The Real Blogger Status

Some blog owners want to know why custom domain published blogs are subject to daily activity spam control limits. We see the occasional query, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . Does the 50 posts / day limit apply to all blogs that use the Blogger platform - or only for these hosted on BlogSpot? With Blogger, all blogs are subject to a daily publishing activity limit - pages and posts, combined.

AdSense uses various techniques to protect their content quality - and when they take action, they don't always give you a lot of clues about their actions, or warnings before taking action. Both AdSense and Blogger use fuzzy analysis to classify unacceptable content and practices . Neither AdSense or Blogger can publish definitive policy advice, each time they classify or suspend an account.

Some blog owners just do not understand the realities of referer spam moderation. How can I set my dashboard, to not track pageviews from referring sites like "vampirestat . com"? Not everybody understands that Stats was not designed for catering to individual preferences, in deciding what statistics should be displayed. Stats spam moderation was not designed to allow for individuals to decide on what figures to display - or ignore. Like Blogger Comment moderation , Stats is collaborative, fuzzy, and heuristic. Collaborative systems work best when everybody is subject to the same restrictions. Blogger / Google can best fight referer spam by monitoring all activity, against all blogs, uniformly.

This week, we're seeing a number of reports from blog owners with Blogger accounts recently hacked. I was asked to change my password, because of suspicious activity. Having done that, my blogs are now deleted! With hacked Blogger / Google accounts, causing deleted blogs, there's not a lot of advice that we can provide. As you just discovered, the account is recovered almost immediately. Blog recovery, unfortunately, takes longer - sometimes, 1 to 2 days. You'll have to wait, patiently, until your blogs are verified by Google Security staff. We're also seeing the normal amount of reports of blogs deleted by Blogger, when detected for malware, porn, or spam. In some cases, blog review ends with the conclusion that the blog was not, in fact, deleted for a TOS violation. In these cases, the blog won't be restored by Blogger Support.

We've been helping Blogger blog owners deal with spurious fuzzy content classification , for many years. We started out, long ago, with blogs deleted because of spam classification. Later, Blogger added malware classification - and most recently, porn classification ("adult content", with objectionable advertisements). These three classification categories involve fuzzy blog content analysis.

This week, we're seeing some reports from a few blog owners who recently received a disturbing email message, mentioning their blogs and adult advertisements. I received an email stating I have adult content on my blog, and that a new policy will cause certain blogs to be deleted. Is my blog vulnerable to deletion, under this new policy? Like many spammers, these blog owners may be asking for a whitelisting of their blog - which is something that Blogger just won't provide .

We're seeing a few recent reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from owners of empty and / or new blogs, about spurious spam classification. Very few owners of empty or new Blogger blogs understand why their blogs should be classified as possible spam hosts, by the Blogger anti-spam processes. Most blog owners seem to think that only blog content is considered, in spam classification.

This is a question that some blog owners ask in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . This will generally be after they have just been through the Blogger spam review process . Some of those asking the question are spammers, blatantly asking what they can get away with . Others are regular blog owners, unwittingly hit by "friendly fire", as Blogger just tries to keep the level of spam down , in the Blogosphere. One of the challenges involves identifying the genuine cries for help - and ignoring the hackers and spammers, who are trying to make trouble for everybody.

Many blog owners and readers are completely unaware of the many ways our AdSense, Blogger, GMail, and Google accounts, our blogs, and our forum activity, are subject to spam classification - and the various consequences that we may suffer, when we trip a spam classification threshold. Questions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken are seen daily. Why was my forum account locked? and Why do my comments go straight to the Spam tab, on my friend's blog? and Why am I seeing ominous messages about "suspicious activity" on my account, when I sign into Blogger or GMail? These are but 3 examples of the questions, that we deal with, almost constantly.

In mid 20th century USA culture, one popular magazine had a mascot, Alfred E. Neuman , who was best known for the intellectually incurious What, me worry? As the comment spam filters are being trained , by blog owners such as you or me "voting" each individual comment as spam or not spam, we are starting to see modern day Alfreds asking in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken What, me spam? or given slightly longer and more descriptive quotes Why are my comments treated as spam by Blogger? Harsh though this may be, your comments are treated as spam, by Blogger, because either Many blog owners have "voted" your comments, posted to their blogs, to be spam. Many blog owners have "voted" similar comments, posted by spammers, to their blogs, to be spam. The bottom line here is that your style of comments just are not welcome, on these blogs. You have 3 possible courses of action. Continue to post these comments to these blogs. Post these comments to o...

The neverending process of training the comment spam filters, continues. Every month, we see reports from unhappy blog owners, who claim that the filters are not stopping the spam - and they are still having to moderate it. But, if we look at the reports more closely, we see good news. The good news, here, is two fold: Every month, we see progressively less reports of spam. We occasionally see evidence that the spam, that does get through the filters, is becoming more unique to each blog. With progressively less spam being reported, we see that the spammers are becoming less successful overall, in getting spam through the filters. With more personalised spam being reported, we see that the spammers are having to work harder, to get any spam even moderated. And hopefully, any spam that does get into the "Awaiting Moderation" queue is being quickly dispatched to the "Spam" queue , to be fed back into the filters and provide more training. The filters will ...

In January 2011, a number of blog owners found themselves with deleted or locked blogs, and mysterious circumstances which appeared to involve bogus spam classification . This week, we are seeing similar, though not identical, reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . We now have a rollup discussion , for reporting the problem, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Legitimate reports of this problem need to be carefully separated from other known scenarios. Blog(s) that are (righteously, or spuriously) deleted or locked - and can be reviewed, using the 4 step process. Blog owners who have (for one reason or another) logged in to Blogger with the wrong account, and who do not see their expected blogs in the dashboard. Blog owners who have deleted the Blogger account, or individual blogs, for one reason or another. These scenarios still need to be diagnosed and treated, individually. If you are seeing advice about a disabled GMail or Google account, please sta...

In early December, 2010, a number of blog owners found themselves with deleted or locked blogs, and mysterious circumstances which appeared to involve bogus spam classification . This week, we are seeing similar, though not identical, reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . We now have a rollup discussion , for reporting the problem, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Legitimate reports of this problem need to be carefully separated from other known scenarios. Blog(s) that are (righteously, or spuriously) deleted or locked - and can be reviewed, using the 4 step process. Blog owners who have (for one reason or another) logged in to Blogger with the wrong account, and who do not see their expected blogs in the dashboard. Blog owners who have deleted the Blogger account, or individual blogs, for one reason or another. These scenarios still need to be diagnosed and treated, individually. >> Top

Recently, a number of blog owners have found themselves with deleted or locked blogs, and mysterious messages mentioning "Unusual activity on your account". When they try to surf their blogs, they see The blog you were looking for was not found. If you are the owner of this blog, please sign in . Upon signing in, they see their dashboard, and no mention of the missing blogs. Possibly they see the advice You are not an author on any blogs yet, create one now to start posting! In other cases, a blog owner may sign in, and see another previously experienced frustration Blog is not locked Your blog is not locked and does not need a review. If you are having problems accessing your blog or if you received an email saying that it was locked, please leave a message in the Help Group and we will investigate the issue. After a brief diagnostic session, Blogger has issued a terse advice We've identified a bug this morning which may temporarily delay the spam restoration proce...

For years, we've been seeing numerous complaints in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken about unrighteous spam classification of blogs. My blog is not spam! How could anybody think that my blog is spam??

The new Blogger commenting system has been in place, in many of our blogs, for almost 3 months . Many bloggers have started to notice a marked decrease in spam, hitting our Published, and Awaiting Moderation, queues. The spammers, who attempt to abuse our blogs, are seeing the effects of the new filters, also. They will have to increase their spamming activity, to keep a steady level of income. This will require constantly increased levels of spamming activity . Besides posting more spam to our blogs, spammers will spend time posting in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken and similar forums, and causing confusion there. As spammer activity is increasingly attenuated, we'll see more complaints. Don't expect them to openly complain I can't publish my comments, because they are being filtered! as people will recognise complaints like that, and know who is publishing them. Expect more devious complaints The new spam filters don't work! Blogger needs to trash...

Every week, we see the complaints from blog owners, whose blogs have been unfairly accused of hosting hacking, porn, or spam content. This is so unfair! My blog was just getting started, and now it's been deleted! or How can my blog be spam? This other blog is worse! These are just a couple examples of how capricious fuzzy spam classification can be .

High class universities, such as Eton, Harvard, and Yale, have a unique and intriguing sport that's enjoyed by both participants and spectators - team rowing . The participants work together, and propel their oar driven boats through the water at astounding speeds, by synchronising their oar movements. In team rowing, the team manager, or coxswain, is an essential participant. The coxswain does no rowing, but still contributes to the success of the team, by keeping the rowing synchronised. Without synchronisation, a team is useless. Team members not rowing - or worse, rowing out of step - slow the boat. The new comment moderation system is designed around the principles of team rowing.

As many of us are discovering the benefits of the new comment filtering system , and the collaborative heuristic filters, some bloggers are finding an unfortunate corollary. If "n" number of people, reporting together that a given comment style constitutes spam, manage to get the new filter entry created in "x" number of days, "n / 2" number of people will require "x * 2" number of days to accomplish the same thing. Taken to the extreme, 1 person reporting a given comment style as spam will require "n * x" days to get the new filter entry created. As the more blatant spam, shared by more bloggers, is detected and added to the filters, the less blatant spam will become progressively more individual, and will require longer to create new filter entries. And an increasing number of individual bloggers, observing the spam taking longer and longer to be added to the filters, will start to question the validity of the new system. Bes...

The new Blogger commenting system has been in place in many of our blogs for just over two weeks . Some blog owners, who moderate using the new system, have started to notice a marked decrease in spam, hitting our Published, and Awaiting Moderation, queues, as the filters are trained. Other bloggers, who do not moderate, are observing the opposite. Since the new commenting system was started, my blog is getting twice as much spam as before. Oddly enough, both results were predictable.