AdSense, And Blogger, Require Quality Content

We see questions about content requirement, in both AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / Host Partners, and in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

My blog was just deleted, as a spam host! I Don't publish spam!

and

Why can't I get my Earnings button activated? My blog is over a year old, and contains hundreds of posts!!

Neither blog owner publishes a blog which contains blatant unwanted commercial content - or hacking or porn. But neither blog is suited for hosting AdSense ads, either.

As the web becomes saturated with people publishing, without a proper plan for content source or for subject, Google is trying to encourage quality content.

Both AdSense and Blogger want people to publish blogs which are worth reading - because blogs that are worth reading get traffic - and deliver customers who view the ads published by AdSense. And AdSense wants to keep their ecosystem healthy, to encourage quality advertising.

AdSense wants the best content - to encourage the best ads, and the best ad compensation. And AdSense only places paying ads on blogs which contextually match available ads.

Blogger wants original, well written content. This encourages people to read the blog - and tell their friends about it. And more readers encourage more writing by the owner.



If you read through the AdSense Support Forums, you'll find mention details of other problems - not always stated in the AdSense Help references. Some blogs, of high quality, may not always get ads - because there are higher quality blogs, and not enough ads available.

• Ad placement and quantity.
• Adult / Mature content.
• Biography / fiction / lyrics / poetry.
• Classroom / coursework blogs.
• Cryptocurrency / financial advice.
• Diet / health / medications blogs.
• Food / recipe blogs.
• Get rich quick / MMF / MMH / MMO blogs.
• Poor grammar.
• Graphic violence blogs.
• Images / photos / pictures blogs.
• Job blogs.
• Mixed content blogs.
• News blogs.
• Prohibited content.
• Scraped / syndicated content.
• Stolen content.
• Tech blogs.
• Video (YouTube) blogs.

Ad placement and quantity.

AdSense has very high standards about how ads are featured on the blog - and how many ads may be present on the blog. The total number of ads - both AdSense and third party - should be limited.

Advertising and other paid promotional material added to your pages should not exceed your content. Furthermore, the content you provide should add value and be the focal point for users visiting your page.

And showing ads in popup windows, and other imaginative techniques, is strictly forbidden.

Your posts are what attracts your readers - not the ads. The ads are merely decorations.

Adult / Mature content.

AdSense is a family-safe service. If you're familiar with the MPAA Rating System, you should consider AdSense as firmly limiting content to "G" or "PG".

Google ads may not be placed on pages that contain pornography, adult, or mature content.

A blog with anything resembling "R" or "X" / "NC-17" is unlikely to get paying ads.


Biography / Fiction / Lyrics / Poetry blogs.

The beauty and usefulness - of fiction, lyrics, and poetry - is in the eye of the author. Neither biographies, fiction, lyrics, or poetry have any value for advertisements.

Fiction (content written by the blog author) follows the rules of the author, for content. Poetry follows the rules of the blog author, for formatting and phrasing. Lyrics (words, to accompany music) follow the rules of the music.

Neither fictional content, lyrics, or poetry can be properly analysed by the AdSense crawler - and paying ads cannot be assigned, to fiction, lyrics, or poetry. Fiction, music, and poetry - if it has any commercial value - is protected by copyright / DMCA, and can't be monetised.

None of this exclusion includes book reviews, however. Well written book reviews - content discussing poetry, fiction, and / or non fiction written by other people - are useful, when accompanied by substantial commentary by the blog author.

Classroom / coursework blogs.

Blogs which provide exam result lists, answers to previous exams, study guides, and / or promote sale of pre written term papers are loosely termed "coursework". This is mentioned, in Prohibited Content: Content that enables dishonest behavior.

• Sale or distribution of term papers, paper-writing or exam-taking services;
• Content that promotes fraudulent activity.

AdSense won't finance blogs which encourage people to waste money that is spent for education, on fraudulent activity.

Cryptocurrency / Financial Advice

Cryptocurreny is a recent trend which promotes high-risk financial products. Google, and other online content providers, is banning advertisements for high-risk products.

Financial advice, likewise, is not useful for AdSense. AdSense ads, lucrative as they may be for some blog publishers, pays far less than any qualified financial adviser makes.

Anybody whose income is noticeably improved by AdSense is not making enough money to qualify as a financial adviser. If the advice is truly useful, the blog owner would be busy using his own advice - instead of telling other people, and trying to get ads to finance his advice.

Diet / health / medications blogs.

Health and medical advice should be provided by certified and supervised professionals. Peoples lives depend upon proper medical advice, based on in person diagnosis.

AdSense won't encourage people to risk their lives, on advice that is impersonal, out of date, and / or unqualified.

Food / recipe blogs.

There are many food / recipe blogs - both hosted by Blogger, and by other services - all over the Internet. Many such blogs use content scraped from other food / recipe blogs. Ad managers require original content - not content found in other blogs and websites - to host their ads.

Get rich quick / MMF / MMH / MMO blogs.

Content which provides advice on getting rich is poorly advertised, in a blog which needs AdSense. If the advice is truly useful, the blog owner would be busy using his own advice - instead of telling other people, and trying to get ads to finance his advice.

There is no legitimate product sold, that benefits from ads hosted on a "get rich quick" website. Get Rich Quick / Make Money Fast / Make Money From Home / Make Money Online are subjects that will never qualify your blog for AdSense.

Poor grammar.

Advertising managers, who use AdSense for brokering their ads, require well written blogs, to host their ads.

If you cannot write properly, in your chosen language, why would anybody want to read your blog?

Graphic violence blogs.

Content which depicts or encourages violence is not family friendly - and is not desired by AdSense, or by their advertisers.

Images / Photos / Pictures blogs.

The AdSense crawler analyses blogs, and assigns ads, based on textual content. Images / photos / pictures blogs, without substantial amount of text accompanying the images / photos / pictures, can't be properly analysed.

However intriguing and photogenic they may be, blogs with only images / photos / pictures won't get paying ads.


Jobs blogs.

AdSense provides ads on sites with original content. Any commercial agency, company or governmental organisation, with jobs available, will have its own website.

A jobs blog is simply content scraped from various commercial agency, company and governmental organisation websites - and copied / scraped content is not permitted.

Mixed content blogs.

AdSense displays ads, based on content in each page displayed. A blog with ads on the various index pages - such as archive, label, and main page - needs a clear and consistent subject, for ads to be properly assigned.

News blogs.

Unless the blog owner manages or owns a real life news agency, with paid staff to research, write, and publish the stories, any "news" has to be copied from commercial news websites. Copied content won't be published promptly - since the copying can't be done, until after it is published in the commercial websites.

People who want to read news online won't bother with copied content, that is not timely. The blog won't get good search reputation, or search originated traffic. No advertising manager will pay to host their ads on a blog using content copied / scraped from commercial websites.

Prohibited content.

Some blog content is simply not compatible with a well maintained AdSense ecosystem.

Scraped / syndicated content.

AdSense requires original content. AdSense policy is based on financial and legal concerns.

Scraping content and passing it off as one’s own is not only wrong, but it also happens to be a serious violation of our policies. AdSense depends on maintaining a balance between user, publisher, and advertiser experience.

Blogger has long provided similar guidelines - but based on content quality.

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 scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own.

However you discuss it, original content is required, to host ads on blogs with any future.

Stolen content.

AdSense wont supply ads, for blogs or websites dedicated to redistributing cracked, hacked, or stolen content.

Blogger does not allow stolen content.

Also, please don't provide links to sites where your readers can obtain unauthorized downloads of other people's content.

Tech blogs.

There are thousands of various tech advice blogs and websites, all over the Internet - most simply repeating advice from other blogs and websites.

Again, original content is an absolute requirement - for both AdSense and Blogger.

Video (YouTube) blogs.

Some blog owners publish posts which contain only YouTube videos. This violates both AdSense Program Policy, and YouTube Terms Of Service.

YouTube videos may not be used in a monetised blog, as significant content. YouTube specifically forbids

the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or promotions on any page of an ad-enabled blog or website containing Content delivered via the Service, unless other material not obtained from YouTube appears on the same page and is of sufficient value to be the basis for such sales.

Neither photo or video blogs provide contextually related content. Without contextual content, the AdSense crawler can't assign paying ads.

The bottom line.

AdSense sells ad space to advertisers who want to publish available quality ads, on quality blogs and websites. They are very careful, to keep their ecosystem clean and well maintained - because that is how you encourage ads which offer the best payment rates.

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Both #AdSense and #Blogger, as part of #Google, have consistent standards of quality.

AdSense is the best paying advertising placement service on the Internet. To encourage the best ads, they are very selective of blogs and websites - and only accept the best, into their program.

Blogger, And Home / Small Business Blog Clusters

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.

Blogger values the creation of blogs with original content. Replicating original content across multiple blogs however, violates the Blogger Spam policy.

Blogger Content: Spam provides a good definition of the Blogger Spam policy.

Spam: Spam takes several forms in Blogger, all of which can result in deletion of your account or blog. Some examples include creating blogs designed to drive traffic to your site or to move it up in search listings, posting comments on other people's blogs just to promote your site or product, and scraping existing content from other sources for the primary purpose of generating revenue or other personal gains.

The most recently observed home / small business blog cluster, which generated traffic in the Spam Review section of the forum, was a USA based coupon sharing club, that had expanded into other areas - such as dining, entertainment and local events.

We are MORE than a coupon group. Our network works with Disney, Nickelodeon, local restaurants, reviews and products and events locally.

Other blog clusters have involved an Australian blog franchise of electronic / tech products and services - and a California / Florida carpet / home cleaning business.

Home / small business blogs can be mistaken for spam blogs.

Each of these three examples appear to have started as home / small businesses, possibly with one blog - and grew exponentially, as franchises. And each of the examples present problems, with automated spam classification.

• Aggregation of blogs produces unfair advantage, over other small businesses using Blogger.
• Aggregation of blogs skews spam classification, by tweaking the heuristic spam filters.
• Aggregation of blogs makes detection of actual spam blog farms more difficult.

These three concerns produce side effects, in the Blogger spam mitigation program - and lead to periodic spurious spam classification of home / small business blog clusters.

As the size of the clusters increase, so does the chance of repeated classification.

• Blogger policy prevents whitelisting the blogs in the cluster.
• The more blogs in the cluster, the greater chance that one or more blogs will be classified, at any given time.
• The more blogs in the cluster, the longer it will take to review a blog, when classified.

Understand your role, in the spam classification / review process.

If you operate a home / small business, which involves blogs clustered on a geographic and / or product - service relationship - and your business is impeded by spurious spam classification, we'll work with you, and try to get your blogs reviewed.

Please, understand that your home / small business may be pushing the limits of the Blogger spam mitigation program. Try to minimise content which replicates through multiple blogs in the cluster - and content which is scraped from various commercial websites.

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Some owners / operators of home / small businesses, which use #Blogger as a backbone for their business, produce clusters of blogs, organised on a geographic / product / service basis. Rapid growth of the businesses may lead to blogs which share content too heavily - and may lead to repeated spurious spam classification.

Owners of the blogs should learn to expect occasional spam classification, and try to minimise blog features which lead to spam classification.

Don't Backup Your Blogs, By Duplicating Them

THis month, we have several reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue from owners who make backup blogs.

Why was my blog deleted, by Blogger, as spam?

Some blog owners innocently create multiple blogs, to back up their main blog.

Unfortunately, having multiple blogs with the same content may make the blogs look like a spam blog farm - and Blogger detects and deletes spam blog farms.

I've been advising blog owners, for years, that Blogger blogs need informative, interesting, and unique content, to survive as Blogger blogs.

Scraped blogs - whether you scrape your own, or another person's - are a bad idea.

The general focus on "unique" is intended to discourage scraping. Blogger Help: Spam, phishing, or malware on Blogger discusses spam blogs.

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 scrape content from other sites on the web, using 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.

In the past, Blogger has been focusing on blog owners who steal the work of other blog owners, ie, "scraping" - or who copy by permission, ie, "syndication".

Blogger Content policy defines scraping more explicitly.

Examining Blogger Content Policy, we see the problem expressed more vividly.

Spam: Spam takes several forms in Blogger, all of which can result in deletion of your account or blog. Some examples include creating blogs designed to drive traffic to your site or to move it up in search listings, posting comments on other people's blogs just to promote your site or product, and scraping existing content from other sources for the primary purpose of generating revenue or other personal gains.

Having backup blogs can look like "blogs designed to drive traffic to your site or to move it up in search listings". This is a technique, used by spammers. Why bother to write content? Just use some of the clones, as clones - both to backup each other, and to boost search engine results.

Duplication of content, online, hastens classification as spam.

Backing up a Blogger blog actually duplicates Bloggers efforts. Blogger / Google stores content - ie, your blog - in a cloud of servers, worldwide. If any one server goes out of service, the others are there, to provide immediate backup. You will, likely, never even notice if any one Blogger server goes down.

Alternately, a blog owner might backup a blog because of the spammer publicised unfair blog deletion policy. Here, the blog owner is playing into the spammers hands. If backup blogs were permitted, spammers could publish their spam blog farms with impunity.

Here, what the blog owner wants to plan for by having duplicates, unfair deletion, actually hastens the unfair deletion. This will happen, even if you make the "backup" blog private.

Classification of duplicate content, as abuse, isn't spurious.

If you think about it, a blog classified as spam, because of multiple clones, isn't actually spuriously deleted. If your blog gets a spurious classification, as a possible spam host, you have to appeal the classification. Creating a new blog, with identical content, just makes you look like a non repentant spammer - and increases your vulnerability.

If you want to retain comments and posts, export to an offline file. Just don't spread duplicate content across the Internet.

Gambling Blogs Are Not Allowed In Blogger

Recently, we've had a few unsatisfied blog owners, with blogs deleted for TOS violation.

When able to research cached content, we see various posts with large, mysterious spreadsheets - and flashy ads with affiliate links.

When we look closer at the content, we see the spreadsheets appear to provide betting odds - and the ads link to various online betting services. The blogs in question are providing gambling services or bookmaking. Some blog owners prefer to call this "sports betting".

There are several problems with blogs which focus on gambling activity.

• Gambling is illegal, in many areas of the world.
• Even where legal, it is a regulated activity - and Blogger has forbidden it, as content in their hosted blogs.
• Blogs which focus on gambling tend to provide odds, in large mysterious spreadsheets. The search engines may see this as empty / static content.
• Blogs which focus on gambling tend to have links to other similar blogs, generally using referer links. This is called affiliate marketing.

Even if gambling is legal where a blog owner resides, Blogger blogs are viewed all over the world. Regulated activity, such as gambling, is not legal, in every world region.

Even if gambling is a legal activity in the region of the blog owner, it may not be so in that entire country. Even the well known Blogger feature of country code alias redirection is useless here. Gambling is a regionally accepted activity - and country code alias redirection is not active, for all countries of the world.

Blogger has forbidden blogs which focus on gambling, and other regulated activity.

Regulated Goods and Services: Do not use Blogger to sell or facilitate the sale of regulated goods and services, such as alcohol, gambling, pharmaceuticals and unapproved supplements, tobacco, fireworks, weapons, or health/medical devices.

Blogs with empty / static content have been a problem, for a while. We see blogs with no content / random low quality content, classified as spam hosts, frequently. The odds spreadsheets do not provide usable content, for search engine indexing.

Blogs with affiliate links have similarly been a problem. Affiliate marketing has been a classification category, for many years. Many ads - such as those with affiliate links, and / or pictures of enticing content - are not acceptable, in Blogger.

If you wish to provide or advertise gambling activity, in online content, please don't use Blogger blogs to host your content.

Why Do You Publish A Blogger Blog?

One of the more intriguing questions, that we see in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, involves the Blogger / WordPress dichotomy.

Should I migrate my blog to WordPress, where they provide SEO optimized themes, and various plugins?

My answer to that question starts with the suggestion, that the blog owner should ask himself

Why do I publish a blog?

This question has many possible answers - but I will focus on two possibilities.

To me, the choice of Blogger vs WordPress starts with asking why the blog is being published.

Blogger blogs are personal websites - and provide the best results when published with informative, interesting, and unique content. People read Blogger blogs, because they are written by people, who have something to say - and the readers provide the SEO activity.

WordPress offers a cornucopia of SEO enhancements, from clever themes, to plugins - and support groups that encourage the novice owner to develop a blog with little to no content or planning.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I'll suggest that, if you wish to publish a blog with little to no original content, you should move the blog to WordPress - and make use of their SEO optimized themes, and various plugins. Leave Blogger blogs to people who actually have something to say.

But, that suggestion has a downside.

One day, Google will take the next step beyond Panda, and further emphasise content over clever marketing schemes, and traffic enhancement techniques. As that happens, people who build blogs and websites based on themes and plugins will find their blogs and websites getting less traffic from actual people.

As actual people tire of reading cleverly marketed blogs with no content or focus, the owners of these blogs will turn to more innovative techniques for getting traffic. Hopefully, the WordPress Support forums will be more sympathetic to the novice spammers who ask

Why was my blog deleted by WordPress?

or

Why does my blog not appear at the top of the search list?

Blogger blog owners can organise their blogs, dynamically - based on how they want to present the content, and how their readers can choose to read the content.

Help Blogger to encourage the spammers to move to WordPress - and the people who have something to say can continue publishing Blogger blogs.

Confusion From Non Operable Dashboard "Restore" / "Review" Buttons

This week, we're seeing a few reports from anguished blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

My blog was deleted for spam, and I can't request review because the dashboard button doesn't work!

This blog owner is being hit by a double whammy - first, a spurious spam classification; and second, inability to request review of the blog, falsely accused, using the dashboard.

It's possible that this problem is just the latest symptom of intrusive security on the personal computers, used by the owners of blogs falsely accused of hosting spam content.

Like every other feature in Blogger, that requires authentication of owner status, the dashboard "Restore" / "Review" button can only be used by the owner of a given blog.

Knowing that almost every computer on the Internet is subject to unnotified security updates, it's not un imaginable to see a recent security update having caused this problem.

This problem has been forwarded to Blogger Support, for their consideration. While we wait for a response from Blogger, it's up for the owners of the blogs falsely accused, to provide some details about their computers.

We noe have a rollup discussion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue. If you are affected by this problem, please provide details there.

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Blogger Cannot Provide A Blog Spam Review Tool

Among the cases which involve the hopeful, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, we see an occasional query about proactive spam review.

I am worried that my blog, like so many others, may be deleted by Blogger! Is there any tool or service, by which I can scan or analyze my blogspot blog, to see if it's breaking any of Google rules?

And the answer here, simply, has to be "No.".

For any such service or tool to be helpful, a positive review of a blog would have to be accompanied by a certification that the blog is free of any TOS violation. The blog would then be frozen, to prevent any further changes. How many blog owners would want their blog frozen, for eternity?

Short of freezing changes for any blog certified as "spam free", Blogger would become a spam bloggers paradise.

Every spammer would start out with empty or reserve blogs, get the blogs certified, then go to town.

Legitimate blogs, though certified, and invulnerable to spurious spam classification - would still have no chance of being read, with Blogger saturated with endless waves of spam blogs, also invulnerable.

The only possible answer here has to be a firm

No.

No legitimate blog owner would even think of encouraging this service.

Every blog owner has to publish, and to allow for classification. This blog has been deleted three times, in the past - and there's always a chance for a fourth.

As long as spammers exist, spurious spam classification, against any blog, will always be possible. It's not a pleasant possibility, but it exists.

Publish your blog regularly and steadily - and keep it very free of dodgy content. Keep ahead of the spammers - and stay well within the law.

Static Blogs, And Spam Classification

Blogger blogs are starting to become a regular website publishing platform - not just a blogging platform.

Long ago, a Blogger blog was just an online journal, with posts, and text. Then, Blogger added labels, later static pages - and then the ability to replace the home / main page, with dynamic or static content of your choice. Recently, the original limitation of 20 static pages / blog was relaxed (we are not yet certain that the limit has been eliminated completely, however).

Now, you can practically publish a static website, without even having posts, using a Blogger platform. But, is this a good idea, with Blogger "One button" Publishing?

We have people asking various questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, about making a static website.

How do I remove posts from my main page?

and

How do I publish a blog, without posts?

And alternately, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, we see different questions.

Why can't I get AdSense for my blog?

or

Why did Blogger delete my blog?

or maybe

Why can't I find my blog listed, in Google Search?

And all of these questions may well be just different views, of the same problem.

What you can do, and what you should do, with a Blogger blog, may be two different things.

Other Google services may affect success of your Blogger blog.

A Blogger blog may be subject to standards enforced by different Google services.

• AdSense.
• Blogger.
• Google Search / Webmasters.

What you do with your blog, that may be permitted (or tolerated) in one service, may cause problems with another service.

Too many people start a Blogger blog, and only focus on making money. When they don't have a plan for writing content, they try other, more innovative techniques - and there is where many spam blogs start.

AdSense, the Google ad host service, may be less tolerant of innovative techniques, than Blogger. They have conservative standards for blog content, and for behaviour by blog readers. If you include AdSense ads in a Blogger blog, you may find your blog subject to penalties for excessive / self clicking and low quality content, that exceed Blogger standards.

Even without AdSense being involved, a Blogger blog may be subject to search engine penalties for infrequently updated or non unique content. Low quality content, resulting in poor search results, will leave the blog lacking traffic. If the blog uses a third party ad hosting service, which is more tolerant than AdSense about clicking and content, the ads still won't make a lot of money without traffic.

Don't use your Blogger blog as a gateway to a non Google website.

A static blog, that is designed to generate traffic for a non Blogger / Google website, may be a problem, too. Gateway blogs are a popular technique for many spammers. Blogger actively forbids both gateway blogs, and automated posting. This includes feeds from other websites, when used as post content.

You can combine your Blogger blog with a non Google website - but publish the blog as a blog.

It may be possible to have blog posts visible in a section of the blog - and combine the blog, with a non Google website. Even so, the "blog" portion of the blog will still need regularly published, unique content. This is a requirement, whether you are publishing a Blogger blog - or moving your blog to other hosting.

What you can do - and what you should do - will always differ.

The bottom line is what you can do, with a Blogger blog - and what will lead to a successful blog - may be two different things. You're allowed to do anything, that does not violate TOS - but if you want good results, you need to use common sense.

Spam Blog False Positive Classifications Do Exist

No matter what Blogger does with improving the spam classification process, they will always generate some false positive classifications.

The more that they improve the classification process overall, the more obscure the false positive classifications will be. Some false positives will require intense investigation of the blogs, to identify the relationships between the blogs involved - and to prove, to Blogger Policy Review staff, that a false positive classification is present.

Some time ago, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, I had occasion to deal with a blog owner who was a currency trader, by profession. This person had published a cluster of blogs, where he discussed legitimate issues involved in currency trading.

Currency trading is an essential part of exchange of merchandise, between different countries (the export / import business) - and the Blogger spam classification process had deleted his blogs, as suspected spam hosts.

For you to understand the situation that I'm recounting, you need to understand one principle of currency trading.

When someone sells US Dollars ("usd") and buys Great Britain Pounds ("gbp"), to help a client in the USA import merchandise from the UK, there has to be a second trader, buying US Dollars and selling Great Britain Pounds. The first trader is doing a "usdgbp" trade, and the second, a "gbpusd" trade.

The blog cluster, that was setup by the trader, discussed issues about trades between Great Britain Pounds, Japanese Yen ("jpy"), and US Dollars. The trade combinations possible, with just 3 currencies, would be

1. GBPJPY
2. GBPUSD
3. JPYGBP
4. JPYUSD
5. USDGBP
6. USDJPY

Most traders handle dozens of currencies, in various trades. A staff of a dozen traders would handle all of the world currencies - with some trades involving 2 traders working together, on either end of the trade.

The trader in question had published a cluster of 6 blogs - all using the same base blog name (we will call it "Currency Trading"), which gave him 6 blogs - with legitimate names.

1. Currency-Trading-GBPJPY.blogspot.com
2. Currency-Trading-GBPUSD.blogspot.com
3. Currency-Trading-JPYGBP.blogspot.com
4. Currency-Trading-JPYUSD.blogspot.com
5. Currency-Trading-USDGBP.blogspot.com
6. Currency-Trading-USDJPY.blogspot.com

Each blog discussed specific - and very trade sensitive - issues about trades between the specific currency pairs. Each blog provided relevant and unique discussions about the issues.

Thanks to splog detection, a false positive detection - based on legitimate splog classification technique - had, nonetheless, left this blog owner with 6 deleted blogs.

Thanks to one of my previous IT responsibilities, as tech support for a bank currency trading desk network, I recognised the naming convention used by the 6 blogs, and the reason for the 6 blogs - and was able to convince Blogger Policy Review staff about the problem.

Some blogs are part of legitimate blog clusters, which use well defined naming conventions. Others have names that are coincidentally similar to other blogs, owned by different people.

In either case, the reasons for the naming similarities are where we start, in identifying any spuriously deleted blogs - and in describing the reasons for the spurious deletions. Blogger Policy Review staff have to be made aware of the legitimate reason for a naming similarity, and any other details, so they can make an informed decision.

Knowledge about obscure relationships, such as the naming convention for currency trading blogs, are not part of every Blogger helper or staff persons background. Sometimes, the blog owner has to provide details, objectively and patiently, to help convince Blogger Policy Review to restore the blogs involved.

Unfortunately, not all blog owners are patient enough, to be interviewed, to some degree of success. Also unfortunately, some self stated blog owners are actually hackers or spammers, misusing Blogger Help Forums resources.

Some owners of legitimate blogs claim that their being subjected to an interview shows suspicion placed on them, rather than an attempt to identify the problem - and successfully prove, to Blogger Policy Review staff, that a false positive spam classification is present.

The complicated and devious relationships, involved in some spam review request investigations, make a Tom Clancy novel seem like a 5 minute segment of the 6:00 news.

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GPT / PTC / PTS Content Is Not Welcome, In Blogger

One of the most easily overlooked details, about Blogger blog content, is that GPT / PTC / PTS Content is not suitable, for Blogger blogs.

Blogger Content Policy has a section which describes GPT / PTC / PTS Content, in passing.

Spam: Spam takes several forms in Blogger, all of which can result in deletion of your account or blog. Some examples include creating blogs designed to drive traffic to your site or to move it up in search listings, posting comments on other people's blogs just to promote your site or product, and scraping existing content from other sources for the primary purpose of generating revenue or other personal gains.

Unfortunately, spammers have been imaginatively subtle, in their description of various make money fast programmes - and not so many blog owners think it necessary to contact a lawyer, to interpret the Content Policy document, when planning their new blog.

Too many blog owners, asking the frequently seen question in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, get answers they are not prepared to see.

Why was my blog deleted? I need the money from the blog, to feed my family!

And they are told, simply

GPT / PTC / PTS / PTV content is not welcome, in Blogger.

This response generally does not please them.

Maybe, education can reduce the popularity of GPT activity, in Blogger.

"GPT" is a collection of fraudulent and illegal activities.

"GPT" (aka "Get Paid To") is a collection of various activities.

• PTC, aka "Pay To Click" involves people clicking on ads, to earn the blog / website owner money.
• PTS, aka "Pay To Surf" involves people clicking on links, to access the blog, and to earn the blog / website owner money.
• PTV, aka "Pay To Verify" involves people solving CAPTCHAS, so spammers can publish spam, as Blogger blogs and comments, and in our email, using high volume publishing scripts.

These various activities have been carefully packaged, as useful "make money fast" techniques, by the more successful spammers, who called themselves "marketing consultants".

Ads are placed on peoples blogs, so the readers of the blogs will view the ads and buy the merchandise. People who sit in front of their computers, clicking away, are not looking at the ads, or planning to buy the merchandise.

GPT (PTC / PTS / PTV) is a type of fraud. Any blog which provides advice on using GPT - or uses GPT techniques to increase blog activity - encourages the fraud, with clever ads, and shiny payment programmes. Ask yourself how the various GPT "Services" make the money, that they pay to the blog owners, for hosting their ads.

If "GPT" was really lucrative, would the expert waste time selling it?

If the blog owner, who shows you the GPT programme, really had a way to get rich, would he waste effort, telling you how to get rich? No, he would be busy getting rich, without you. Blogs, with ads telling you how to get rich, are not showing you how to get rich - they are helping the blog owner to get rich - and you are paying for his success.

Who pays you to sit at your computer, and solve CAPTCHAs, all day? The people who sell the commercial scripts, that enable spammers to setup accounts and publish spam - like spam Blogger accounts, spam Blogger blogs, and spam Blogger comments. You are just a minimum wage employee, who makes the CAPTCHA solution section of the script run, and produce the spam accounts, blogs, and comments.

Abuse detection, like highway traffic enforcement, doesn't take place in every spot on the globe, on a 7 x 24 x 3600 basis. Some people get caught (blogs get detected), other people (blogs) go un detected - from day to day.

To put and end to "GPT" and other fraud, we go one blog, at a time.

For abuse classification to produce results, each blog must be classified, on its own, as detected. Other illegal blogs will be classified, later.

If you start a blog, fill it with GPT content, and publicise it using GPT technique, you'll be one more blog owner lamenting, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

Why was my blog deleted? I worked hard for 1 year, spent much money advertising!

Start a new blog, with legitimate, interesting, unique, and useful content, based on a subject that interests you. Don't become one more victim, of advice from the older spammers.

Don't Write About What Makes Money - Write What You Know

Too many blog owners start their first blog - and the first step is to drop into the nearest online publishing forum - such as Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, and ask the question of the typical marketing expert.

I want to start a blog. What should I write about, to make the most money?

And there is where many spam blogs start.

People who are making money, are busy making money. They do not hang out in forums, waiting for you to ask how to make money, so they can tell you how to make money - probably, some of the money that they want to be making.

Too many people who start out their blog, and base the subject of the blog upon advice from other people, will have nothing to say.

Writing, when you have nothing to say, gives your readers nothing to read.

• The blog will become dormant, and stale - and nobody will read it. And they will make no money.
• They will end up having to copy content from other blogs - most of which are about the same subject, and are written by other people who have nothing to say. They will have readers who are not interested in learning anything - and who will subscribe to hundreds of blogs, just looking for something interesting and useful.

This is similar to choosing a blog hosting service, according to what SEO friendly accessories and templates are available - or to publishing an AdSense ready blog, based on the minimum standards.

If you have nothing to say, you may try to get traffic, with clever, empty features.

In an effort to get more readers, and make more money, the unhappy blog owner will try other, imaginative techniques to increase traffic - in a subject that other blog owners are doing the same. Eventually, the blog will be deleted by Blogger - and the owner will be clueless.

My blog was just deleted, as a spam host! I need the money, to feed my family!! Please, Mr Blogger Helper, restore my blog!

And the former blog owner will not appreciate the advice, that will surely follow.

Blogger "One button" publishing is a personal website publishing service. Very few people are completely unique. Many people share interests with other people - and very few people know everything, about any given subject. Write about what you know, and share what you know.

No matter what you choose to write about, you will get various responses.

• Nobody is interested in that!
• Everybody already knows that!
• I never knew that! Thank you for telling me!
• I already knew that - but your posts helped me understand it better! Thank you for explaining it to me!

The trick is to write about what gives you more of the latter two responses - and write in a way to give you less of the first two responses.

Write about what you know - and people who need your expertise will benefit.

Write about what you know - and focus your efforts on the people who are interested in what you know - and write more about what you know.

There you have better chances of reaching people, who want to read what you know - and who learn from what you write, and who tell other people about someone who writes what interests them. And there is your reader audience.

A Deleted Blog Can Only Be Recovered By The Owner

Deleted blog recovery requests come in many forms.

I can't access my blog!

or

My dashboard is empty!!

or

Somebody deleted my blog!!!

A successful deleted blog recovery starts from the dashboard button or link, to "Restore" or "Review" the blog. When the blog was deleted by the owner less than 90 days ago, and the owner is able to login to the right account, the "Restore" button will bring the blog back, as the owner watches.

If the blog was deleted by Blogger / Google, and the owner is able to login to the right account, the "Review" button starts the recovery process. If use of the "Review" button brings no results - or if there is no "Restore" / "Review" button at all, things get interesting.

If a deleted blog leaves behind a dashboard "Review" button, the review process can be started.

There are two purposes for the dashboard "Restore" / "Review" buttons.
The "Review" button provides 2 functions.

1. Provides a way for the owner to start the automated review of a deleted blog.
2. Provides verification that the person reporting the deleted blog is the legal owner of the blog - and enables the manual review to be started, if the automated review is unsuccessful.

If there is no "Review" button, neither the automated or the manual review can be started.

• The person reporting the deleted blog is not the owner.
• The person reporting the deleted blog is unable to login to Blogger, using the right Blogger account.
• The blog was not deleted, for a reason which requires a manual review.

A dashboard screen print helps the helpers start the recovery process.
Anybody needing assistance, beyond advice how to use the "Restore" / "Review" button, is expected to provide a screen print, showing either

• A "locked account" error display.
• A dashboard "review request submitted" display.
• An empty dashboard, with the familiar "You are not yet an author ..." caption.

If the person reporting the deleted blog is able to provide a screen print, showing the familiar "locked Blogger account" error display - with the "contact us" link at the end, a manual review of the blog is not useful. The owner is then expected to click on "contact us", and request account review.

The automated spam review is the first step to restoring cloned blogs.
If the dashboard has the "Review" button, the owner can request automated review. Having supplied a screen print showing the "automated review request submitted" display, then waited the required 1 - 2 business days for the automated review to be conducted, the owner can, at her / his option, request manual review.

Without dashboard verification, triage can't continue.
If neither screen print can be supplied, there is no benefit to requesting manual review.

• The person reporting the deleted blog is not the legal owner.
• The blog does not need spam review.

In either case, Blogger Policy Review will reject the review request, and the "owner" will be no closer to having the blog recovered.

The review process must be initiated by a blog owner.
If the person reporting the deleted blog is not the legal owner, she / he must either contact the legal owner for action, or use the correct Blogger account - and request an automated review, from that account. A manual spam review cannot be requested, from a Blogger account that is not the legal owner of the deleted blog.

If the blog does not need abuse / spam review, it will be a waste of everybody's time to request a manual abuse / spam review.

The abuse / spam review request starts with the owner, able to login to the proper Blogger account. The owner then provides a screen print, documenting legal ownership of the blog, and the need for a manual review. Without the screen print documenting ownership and need for review, an abuse / spam review will not be requested.

A Blogger Blog Needs Informative And Unique Content

Too many blog owners have been listening to spammers, who tell them lies, and encourage dodgy publishing practice.

You can make lots of money - just start a blog, scrape content from other blogs and websites, and add ads!

This is wrong, for many reasons.

Blogger gives us the basic definition of what is not allowed, in Blogger Help: Spam, phishing, or malware on Blogger.

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 scrape content from other sites on the web, using 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.

I summarise this definition, by advising you to publish blogs that are informative, interesting, and unique.

Until you have lots of friends, and regular readers, who read your blog - and return later, to read some more - you will need traffic, from the search engines.

AdSense requires original content.

AdSense explicitly forbids copied content, on blogs that will show paid ads.

Fact: We don’t allow sites with auto-generated or otherwise unoriginal content to participate in the AdSense program. This is to ensure that our users are benefiting from a unique online experience and that our advertisers are partnering with useful and relevant sites.

To get search traffic, your blog needs unique content.

You don't get traffic from the search engines, without unique content, that causes your blog to be listed, in good position, in a Search Engine Results Page - aka SERP. And, you don't get return reader traffic, without informative or interesting content.

The recently deployed (March 2017) Google search engine update, colloquially named "Fred", targets low value content blogs and web sites. Many blog owners have observed an abrupt loss of search rank - and of search originated traffic - in their ad driven blogs.

Nobody is going to search for details - because they don't know the details.

Blogs which contain only lists of details, such as "Answers from Professor X's exams", "Best truck driving schools in Southern India", or "Free Proxy Servers", will not contain indexable material.

• They won't contain key phrases or words, that people might use, when searching for blogs to read.
• Their content won't be unique.

Since people don't know the answers to the exams, they won't be typing the key phrases or words, that lead to your blog - if your blog contains "Answers from Professor X's exams". And even if you spend a week, copying the names and addresses of each truck driving school, what you copy won't be unique.

If your blog contains only details, it will appear lower in the SERPs.

If your blog only contains lists of details, copied from various blogs and websites, your blog will have a lower SERP position than the sources of your content. Your blog will be vulnerable to spam classification - and will later fail review.

Websites which contain only "Answers from Professor X's exams", "Best truck driving schools in Southern India", or "Free Proxy Servers" may be allowed outside Blogger. Since Blogger is a personal website platform, you should try to write about things which you, personally, are familiar with - and host your lists, and other scraped content, outside Blogger.

If You Must Moderate Comments Passively, Moderate Frequently

Not all Blogger blog owners understand that they must take responsibility for the comments that are posted on their blog.

We see signs of naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

Why do I get so many spam comments, against my blog?

and

Why was my blog deleted? I always remove spam comments!

These blog owners do not understand that spam comments need to be removed promptly, marked as spam - not removed when convenient, or maybe just deleted.

Some blog owners let people comment anonymously, because it encourages communication, and brings them more readers - and moderate after comments are published, because it's more convenient for them, and again, encourages communication. They do not realise that the easier that you make it for people to publish comments, the more spammers will appreciate the open policy.

If you encourage comment spammers, by providing them a blog where they can publish their spam, even temporarily, you are leaving your blog vulnerable to spam classification, and to more spam comments.

If Blogger were to allow passive moderation without penalty, this would encourage more spammers to publish blogs, allow unmoderated comments, and provide a place where their friends can publish their spam without penalty. This would let spammers train the filters to be more spam friendly.

Given more spam friendly filters, more spammers would setup operations in Blogger - and give Blogger a well deserved reputation as a spammer haven. And legitimate blog owners would go elsewhere.

Blogger has to protect legitimate blogs - and the readers of legitimate blogs - by discouraging irresponsible passive comment moderation. Blog owners cannot let their need, to accumulate more readers, allow spammer activity.

If you must let people publish comments without moderation, and occasionally moderate published comments, you have to moderate frequently, and mark and remove published spam comments, before more spammers are encouraged to publish, on your blog. If you are moderating passively, and you start to see a steady flow of spam comments, this is a sign that you are not moderating often enough.

The more spam comments that are published on your blog, and the longer spam comments remain on your blog after publication there, the greater exposure that your blog will have to classification as a spam host. The question whether any resulting spam classification should be considered righteous, or spurious, is debatable.

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Try To Resolve Any Ownership Issues, Before You Request Spam Review

Spam review requests, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, are not unusual topics.

Occasionally, we get a spam review request, with a twist.

My blog has been deleted - but I don't have a "Restore", or a "Review" link on my dashboard!

There are various reasons for blogs disappearing from the dashboard, not all of which a blog owner may be immediately aware.

Consider The Issues
I find it's best to try to identify any content / ownership issues, before starting the spam review dialogue - or starting over, with a new blog.

• It is almost always in the best interest of the owner, to request review using the dashboard link, before requesting a manual review in the forum.
• If we bypass ownership resolution, and go straight to spam review, the blog may be restored to service. In some cases of "I have no 'Restore' or 'Review' link on the dashboard", the blog, when restored, will be under the control of the account which the owner should be using. This may not be the current account, which has no "Restore" or "Review" link on the dashboard.
• This is the best time to diagnose and resolve your problems. If you give up and set up another blog - and if you make the same mistakes with the new blog - your Blogger account will be at risk, because you may look like a non repentant spammer.
• If the blog was deleted because of multiple DMCA violations, nothing can be done from the dashboard. DMCA violations have a formal appeal process.
• If the blog was deleted / locked because of detected hacking, absolutely nothing can be done. The account, and all blogs owned, have to undergo integrity checking, before any blog can be restored.
• If the blog was deleted because of detected malware, it can only be restored, and review requested, using the "Restore", then "Review" links. If a blog, deleted / locked for malware, is submitted for spam review, the blog will sit in the spam review queue, then be returned with the verdict "Malware" - and nothing will be accomplished.

Too many Blogger blog owners, accidentally or intentionally, setup multiple Blogger accounts.

Accidental Multiple Accounts
Some blog owners accidentally setup new Blogger accounts. Too many blog owners, because of the Blogger / Google (One Account" login display, end up using the "Create an account" link - when they should login to an existing account, which owns their blog(s). When this happens, they are able to login to Blogger, but find an empty dashboard.

Seeing an empty dashboard, the next step is to recover control of the blog. When this is done, they now are able to login to Blogger, using the right Blogger account - but with the new, accidentally created account still out there.

Some blog owners will continue, periodically logging into Blogger, using the wrong account - then recovering control of the blog, using the email address. This procedure, cumbersome that it may be, will work fine - until the blog is classified as a spam blog, or until the original Blogger account is deleted or locked. In either case, the blog owner will login to Blogger, using the wrong account - but find no dashboard link.

Intentional Multiple Accounts
Other blog owners intentionally setup new Blogger accounts, to publish a blog, anonymously. As long as they religiously remember the proper account name and password, to access each different blog, this is not a problem.

The problem here comes when they forget about using the correct Blogger account, or become temporarily confused by the Blogger / Google (One Account" login display. With the blog in question deleted or locked, as above, they login using the wrong account - and find the Blogger dashboard, again lacking the expected "Restore" or "Review" link.

With either the accidental or intentional account creation, the blog owner will be unable to login to the correct Blogger account, and request review using the dashboard link. This requires the manual review, which takes more time to complete, if the blog was deleted as a spam host. If the blog was not deleted as a spam host, the manual review will be a waste of time.

If and when the blog is reviewed and restored, the owner will still be unable to access the blog from his account. The blog will be online - but with no active owner.

Consider The Possibilities
If the blog owner is aware of possible access, ownership, and TOS issues, before the review process is started, he may be able to resolve his mistake while the review is underway. This will allow him to take control of the newly restored blog, immediately - rather than spending time, after the blog is restored, going through the blog ownership recovery process.

Start Diagnosis Properly
Whatever the origin of the account confusion issue, diagnosis of deletion starts with identification of the owner account. The dashboard of the owner account - and email sent to the owning account - may provide key clues, that indicate why a blog was deleted. Knowing why a blog was deleted may help us avoid an unnecessary spam review.

Don't Copy Content, Inappropriately

Not all blog owners understand the necessity of having unique content, as the basis for a healthy blog.

We see questions periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, about inappropriate use of content from other blogs and websites.

Why was my Blogger account deleted? I never argue when given copyright notices!

or

Why don't I have any readers? I have great content - the other blogs, where I get the content, get lots of traffic.

Google describes the overall issue, about copying content from blog to blog, quite plainly, in Blogger Help: Spam, phishing, or malware on Blogger.

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 scrape content from other sites on the web, using 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.

Spam classification is one of several penalties, which involve copied content. I've seen various content penalties, that are reported, from time to time, in the forums.

Some penalties involve copyrighted material - but non copyrighted material, improperly used, can cause problems. And unrighteous charges will inconvenience you, and cause other problems.

• Content Warning
• DMCA Violations
• Spam Classification
• Search Engine Reputation

Content Warning
If you copy controversial content, that does not belong in your blog, some of your readers will object. Originally used to block "adult" content from being viewed by younger readers, the "content warning" / "objectionable content" classification is broader in scope than it appears to be. This accusation is sometimes used by readers, who may object in quantity, to any irrelevant subject in any blog.

A Content Warning interstitial will damage your search engine result listings. You'll have to request a review of the blog, to get the warning removed. The people who review content warnings may not do so with high priority.

DMCA Violations
If you improperly copy copyrighted material, and the lawful owners complain, you can be cited for DMCA Violations. You will end up with posts - and later the blog - deleted or locked.

You'll have to search the ChillingEffects database, for details, and appeal the citation. If you don't appeal a citation, and if you continue to make the same mistakes, you can be classified as a "non repentant" abuser - and your Blogger / Google account will be deleted or locked.

Spam Classification
If you unwisely copy material, or supply material to be copied, your blog can be classified as a spam host, with the offense described as "scraping / syndication". This will require a spam review. Until the review is concluded, and the verdict is satisfactory, your blog will remain offline.

If you publish multiple blogs concurrently, with the same content, you can be classified as a spammer. If you publish multiple blogs sequentially, with the same content, you can be classified as a "non repentant" spammer - and your Blogger / Google account will be deleted or locked.

If your blog consists mainly of copied material - even if properly attributed, you will need your own material also. A blog with only copied content is still subject to classification. I strongly recommend no more than 10% copied content, to 90% original content - if you want any decent reputation.

Search Engine Reputation
If you copy or share content - whether cited for content, DMCA, or spam - your blog's search engine reputation will suffer. Multiple blogs and websites, with the same content, will result in higher reputation blogs and websites getting better placement in a SERP. Your blog will end up at the bottom of any relevant SERP listing - and your traffic level will drop.

Using Dynamic Content
If you copy a script from a third party website, that references dynamic content owned by that website, you are responsible for ensuring that the script works - or deal with the consequences. If you host videos served from the website in question, on your blog, this is similar to hot linking. If the video in question is removed by the website owner, and stops playing from your website, you must contact the owner of the website.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line here is that blog content needs to be informative, interesting, relevant, properly targeted, and unique. If you push the limits, you will regret your decision, eventually.

Your blog will need a good search reputation, to get readers. Start with good content, based upon what you know, and are willing to share.

Don't Try To Map The Boundaries Of Abusive Content

We continue to see signs of innovative publishing technique, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, about deleted / suspended Blogger accounts, and deleted blogs.

My Blogger account was just deleted! I have gotten a few DMCA complaints, in the past - but I always deleted the offending posts! Why were all of my blogs just deleted?

This blog owner does not understand that multiple offenses must be resolved, to avoid abuse classification - and eventual account deletion.

Young children are always testing the limits, to see what behaviour they can get away with, before penalties are imposed, by their parents.

Spammers, like children, like to test the limits.

Spammers like to test the limits, in Blogger. They will publish multiple blogs, simultaneously, each with different innovative content / technique (aka borderline spam) - then wait to see what blogs get deleted. This is also known as "mapping the boundaries".

Mapping the boundaries, in Blogger, can have unpleasant consequences. Like any parent, Blogger / Google has some patience - but their patience has limits.

Blogger / Google describe what the limits are based on - but not where they are.

Blogger / Google define the limits, in their Google: Terms Of Service, and Blogger: Blogger Content Policy references. Blogger blog owners are advised to stay well within the limits.

Like any legal policy, "terms are subject to change", without warning. And, they are subject to interpretation, by Blogger Policy Enforcement, and by Google Legal. If you repeatedly test the limits, expect to be treated appropriately.

Consequences, for exceeding the limits, may not be pleasant.

The consequences, for blog owners exceeding the limits, are gradual - but finite. The intermediate and long term effects may not be pleasant.

When the final limit is exceeded, and penalties are imposed, the blog owner may have to start over, with a new account and new blogs.

The best advice is to stay well within the stated limits.

Don't test the limits, if you want to publish a Blogger blog, with any real future. Publish good original content, that informs and interests your readers. And, publish regularly. That is how you get traffic, to your blog.

DMCA Violations Must Be Appealed

Some blog owners don't understand the severity of DMCA violation citations.

We see occasional naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken

I got email

After reviewing your account, we noticed that you have violated the terms of service frequently: http://www.blogger.com/go/terms. And where we have sent you several warnings about these abuses and offered you information about our policy towards repeat infringers, we were forced to disable Blogger service provided to you. Thank you for your understanding.
- Blogger Team

Why can I not login to Blogger, now?

This blog owners, and too many others, do not understand about the severity of repeated DMCA / TOS violation, upon their Blogger / Google accounts.

Too many blog owners simply accept the occasional deletion of their posts, and continue publishing.

I deleted the problem posts, whenever warned. Why did I get the notice about "you have violated the terms of service frequently"?

They do not understand that simply deleting a post, when cited for DMCA violation, is the same as entering a "Guilty" - or maybe "Nolo Contendere" plea, in a court of law.

Problem posts, when repeated, make the blog owner look like an intentional, non repentant spammer, mapping out the boundaries of what is accepted.

If your blog is cited for DMCA violations, it's to your benefit to appeal the citation - and hope that you're found innocent.

Of course, if you're guilty of DMCA violations, you'll have no valid recourse, other than starting over - maybe with another Blogger account / blog, maybe with a blog or website hosted elsewhere. That's your choice.

If you remain in Blogger service, you will be expected to clean up your act.

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There Are No Shortcuts Or Workarounds To A Stable Custom Domain

Some Blogger blog owners treat custom domain publishing, as drivers in Miami USA treat the suburban streets.

Have you ever been to Miami, Florida, USA?

Many of the suburban streets there are long, straight, and intersect at 90 degree angles. And as you get into the outer suburbs, with housing developments which (this year) may be right next to the Everglades - there will be almost no traffic, much of the day.

The major streets intersect with stop signs or traffic lights. Many of the natives blow the stop signs, run the red lights, and speed with almost reckless abandon. And auto collisions are frequent - and lawyers and police are very busy.

I car pooled with a co worker for a while, until I noticed that he drove like a native.

His justification?

My brother does this all of the time - and he never gets into an accident - and has never been stopped by the police!

One day, after work, we were getting home - and as we approached the final traffic light, the light cycled green. There was no other traffic in front, or behind.

Instead of cruising through the intersection, my bud jammed on the brakes, and came to a screeching halt. As soon as I untangled my forehead from the dashboard, I started screaming at him. His reply?

My brother lives down that street!

In Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we deal with the reckless abandon of some blog owners, setting up their custom domains.

There is much confusion, and bad advice, provided by blog owners who want to publish their blogs to custom domains - but find the official instructions to be either confining or confusing.

For every need, you will find bad advice.

• Can't buy a domain? No problem, get a free domain.
• Can't figure out the supported DNS configuration? No problem! Get the registrar to setup forwarding!!
• Can't wait for HTTPS connectivity provided by Blogger? Use proxied SSL from CloudFlare!!!
• Want to publish to the domain root ("naked" domain)? No problem! There's a great kludge for that, too!!!

There's a workaround, for every need - but how many are effective, long term?

And here in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we see the results.

• Poor search engine activity.
• Spurious malware / spam classification.
• The old "Another blog ..." / "Key already exists ...".

And all of these symptoms - and the frustrating secondary results - can be avoided.

If you want to setup your domain, properly - and you find the official instructions to be confining or confusing - see my tutorial here - and more recently, here.

You may, alternately, read my forum FAQ, here - or the official Blogger Help FAQ, here.

Many problems can be avoided - if you only believe. There is but one configuration, for each publishing need - if you want to avoid the problems - though some folks may be more optimistic.

• Poor search engine activity.
• Spurious malware / spam classification.
• The old "Another blog ..." / "Key already exists ...".

Or, we'll see you, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken - whether immediately, or years later.