December 11, 2005
WARNING: Reports of legitimate Blogger/Blogspot accounts being deleted without cause
As is often the case whenever there is a free tool available, it gets abused by spammers. Such has been the case with Google’s free Blogger service, and lately they’ve been very active in trying to delete blogs that they view as spam (aka splogs).
Normally I’d say that’s a good thing, but apparently they’ve been a little overzealous in their cleansing of the system and many individuals are reporting that their legitimate, hand crafted Blogger blogs that they spent much time on have been deleted without warning or explanation.
The English Guy has a post entitled Google/Blogger Deleting Real Blogs that I’d highly recommend reading if you’re a current Blogger user or considering using their free service.
A thread at the Blog Party forum suggests that Google is targeting bloggers that have multiple blogs which link to each other. This is a tactic which many legit bloggers do and is a major part of how the whole blogosphere works. It is also a tactic that is used by sploggers. But that in and of itself should not be a reason to go on a search and destroy mission for all bloggers who interlink their sites. The logic in that is faulty - just because a tactic is used by sploggers doesn’t mean that everyone who uses that tactic IS a splogger.
So if you’re using Blogger and you have multiple blogs which you like to link to each other, you might consider porting your posts over to another system, such as TypePad or WordPress.com, before you wake up one day to find your blogs gone and have to go through the nightmare of trying to reach support personel (which has been reported to be very difficult) and proving that your blogs are legitimate.
Consider yourselves warned..
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December 11, 2005
blips said:
I also offer free WordPress (mu) weblogs with over 100 different themes and the amount is growing;
http://megaweblog.com
The weblogs are hosted on USA servers at a high rank hosting company.
I have my personal weblog for almost 2 year now and know the ins and outs.
see http://usadutch.com/blips (in my native language Dutch)
December 14, 2005
Susan Reynolds said:
The warning didn’t come early enough for me. Though I’m very happy with my Typepad Blogs, an earlier blog on blogger bit the dust without notice and I still can’t get an answer from blogger.com - or from their non-existant tech support.
Yes, you can get the details (http://tinyurl.com/dtkey) but if I think about it steam may come out my ears. Arrrgh!
I know - I got what I paid for - free. But it’s still shocking how much that the google/blogger clan doesn;t much give a fig.
January 29, 2006
Keith P. Stieneke said:
This just happened to me and I am very upset. The following blogs were deleted. Gain More Muscle, Weight Loss Ideas That Work, Increased Energy and Vitality, the Unofficial DC Comics Review, Blog Smart Resources Blog, Opportunity Assistance Business Resource Center. These were all hand crafted blogs. Some of them I am repairing with their original URLs. Others have been totally destroyed. Two have the posts as they are hosted elsewhere, but the rest of months of posts totally gone. The comics review one makes me very angry because I had got praise from fellow comic book readers.
Anyway, onward and upward.
January 30, 2006
Alan said:
Blogger DELETED all of my blogs today! All of them. This is just outrageous that they can do this.
I’ve spent months writing about my online business trials and tribulations and then all of a sudden **POOF** it’s all gone.
Damn, this makes me mad!
February 14, 2006
Chris Kilian said:
Blogger is still at it. I had 5 blogs wiped clean. The only survivors? One blog with one post on it, and thankfully, one I set up to show relatives pictures of my son.
I have a google pr of 4 for my main blog which was full of LEGITIMATE content, created over a long period of time.
I will never host a blogger-type blog, or any other kind of blog, anywhere but on my OWN server… beyond the reach of some teenager sipping Coke and pushing buttons in a Google office somewhere.
August 23, 2006
Peter Gan said:
Thanks for the warning. Can you tell me please what’s ‘porting your posts’ and how to do it?
Thanks again
September 4, 2006
Judy said:
I know how much care goes into some peoples personal blogs. It’s often a personal diary. Such a shame to lose such a personal thing. It really does make sense to get your own hosting and domain if you want to feel secure about your blog. Thank god for wordpress.
November 9, 2006
Nita said:
I am a new blogger and started with Blogger. Terrible place. Nothing worked properly. Couldn’t even find out blog stats. Also, archives section didn’t work. No one replies if you ask a question.
So I shifted to Wordpress. Can’t imagine that such a good place exists.
February 13, 2007
Billiards said:
I had a blog hosted by blogger that I used to promote a billiard site. After 16 months of updates and hard work, it is gone. (however it mysteriously remains live, i just cant access it for edits)
May 3, 2007
Internet Marketing Tips, Tricks & Resources said (trackback):
Blogger Blogs….should you or shouldn’t you?
Emily Robbins has a great blog with tons of resources to help you get started and improve your blogging experience, recently she revises her post about Blogger Blogs and how google indiscriminately removes thems. I’ve shared my experience with Bl…
February 17, 2008
The Pickle_Analysis said (pingback):
[…] One thing I accomplished today, although not as important, I’ve finished creating my own domain. The alarming stories I read on this article and many other articles regarding blogspot.com made my decision easy. I don’t see any reason why people should not own their own domains. You will later realized you’ve created pages of blog consisting of some of your unforgetable thoughts and memories in writing, but one morning you wake up and it’s no longer there. Because some guy sitting in an headquarters eating cheese puffs hovering around the delete button. If your blog gets deleted, that would leave a mark of regret. Get your own domain, it’s easy and inexpensive. All you need to know is on this blog. […]
February 18, 2008
The Pickle_Analysis said (pingback):
[…] One thing I accomplished today, although not as important, I’ve finished creating my own domain. The alarming stories I read on this article and many other articles regarding blogspot.com made my decision easy. I don’t see any reason why people should not own their own domains. You will later realized you’ve created pages of blog consisting of some of your unforgetable thoughts and memories in writing, but one morning you wake up and it’s no longer there. Because some guy sitting in an headquarters eating cheese puffs hovering around the delete button. If your blog gets deleted, that would leave a mark of regret. Get your own domain, it’s easy and inexpensive. All you need to know is on this blog. Cheers to blogging! […]