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 Googlebribed 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
If you'd like to be updated on new blog posts please subscribe to my RSS feed and/or via email.
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
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
If you'd like to be updated on new blog posts please subscribe to my RSS feed and/or via email.
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