For some time recently, we have been seeing two basic complaints a lot, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.
Both of the above complaints, and more, have a single cause. Spammers.
90% of the porn in Blog*Spot is on splogs, spam blogs that are obvious clones of each other. I went "Next Blog" surfing for a short hour this morning, and found one set of splogs ("splog farm") with over 2 dozen members - and other splogs too.
That's 2 dozen of the same dreck, that I found in a short hour, randomly. And it's not real porn either, it's garbage. Garbage connected to hacking attempts, hacking attempts that are targeting the unwary.
The volume of the splog population is part of the problem.
The splog volume is part of the problem.
You have one or two blogs. Several splog farms contain hundreds of thousands of individual blogs, each. Blogger fuzzy spam detection, in an attempt to detect a significant portion of the splogs, is going to detect innocent blogs as spam.
Non Google services may even detect references to Blogger blogs, as spam, because of the spam. And some anti-spam measures inconvenience everybody - not just spammers.
Even a small proportion of undetected spam causes complaints.
Even a significant portion not detected causes more complaints from bloggers tired of seeing porn spam in "Next Blog". There will be both false negatives (splogs that are not detected), and false positives (legitimate blogs that are detected).
Many legitimate blogs, falsely detected, won't be even marginally suspicious - they will have normal content, of widely varying subject matter. To reduce the false negatives count, you'll see more false positives, and vice versa.
The criminals behind the splog farms are constantly tuning the content of their blogs, to make them look more like normal blogs (such as yours) - further increasing the false negatives count.
Blogger #1 (above) claims
Blogger #2 (above) claims
Two sides of the same problem - unrecognised - and no attempt to solve.
This is just two sides of the same problem, neither side recognising the real problem, and neither side solving the problem.
Things that might help mitigate the problem.
Stop whining and start doing something. Blogger can't do it, on their own.
If you feel the need to discuss the problem online, do so, and list the problems so they can be examined and / or dealt with. You may read more about the problem, in The Attack Of The Clones. You can read about recent changes in the "Next Blog" link, in It's Here - The New "Next Blog" Link.
I tried to post on my blog, and it says my blog is under review for possible violations, and cannot be modified. I have read the terms of service, and there is nothing in my blog that even remotely violates the terms of service.and
It's getting so that I'm embarrassed to be asking my friends to read my blog because there's so much porn everywhere. I'm even thinking of changing blog hosts because of it.
Both of the above complaints, and more, have a single cause. Spammers.
90% of the porn in Blog*Spot is on splogs, spam blogs that are obvious clones of each other. I went "Next Blog" surfing for a short hour this morning, and found one set of splogs ("splog farm") with over 2 dozen members - and other splogs too.
That's 2 dozen of the same dreck, that I found in a short hour, randomly. And it's not real porn either, it's garbage. Garbage connected to hacking attempts, hacking attempts that are targeting the unwary.
The volume of the splog population is part of the problem.
The splog volume is part of the problem.
You have one or two blogs. Several splog farms contain hundreds of thousands of individual blogs, each. Blogger fuzzy spam detection, in an attempt to detect a significant portion of the splogs, is going to detect innocent blogs as spam.
Non Google services may even detect references to Blogger blogs, as spam, because of the spam. And some anti-spam measures inconvenience everybody - not just spammers.
Even a small proportion of undetected spam causes complaints.
Even a significant portion not detected causes more complaints from bloggers tired of seeing porn spam in "Next Blog". There will be both false negatives (splogs that are not detected), and false positives (legitimate blogs that are detected).
Many legitimate blogs, falsely detected, won't be even marginally suspicious - they will have normal content, of widely varying subject matter. To reduce the false negatives count, you'll see more false positives, and vice versa.
The criminals behind the splog farms are constantly tuning the content of their blogs, to make them look more like normal blogs (such as yours) - further increasing the false negatives count.
Blogger #1 (above) claims
there is nothing in our blog that even remotely violates the terms of service.and demands that Blogger unblock his blog. Blogger loosens the filters, Blogger #1's blog is declared clean, and we get false negatives - spam blogs declared clean, too - and we get more complaints from Blogger #2.
Blogger #2 (above) claims
I'm embarrassed to be asking my friends to read my blog because there's so much porn everywhere.and demands that Blogger block the porn. Blogger tightens down the filters, blocks some of the porn, and we get false positives - innocent blogs (like yours) detected as spam - and we get more complaints from Blogger #1.
Two sides of the same problem - unrecognised - and no attempt to solve.
This is just two sides of the same problem, neither side recognising the real problem, and neither side solving the problem.
Things that might help mitigate the problem.
- Flag the splogs that you find. If a splog has the Navbar blocked, make your own "Flag Blog" shortcut.
- Report the splogs that you find. Spend some time surfing, make a list, and send the list to Blogger. You may also use Blogger Help:Report a spam blog, to report individual spam blogs.
Stop whining and start doing something. Blogger can't do it, on their own.
If you feel the need to discuss the problem online, do so, and list the problems so they can be examined and / or dealt with. You may read more about the problem, in The Attack Of The Clones. You can read about recent changes in the "Next Blog" link, in It's Here - The New "Next Blog" Link.
Comments
I'm probably being a bit of a dick, but I'm also flagging legit blogs if they have their navbar turned off. You don't want it fine, go FTP! :-p
javascript:toggleFlag();
Better to allow the expression, for all blogs, then to open NoScript for all "*.blogspot.com".
The "Next Blog" shortcut isn't script, just a URL, so it's not affected by NoScript.
If you put the "Flag Blog" and "Next Blog" shortcuts next to each other, try not to flag any innocent blogs when you hit "Next Blogs".
bytehead: You're not just being a dick, you are almost definitely violating Blogger Terms of Service.
1. Excellent article (with characteristic practical advice) and
2. Regarding bytehead
I guess NoScript means no script yeah? So no fancy do-dahs on your blog then? (Such as label-clouds, peekaboo posts etc?)
Thanks Chuck.
SJ xx
NoScript blocks malicious code from other web sites from running on your computer. It doesn't prevent you from putting code (do-dahs) on your web site.
And not all do-dahs are blocked by NoScript anyway.
NoScript is an extremely popular security device for Firefox, and there are possibly 3 reasons why it's so popular, and all work together.
1) It doesn't generate a lot of false positives. A lot of do-dahs aren't blocked by it, because it's very selective.
2) It's well maintained (frequently updated).
3) It's free (dohh).
All that said, you should always test your blog, each time you add fancy do-dahs. And test from multiple browsers and operating systems.
Since you write for your readers, you want to make sure that your readers have the best chance of enjoying what you write. Including the do-dahs.
I would gladly have less blogs but having only two columns, and no control over the size of text in the margin column without it affecting the text in the main article is very limiting.
Because of this, I went with more blogs so each blog could focus on a certain aspect of the recently run presidential race.
I regularly post original content to each blog. I wish there was a paid mode for google blogger so I could be treated like an actual human being rather than an anonymous opportunist looking for a freebie.
Please define what you mean by "your blogs are spammed". Are people posting spammy comments to the blogs? Or are mysterious spammy posts appearing on them?
Neither of those scenarios should have anything to do with peoples blogs being falsely considered to be spam. That's the subject of this post.
If unknown parties are publishing spammy comments, or spammy posts, on your blogs, this may be a change that you have to make to your blogs. I'll advise you, but you need to provide specifics.
Of course, you might be better off posting in GBH: Something Is Broken. If you have done that already, and I missed the post, my apologies. The online forums are much easier to use, then Blogger Blog Commenting, for interactive problem solving.
Thank you
What make blog considered as spam? Links? pop up? my blog has pop up and I don't know where it come from. Also have many links to other websites/blog. Yeah I like to exchange links and review other websites. IS that why my blog deleted by google because of spam? I got email from google that my blog is spam.
And what do you means by "As I do this, your blog remains offline"? Sorry, my vocabulary is bad, my grammar is worse
Thanks for your comments, and your patience. Right now, the problem may not be your fault, although the solution is still your responsibility. Spammers produce splogs, and they scrape the contents of our blogs to publish in their splogs.
1. I like to give comments on other blogs/website using "name/url" as identity. Does that make my blog become spam? If yes. why google has that "name/url" facility ?
2. I like to exchange links and put them all on sidebar. Do that also make my blog become spam?
3. My blog is about "money" and I put all payments I've got on sidebar according to dates I got them. Of course I put link to the sites that pay me. so I have many links to those sites. Is that spam? If yes, how to solve it? Don't say "erase your payment and the links". I can't do that.. How about using rel='nofollow'? I heard that will be useful.. Any suggestion?
Please answer my 3 questions patiently because I haven't find any useful + detail information about my blog's problem... Thanks. Ame
Right now, I have only what I've posted. Blogger has reviewed your blog, and has provided the advice
"Spam blogs cause various problems, beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines, making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may contain material that's been scraped from other sites on the web, and may use other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own. And if an automated system is creating spam posts at an extremely high rate, it can impact the speed and quality of the service for other, legitimate users."
That is all that we can provide.
I know you're smart and know everything about blogger and google, but I don't. I'm asking for the solution, but you give me turkey phrase... You said, get to the root and blame the spammer.. Have you ever think to "get to the root - not to become spammer"?
I'm asking because I don't understand which part of my blog is "spam". I've read all about "spam" and found difficulties to find the 'wrong' part of my blog. I'm not a bloody spammer that defend spam blog. I'm asking, which part of my blog is wrong so I won't do it again.. but it seems that you see me as an animal who just moan about non-sense, not a human..
Well, I hate thinking that Blogger does just that. If there's spam among Blogger blogs it is their fault. Not customers (us). So of course we can do something about it:
1. Stay here and fight spam
2. Blame each other for not finding solutions
3. Move to another platform.
Kindly ask a question in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, and we will do our best to get you sorted.
I gather that going through the four steps has not solved the problem as my blog http://amediadragon.blogspot.com is still shown as deleted ...
Cheers
Jozef
If you'll provide the URL of the discussion, where you executed step #4, I'll do what I can. Without that, you will have to be very patient.
To restore a false positive signal, you absolutely must post in BHF: Something Is Broken!
You're entitled to your opinion. But why do you not become offended by the spammers? So many spammers rant about the "broken" spam mitigation process, that Blogger has. Nobody rants about the broken and offensive spammers, that Blogger wants to get rid of.
My blogs disappeared without any notification whatsoever. I have no idea if I violated TOS (extremely unlikely), or was caught up in the spamming elimination net.
I totally get that the spamming problem needs to be addressed, but I cannot imagine what might have been considered spam on either of my blogs. One of them is a journal which has been inactive so it's not even generating anything! I've posted 3 times to the Something is Broken forum, but have not received any response. The process is incredibly cumbersome and frustrating for legitimate bloggers.
Additionally, the email I used to create the blogs was also deleted so I had to re-register just to be able to write the ticket!
As a side note, a new blog using my blogger blog name was recently created on Wordpress, and not by me.
Without a blog name, I'm not sure what I can do to help you. I'm not finding any reports in the Broken forum that looks like they might be you.
Want to give us a clue?
I love blogger and loyal use blogger but why my blog was deleted.
I so confused because I have wtiting on my blog more than 2 year and always follow tos blogger, please help me what can I do, here myblog address vilat dot blogspot dot com, thanks
Help...
The whole issue of spam, and Blogger mitigation of spam, is unbelievably complex. Financial, Historical, Personality, Technical - the issue of spam spans all of those topics and more. So yes, if you find my articles labyrinthine, you are probably correct. That does not make the content incorrect or misleading, though, it simply reflects the indefinably complex nature of the issues involved.
This one article, for instance, is me trying to advise everybody reading it to stop blaming Blogger for a problem which they simply did not cause. Blogger provides a blogging platform. Their blogging platform, along with many others Internet and world wide, has been hijacked by the illegal and selfish ambitions of the spammers who infest the Internet.
To be facetious, if this article makes you unhappy, find the nearest "Spammers Are Us" forum, and complain there. Do not annoy the people in Blogger Help Forum, unless you intend to listen, and to learn.
I think mine starter because I used mail posting to post using my Ipad
Rgds
..this is helpful..