, which is why I would recommend every blogger to start using it instead of(or in conjunction with) the Blogger Stats feature.

This tutorial aims to help you through setting up "Google Analytics" for your Blogger blog.

Open a Google Analytics Account and Use it with Blogger
Assuming you already have a Google account for GMail or Google+ visit: http://www.google.com/analytics. You will come across this screen:

Whether you choose "Access Analytics" or "Sign Up Now", you will end up at the same place, which is shows in the screen shot below:

In the above page will click the "Sign Up" button. You will come across the page below. In this page you need to enter the following information:

• A name/label for your Google Analytics account. This can be anything you want. I have chosen to call mine "Jenson Taylor Analytics"
• The website address(URL) of your blog. Mine is "JensonTaylor.blogspot.co.uk"
• You can choose how you want to share your data. This doesn't make a difference at this point. I have chosen the options which will integrate my Google Analytics account better with other Google services such as Ad Words. I would recommend that you choose the same options as I have in the screen below. (If you would like more explanation on these options please leave a comment and I will get back to you)
• Choose the country you live in
• After reading the terms and conditions, assuming that you agree with all of them. Tick the check box which says "Yes, I agree to the above terms and conditions."

Click on "Create Account".

You will then see the page below which contains a unique identified called the "Tracking ID" and looks like UA-22222222-1. Make a note of this identifier (you will need to enter this identifier in your Blogger settings).

In the screen shot above you will see that I have highlighted the options for the section under "What are you tracking?". You can choose either one of those options that I have highlighted using the red arrows. The first option is what I would have recommended previously. However Blogger has started to roll out some changes recently that would affect this. Your blog address is going to change based on the country you are in, so previously the address of my blog was jensontaylor.blogspot.com however it has now changed to jensontaylor.blogspot.co.uk; It is because of this change that I would now recommend you to choose the last option on the screen above.

Now click "Save" and you're done with Google Analytics.

Note: Ignore the number 2 option in the screenshot above. (You do NOT need to copy/paste code anywhere)

Go to you blogger dashboard then browse to "Settings" > "Other" and enter the "Tracking ID"  for your blog in the field which is labelled "Analytics Web Property ID" (You can see the Tracking ID in your Google Analytics - see screen shot above for details)

Click "Save" and you're done.

Older Templates (To be ignored for most bloggers)
Most bloggers do not need to worry about this issue but if you are using a really old template then adding your blog's Analytics Tracking ID here might not work correctly. So you will need to go back to Google Analytics and copy the code given to you in Google Analytics into your template. For this go to your blogger's dashboard then browse to "Template" > "Edit HTML" > "Proceed"
You should now see all the code, search for "</head>" without the quotes. Once you find it, insert the code just before it. So before changes your code will be:

  </head>

After adding your Google Analytics code, it will look like this:

<script type='text/javascript'>
  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push([&#39;_setAccount&#39;, &#39;UA-222222-1&#39;]);
  _gaq.push([&#39;_setDomainName&#39;, &#39;blogspot.co.uk&#39;]);
  _gaq.push([&#39;_setAllowLinker&#39;, true]);
  _gaq.push([&#39;_trackPageview&#39;]);
  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement(&#39;script&#39;); ga.type = &#39;text/javascript&#39;; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = (&#39;https:&#39; == document.location.protocol ? &#39;https://ssl&#39; : &#39;http://www&#39;) + &#39;.google-analytics.com/ga.js&#39;;
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName(&#39;script&#39;)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
  })();
</script>
  </head>

Click "Save Template" and you're done.

Why use Google Analytics with Blogger?

You might ask yourself why should I use Google Analytics with Blogger when the Blogger stats already provides all the details I need but the more people follow your blogs the more important it becomes to adapt your blog to your readers advantage. Google Analytics not only gives you details about how many people visit your blog but also where they come from e.g. search engines, feed, email, Facebook, etc. 

If that wasn't enough Google Analytics also lets you know whether your blog followers read your blog from the mobile phone or on a computer, it lets you know what operating system and browser they use.

My favorite feature is information about the screen size. By looking at the screen sizes that followers of my blog use, I make sure I change the width of my page to suit the majority of people that have a certain screen size which will enhance their experience.

Here is follow up blog for more adventurous users who like to experiment with a customized dashboard on Google Analytics.

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