The Real Blogger Status

One topic of frustration, occasionally seen in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , involves home based business blogs, that may be victims of their own success . We are not spam - we are a network of blog owners, in select cities all over the country. I am tired of hearing the apologies, this needs to be resolved. The blog owner is being quite polite, but insistent. Blog clusters, whether developed by home / small business owners, or malicious spammers, create problems for all Blogger blog owners. Home / small business blogs are clearly not intentional spam - but their structure makes them easy to mistake for spam blog farms .

We've recently seen a few blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , report their blogs being classified for phishing. Today my blog was locked due to "phishing": Hello, Your blog at http://xxxxxxx.blogspot.com/ has been reviewed and confirmed as in violation of our Terms of Service for: PHISHING. In accordance to these terms, we've removed the blog and the URL is no longer accessible. No, there was no phishing in this blog - and no, I didn't change or add anything to it recently, that could trigger a false detection or report.

We see an occasional hopeful spammer asking, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about one more spam blog subject. Can I publish a blog, and provide job postings? The would be blog owner has not read the AdSense advice or the Blogger Content rules , about copied content. A jobs website should be published by a Commercial or Government Employment ("Human Resources") agency - and very few commercial or government job agencies operate Blogger blogs, as their website.

Anxious blog owners ask the question periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Is affiliate marketing allowed, in Blogger? And the truth is that there is no prohibition against affiliate marketing, by name. If the blog content is legal, you can do anything. The question is, can you make a Blogger blog, and use affiliate marketing, and not run afoul of Spam and TOS guidelines?

We deal with a lot of "lost blog control" complaints, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Lost blog control complaints, that involve blogs published using a dynamic template, are not easily resolved.

We see odd abuse issues reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue - like blog owners reporting a blog with recycling abuse status. My blog was locked one day, unlocked the next, then locked again the following day. Help! Generally, this will be a simple case of borderline abuse / spam content or techniques . Sometimes, the cause of the recycling status is more subtle, than being solely the fault of the owner.

We see frequent evidence of confusion, about abuse classification etiquette , in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . My blog was deleted, as spam - but I received no notice or warning! How could Blogger do such a thing? This indignation may be provided, in the hopes that Blogger would relent. Sorry, here's your blog! But such reaction is seldom seen - and when seen, is not a result of attitude, but of content.

Country specific domains were launched by Blogger almost 3 years ago . Even this month, we see people with doubts about their benefits. Is using a script, to prevent blogger country redirection, a violation of Blogger or Google TOS? And the proposed script is the same one that is being used by spammers, to abuse the Blogger service .

We've been exploring bogus redirection of reader traffic , for a few years. Similar to dubious awards and web rings , we have "traffic exchanges". Traffic exchanges are similar to "affiliate marketing", where readers of one blog are randomly shuffled to another blog , then to another - all the while, lighting up ads on each blog.

Some blog owners, filing a complaint against another blog owner, don't understand the delays involved, in a DMCA Violation. I have just recently filed a DMCA notice on this blog for copyright infringement of my blog. So far nothing has been done except receiving an automatic reply from Google. When will the other blog be taken down? This blog owner does not understand that not all legal actions can be executed immediately - and some, never.

We see cautious blog owners, asking that question periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . Many home based, and small, businesses use Blogger blogs for selling various goods and services. Apparently, you're permitted to sell stuff, using your blog. That said, there are some common sense rules which you should consider, before you setup a blog to sell stuff.

Some blog owners, complaining of unfair spam classification, are still not considering the need for original, quality content. I have not broken any Blogger rules. Why was my blog deleted, as a spam host? Copied content, legal or not, is not quality content. Blogger blogs need original content, that's informative and interesting.

Repentant spammers are not frequently seen, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . When a truly repentant spammer reports a problem, it is difficult to know how to treat one appropriately. They are so rare, we have little experience. This is totally unfair. Actually, life is totally unfair.

Some blog owners like Blogger One Button Publishing - but they don't like the restrictions . Possibly observing the chaotic freedom of WordPress self hosted blogs, they wonder if custom domain publishing provides the same freedom. If I pay for my domain, can I host porn with ads? Unfortunately, custom domain publishing, unlike WordPress self hosted blogs, still uses the Blogger dashboard - and still publishes content which is accessible using "blogspot.com".

Recently, Google publicised advice about a new type of abuse that may be reportable, when present in a Blogger blog. Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web. But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women. So going forward, we’ll honor requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without their consent from Google Search results. This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal requests for other highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may surface in our search results. Supposedly, "revenge porn" mitigation is limited to removal from Google Search. In one forum discussion , however, the new classification appears to have successfully resulted in an offensive blog being removed from Blogger.

We occasionally see a confused content thief / spammer, unsure why the blog was deleted. I removed all of the content that I was told to remove. Why was my blog deleted? or Why was my blog restored, then deleted the following week? Some blog owners do not understand the consequences of repeated review. The more times your blog is reviewed, the more completely and carefully the content will be examined .

An interesting attitude is seen, from some owners of large and unfocused blogs. It's normal, with so many articles in a blog, to have some reports (DMCA / TOS complaints). It's normal, yes. That does not make it acceptable - or beneficial. If you want to publish a large blog - and make lots of money - you have to focus or limit your efforts. You need to spend as much time - if not more time - reviewing content for legality, than owners of comparable, smaller blogs. You can't take time away from reviewing, to create and publish more content - then justify your failure to stay within the limits, by implying that it's normal to have posts that push the limits .

Every day, blog owners report that their blogs (or posts) were deleted by Blogger. Most blog owners have some idea why a blog (post) is deleted - but not all. Some even insist that they received no notice from Blogger - the blog (post) just vanished.

Some blog owners expect to get a slap on the wrist, for each TOS violation. I had a notice on the blog. If anybody objects to what I'm doing, just tell me - and I'll remove the offending content! Why was my blog deleted? These owners plan blog content, based on doing what they want - hoping that Blogger will make them a list, over and over again, identifying their mistakes. Don't do that! That attitude is similar to what we hear from some politicians. It's not a crime, until I get caught!

Abuse / Malware / Spam classification of Blogger blogs - and the inevitable bogus fuzzy classification - has been a part of Blogger life, for several years. Recently, we explored known effects of bogus classification, upon reader and search engine reputation. It's not a pretty picture - but it's also not likely to go away, as long as abusive persons, such as spammers , operate in the Internet world. Owners of blogs spuriously classified are not likely to be very objective - but we cannot avoid reality.