Skip to main content

Blogs Cannot Be Whitelisted Against Spam Classification

Periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, we see the naive request.
Please, take a minute and let me know how safe my blog is.
Here, the blog owner wants to know whether it's possible that his blog might be classified as a spam host, in the near future.

This is a request that, no matter how genuine a blog, and a blog owner, may appear now, cannot be fulfilled with any degree of accuracy and authority.

Whitelisting blogs against spam classification is a service that simply cannot be provided, when requested.

A single blog, viewed now, cannot provide an adequate view of the blog population, and of the immediate threat.

  • Many spam farms can only be detected as groups of blogs, where individual blogs may appear quite benign and genuine.
  • Many blogs, apparently benign and genuine right now, may have a spammy payload applied later.
  • Many spammers would appreciate immediate evaluation of their blogs, so they can more easily determine where the boundaries may lie.
  • Many spammers would enjoy the ability to argue, later, how they may have been mislead by inaccurate advice - with the possibility of forcing a reversal of their confirmed status.

Spam classification can only be conducted by the automated classification process - which is deceptively accurate and effective - in spite of arguments provided by confirmed spammers.

As a blog owner, you need to concentrate on providing informative, interesting, and unique content to your readers. And be selective how and where you advertise the blog, considering carefully what content may not be appreciated by everybody.

Focus on developing your blog - and don't waste time asking for services that cannot be provided. And use some common sense techniques, to reduce the risk of spam classification.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It worries me some, that I could spend years posting to a Blogger blog just for Google to mark it as spam with it's inaccurate detection and delete it.

People invest lots of time and effort into their blogs, it's unfair to the genuine authors that there is a chance. It's all too corporate, no wonder much more indie tools like Tumblr are becoming increasingly popular.

Don't get me wrong, I like Blogger, but as a developer it worries me the road Blogger is heading down.

If a Blog is marked as spam, rather than delete it, put a temp ban on AdSense and other services.
This is quite scary. Generally people establish boundaries by testing the water but it seems one mistake and you're gone. If google don't know where the boundary is how can a poor sap rookie blogger be expected to know. May be I'm paranoid but it would be nice if there was an automated one click "is this post ok" button one could click before posting. I'm assuming the blog deletion process is automated for those who cross to the dark side. It's seems all very big brother to me.
Nitecruzr said…
Greg,

Yes, it's scary - to the untrained eye.

If you watch Law & Order too much on TV, you'll be afraid to go to New York City, because you'll be worried about getting arrested, and spending your week in court, being attacked by Jack McCoy.

If you read the forums too much, you'll be afraid to publish a Blogger blog, because you might have to get the blog reviewed after it's classified.

You simply have to remember the reality behind the numbers.

Publish your blog, and stop worrying. If you don't, the spammers win.

Spam mitigation is there to protect us - and it does protect us - really.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2011/06/one-form-of-new-car-syndrome-and.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2011/01/paradoxical-spam-classification-process.html

Popular posts from this blog

Adding A Link To Your Blog Post

Occasionally, you see a very odd, cryptic complaint I just added a link in my blog, but the link vanished! No, it wasn't your imagination.

Embedded Comments And Main Page View

The option to display comments, embedded below the post, was made a blog option relatively recently. This was a long requested feature - and many bloggers added it to their blogs, as soon as the option was presented to us. Some blog owners like this feature so much, that they request it to be visible when the blog is opened, in main page view. I would like all comments, and the comment form, to be shown underneath the relevant post, automatically, for everyone to read without clicking on the number of comments link. And this is not how embedded comments work.

What's The URL Of My Blog?

We see the plea for help, periodically I need the URL of my blog, so I can give it to my friends. Help! Who's buried in Grant's Tomb, after all? No Chuck, be polite. OK, OK. The title of this blog is "The Real Blogger Status", and the title of this post is "What's The URL Of My Blog?".