Blogger Blogs, And "Make Money Fast And Easy"

Blogger One Button Publishing is a platform for publishing personal web sites, using an intuitive GUI process.

You publish content that's personal to you, and your readers (possibly using alternative techniques like Following and subscribing) read your personal web site because of the content that's personal to you.

If you have advertising on your web site, and you are paid to host the advertising, the ads are financed by the companies that sell the merchandise featured in the ads. And your readers are the targets of the ads, so they hopefully will buy the merchandise.

The money flows from your readers, to the sellers of the merchandise, to the advertisers who publish the ads, to you who host the ads on your blog. Your readers learn about the merchandise through your efforts, and you are paid because of that.

That's organic advertising and merchandising. You make money from publishing content, that draws readers, who read your content, and click on the ads. The advertisers pay you for the readers, and for the ad clicks.

Some people are not happy with organic advertising, because they want more money.

Ingenious blog owners publish more blogs, to get more traffic.

They get more money from publishing more sites, from more traffic to their sites, and from more activity on their sites.

• To publish more sites, they can't spend time writing content, so they pay people to write for them (Syndicated Content, aka Pay To Write, aka "PTW"). Or, they copy content with permission ("syndicate") or without permisssion ("scrape" or "steal") from other websites.
• To get more traffic to their sites, they pay people to surf their sites (Pay To Surf, aka "PTS").
• To get more activity on their sites, they pay people to click on the ads in their sites (Pay To Click, aka "PTC").

More sites x more traffic x more activity = lots more money.

More blogs == more traffic == more money - for them, and for the paid surfers.

That's great. More money, some of which they pass to the people who write, who surf, and who click. More money into the economy, more people who can buy stuff, and everybody makes out better.

Why is this a problem?

It is a problem because the advertisers are paid by the companies who sell the merchandise.

• They are paid to attract eyes to the ads, and to attract people who buy the merchandise featured in the ads.
• They are not paid for people who click on the ads, simply because they are paid for clicking on the ads.
• They are not paid for people who surf your sites, simply because they are paid to surf your sites.
• They are paid for people who are interested in the content on your sites, who click on the ads because the merchandise featured in the ads interests them, and who buy the merchandise.

The people who get paid for surfing are not legitimate customers for the ads.

The people who are paid for surfing and clicking are not the proper targets for the advertisers or for the merchandisers.

• They are not looking at the ads, because they are busy surfing the next web site.
• They are not thinking about purchasing any merchandise, because they are busy clicking on another ad.

More clicking and more surfing = more money for them - and they, too, want more money.

PTC and PTS (together known as "GPT", aka "Get Paid To (click and surf)") are fraudulent schemes to extract money from the advertisers, while delivering very little to encourage the merchandisers to pay the advertisers.

AdSense, owned by Google, is one of the advertisers who is unwillingly paying for GPT / PTC / PTS activity. Blogger, owned by Google, will classify blogs as spam hosts, when they provide GPT / PTC / PTS / PTV advice, or derive activity / content / traffic from such techniques.

Affiliate marketing networks gather, and repeat traffic, similarly.

GPT / PTC / PTS uses paid participants to artificially increase traffic to participant blogs. A similar arrangement, but one which involves affiliate marketing networks or link farms, uses unpaid casual visitors.

Any of these techniques, however clever they may be, are fraud.

If any of these are the case,

• Your blog promotes GPT / PTC / PTS / PTW, and similar make money fast and easy techniques;
• You spend your time writing syndicated content, or promoting such activity;
• Your blog uses these, or similar, techniques to generate irrelevant and random traffic;
• Your blog uses scraped, stolen, or syndicated content;
• Your blog is part of a link farm or "affiliate" marketing network, with links from and to other blogs, which participate in these activities;

That is why your blog is now classified as spam, or will be eventually classified as spam - and that is why you are here.

Moles, Spies, Spammers, And Turkeys

In 1977, the late Charles Bronson - better known for his vigilante justice "Death Wish" movies - starred in a movie that capitalised on US paranoia about American - Soviet Russia relations. Set at the height of the Cold War era, the plot of Telefon featured 51 human time bombs - all ordinary Americans. Each had been hypnotised to perform as Soviet spies, when a specially coded telephone call was received, with each tasked to sabotage some specific portion of the American infrastructure.

None of the 51 human time bombs had any conscious awareness of their intended roles. Each thought of her or him self as an ordinary American, and lived that way - until a phone call from an evil renegade Soviet agent triggered their personal hypnotic suggestion.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. Remember. Miles to go before I sleep.

In the action adventure genre of fiction (aka "spy movie"), these spies are also called moles.

This year, we have noted many ordinary bloggers, who have no conscious awareness of their roles, tasked to sabotage the Blogger infrastructure.

My Blog mentioned above got deleted and called SPAM. But I honestly didn't do any SPAM. I went through TOS but I really don't understand my blog was deleted. Please, I have put so much of my time & effort for this blog & now its a PR2. (This blog is gone).

and

I received this msg after restore the blog, how long I must wait to get reinstated. This is totally joke, the blog is about 3 years and have hundreds of post. (This blog is gone).

and

I have been writing almost daily for more than two years and am very surprised as to why my blog would all of a sudden be classified as spam. I really can't think of any reason except that there must be a flaw in the algorithm used for automatically detecting such. (This blog is gone).

Many bloggers, just out there trying to make a buck, have been hypnotised by Affiliate partnerships, Pay To Click and Pay To Surf schemes, Syndicated Content (pay to write), and similar "make money fast and easy" techniques. And now, they are out there, begging for Blogger to just unblock their blogs, so they can get back to work. Back to work - abusing the Blogger infrastructure, and damaging the efforts of genuine bloggers.

They are not spammers (in their own minds), just as the 51 human time bombs were not Soviet agents. But just as the human time bombs (some of them) successfully destroyed key portions of America, these spammers are destroying key portions of Blogger Spam Interdiction, and of the effectiveness of Internet based advertising.

By their volume, they make it hard for us to get genuine, personal blogs, unjustly accused of being spam, back online. And they are requesting individual attention from Blogger

Please, tell me why I am considered a spammer.

This requires further resources from Blogger Support, and Google Legal, who together must decide how much - and how little - to tell these bloggers about spam interdiction, and why they were confirmed as spammers.

These are the real life moles. Moles, recruited by the genuine big time spammers. I also call them turkeys, elsewhere in my discussions.

In the meantime, the genuine spammers are out there, continually republishing their splog farms, and damaging our efforts as genuine bloggers.

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Three Strikes, And You're Out

In the American game of baseball, each player while performing in the offensive role has three chances to swing the bat and hit the ball. If he does not connect with the ball in any way, on the third chance, he is "out" and goes to the bench.

As a blogger, and when your blog is detected as hosting possible spam content, you have three strikes, too.

1. An automated spam classification process, performed by a Blogger bot, inspects your blog, possibly with a few other blogs, and locks or deletes your blog.
2. A manual review process, performed by people, inspects your blog again, and objectively asks whether or not it is actually hosting spam. This is done after you complete the sometimes hated 4 step review process.
3. A second manual review process, performed by people, inspects your blog for a third time, and carefully asks whether the first two processes were correct. This is done after the review process, and is generally referred to as "escalation". This is the final recourse which you have, when you wish to continue publishing this blog.

If any one of the three steps concludes that your blog is not hosting spam, you get on base and may have a chance to, sometime later, score a point ("run") for your team. If none of the three steps finds your blog innocent of hosting spam, you get to go sit on the bench, because you are "out".

In baseball, the difference between the pitch made with one strike against the batter, and two strikes against the batter, is significant. With one strike against him, the batter can somewhat afford to be selective, and wait for a pitch that he likes; with two strikes, the batter almost has to swing, at any decent looking pitch. The batter is at a disadvantage, with the second strike pitch - because the third strike represents his last chance to accomplish something.

In spam reviews, it's to your benefit to submit the "second strike" review request, from the dashboard link. The review submitted from the dashboard link is done sooner, and it's more permissive. The review submitted from the forum request is much more carefully done, and is more restrictive. Most blog owners want their blogs reviewed and restored, as soon as possible.

All players must abide by the decision of the umpires. If the umpires rule that you're out, then you are out. Go play in another league, if you wish, or wait for your turn to possibly bat again, later (if the game does not end before that time). While you wait, read the Blogger Content Policy, the Blogger TOS, and the Google TOS.

It's that simple. Three strikes, and you're out.

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Gobble, Gobble

Today, in the USA, we celebrate the national holiday of "Thanksgiving". Many people call it "Turkey Day" because the traditional cooking for the holiday meal is centered around roast turkey. The words "gobble, gobble" have two meanings.

1. Turkeys are attributed as making that sound, such as the cat makes "meow", and the dog "bow wow".
2. Celebrants of the holiday eat a lot of food, also popularly expressed as "gobbling".

So, we have a "double entendre", that is, still, relevant.

It is perhaps fitting that I explain my use of the term "gobble gobble", on this day.

Blogger explains spam, and its unacceptable nature.
Blogger provides an objective description of spam, and why it is not accepted in BlogSpot.

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 contain material that's been scraped from other sites on the web, and may use 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 analogise spammers as turkeys, as an alternate explanation.
As an alternative, I wrote my analogy Waiting For The Tap, and referred to turkeys, who wait in vain, for said tap.

In some discussions, I use "Gobble, Gobble" as a reference.
The expression "Gobble, Gobble", when included in my answer to a forum question, will refer to this analogy. The spammer (aka the "Original Poster" in the question) may, at his convenience, read this post - and accept the fact that he is a turkey.

Coyotes, Hyenas, And Turkeys

The 1978 cinema classic "Animal House", which starred the late, great John Belushi as John Blutarsky, was a comedy about American 1960s college life. It was described by one reviewer as

the best college comedy ever made. Nothing has ever come close to comedic perfection, and never will again.

It focused on one fictional fraternity, Delta House, the rejects of the campus fraternity system at the college.

The members of Delta house included screaming nuisances (coyotes), troglodytes and trolls (hyenas), and hapless morons (turkeys). Many inhabitants of Delta House, many years later, can be found as bloggers, posting in Blogger Help Forum.

Coyotes are individuals who, unhappy with the way they are treated by Blogger, convince the general public (their reader population) to conduct a Distributed Denial Of Service attack against the forum. The owners of their namesake blog, The Daily Coyote, conducted a DDOS in April 2008, when it was locked as a suspected spam blog.

Hyenas are individuals who lack self esteem or social life and who post endless amounts of crap, drivel, or lame spam in the forum. Coyotes conduct a brief and very energetic attack, yet they cease the attack when dealt with, firmly. Hyenas, on the other hand, conduct a slow, chronic attack over many months. One hyena has posted under many names, and has been attacking the forum for several years.

Turkeys are spammers who refuse to believe that their splogs, detected and locked by Blogger, will never be restored to them. They hang around Blogger Help Forum, periodically posting

When will I get my blog back?

as if Blogger will ignore the fact that their blogs were righteously detected and locked.

Welcome to Animal House, 2009.

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Waiting For The Tap On The Shoulder, Part 2

In my musings last month about spam blogs, and people victimised by spam blogs, I analogised the legendary college secret societies, and the impersonal and rude treatment of the unfortunates who did not get initiated.

eventually, those who don't get elected will open their eyes, remove the blindfold, and find herself / himself in a pitiful group of rejects, all waiting (hopelessly) for that tap. The tap that never comes.

Again, I'll note that I never got into either group.

I am not socially adept enough to even try out for such a group. Or maybe I simply had other priorities.

This month, we are seeing the unfortunates, gathered in Blogger Help Forum.

In college, there will always be those do-gooders who try to change peoples minds, and convince the secret society members to be more polite to the unfortunates. Maybe, they could have a party to thank them for trying.

These "unfortunates", this month, are spammers. They aren't worthy of our pity, or sympathy.

They are the reason why you had your blog locked, last week.

• If you had to wait, while your blog was offline and lost reader contact, and search engine reputation;
• If you had to endure another mention of the hated 4 step protocol (that you repeated 3 times);
• If your blog lost page rank because of duplicate content penalties;

these are the people that you should blame. Here, we will call these folks "turkeys".

Gobble, Gobble.

Waiting For The Tap On The Shoulder

I'll be honest here. I was a nerd in college (and I am one even now).

So this story is one that I've only seen in movies - neither I, nor my friends, got even this far.

College Secret Societies
Some of them have no name even. There are no published entrance rules - membership is by invitation only, and rules are communicated by word of mouth. And the initiation process starts like this:

• The prospective members are blindfolded, and led to a dark room.
• The prospective members are put into a circle, in silence.
• The prospective members wait, for what will happen, they are told nothing.
• Periodically, one prospect will feel a slight tap on the shoulder. In silence, he / she will be taken by the hand, and led into another room where they will join the elite.
• And eventually, those who don't get elected will open their eyes, remove the blindfold, and find herself / himself in a pitiful group of rejects, all waiting (hopelessly) for that tap. The tap that never comes.

Now maybe you should be advised that this article is a rehash of one that I wrote long ago, about a more pleasant and positive experience.

The subject of this narration is the spam detection problem of this week. So, here are my words of wisdom about this mess.

This problem is caused by criminals - spammers who are publishing thousands of spam blogs, daily.

They make dozens of clones of your blog, by scraping the content from your blog, pasting it into their blogs, and adding the spam content to just a few of their blogs, at any time. Blogger can't tell the difference between the spam blogs without active content, and your blog. So all of the blogs that look like your blog - including your blog itself - get locked.

If you are not a spammer, look at the next guy (also reporting the problem), because it's likely that he is one. And when you get concerned about how long it's taking Blogger to restore your blog, if your blog is not a splog, place some blame on the spammers, and the thousands of splogs that have to be locked, then reviewed, daily.

Anyway, the only thing that makes this even endurable is the thought of the spammers who have lost their blogs this week. Many of them are gathered in Blogger Help Forum, reporting their blog loss. Some of those gathered in BHF are not spammers - and that is what will give hope for everybody gathered there.

Now Blogger, being the "secret society" in this analogy, will restore a few blogs - the ones that were not splogs. But they will not be posting a big notice.

The following blogs were determined to be spuriously locked, have been restored, and we apologise to their owners.

and conversely

The following blogs were righteously detemined to be splogs, and will never be restored.

Nope.

Blogger will walk around silently, and tap the owners of the spuriously locked blogs on the shoulders. Those owners will wake up one morning, and their blogs will be back, operational.

The spammers will be the ones waiting, until they figure it out on their own, that they will never get the tap. They will wait all night, then slink home in silence.

BooHoo.