Access Blogger.com in China

Category: Techwriter

Besides looking for an affordable spoon and fork set, one of the more obvious difficulties with living in Shanghai is accessing Blogger.com. Without access to Blogger and my blog, Unsolicited But Offered, all my posts have been sent via e-mail the last few months.

Typing http://www.blogger.com and my blog url http://unsolicitedbutoffered.blogspot.com still triggers a "Connection reset by peer." Thankfully, however, I've been able to access my Blogger account in the last four days using a fairly basic redirection method that previously did not work. Now I can manage my account (and check my statistics) and view my blog.

To access your Blogger account in China:

1. Go to Google.com.hk. Typing www.google.com will default to the Hong Kong site.
2. Log in to your Google account by clicking on the Sign in link on the upper-right hand corner. Use the Google account that you use to manage your blogspot page.
3. Once you're logged in, click the More link on the Google banner. Click Blogger from the list.

You should now be able to manage your blog without worrying about the Great Firewall. You can edit and create posts, flag, and view comments like you normally would. You can't, however, view your posts by clicking on the View link under an entry since this triggers the blogspot domain which is filtered by China's security protocols.

If you want want to view what your home page looks like after x number of months of living in China, there's a quick and easy way of doing it from the Blogger home page.

To view your blog in China:

1. From the Blogger home account page, click the More options button and select Template.
2. On the Template page, click Customize.
3. The Blogger Template Designer will display your blog on the bottom panel. Scroll to view the current appearance of your home page. Click Back to Blogger once you're done.

As is often the case with the Great Firewall, accessing Blogger using this method may change. Steps recommended by other websites and bloggers failed when I first arrived in Shanghai, though I'm sure it worked for them during the period they wrote the procedures. Hopefully, continued access to Blogger.com using this method will remain successful. VPNs, after all, can get pretty expensive. Stay tuned.