Last Friday Google (Blogger) marked a whole bunch of its Blogger blogs as spam. The blog owners had no access to their blogs and couldn’t do anything and didn’t know why.
You all know that I preach about owning your own data and this is just another example of why. The folks at Blogger actually apologized today and promised that they are in the process of fixing it but does that make it ok? How many bloggers were worrying and wondering what happened?
Here is what Blogger has to say, “We’ve tracked down the problem to a bug in our data processing code that locked blogs even when our algorithms concluded they were not spam.”
That is not comforting to the many (we don’t know exactly how many bloggers they shut down) who were affected. It must have been a lot because even when Blogger shut down its OWN blog they said nothing so this must have been huge.
This is just another example to prove the point – own your own data. Take 100% responsibility for your own ‘stuff’.
Cathy -
I think you said it all with this post. I am having a “wow” moment, and then thinking about the whole process of when I switched from Blogger to WordPress.
It was tough at the beginning, but I can’t even believe how incredible things are now since I changed. Owning my own data is just the very beginning.
The mere functionality of WordPress alone is worth the one day of stress I went through to change over.
Thanks again, and thanks as always for keeping us posted with such great content.
Rory
http://www.theADHDparentsmovie.com
Hi Cathy;
Good Heavens! Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Can you imagine what these folks went through? And a half hearted apology is all they get? I never really considered Blogger, but I am concerned that people can do this and simply excuse it on the basis that “our system was at fault” – “it’s not our fault!”
@Rory – I think the Blogger bloggers had somewhat of a WOW moment too! But not in a good way.
@Bill – Of course, it’s Google. Their system was at fault but it wasn’t their fault!
I never used Blogger either, thanks to you, Cathy, who educated me early on.
Google can also block WordPress blogs, if they’re infected with a virus from a hacker, as mine were not long ago. But thanks to your class on upgrading (and your personal help), I was able to get that fixed.
I too am a big proponent of owning and controllong your own sites. So many people I know spend tons of money on a “webmaster” they have to wait on to post copy or put up a form. While complicated matters are certainly worth outsourcing, being in control of your sites and at least knowing how to post regularly is so worth it.
Interesting bit of information, though I wasn’t affected, I feel for the ones that were. I have about 5 blogger blogs that I’ve never had problems with, and I think 6? wordpress blogs, I’m losing count! There are features in blogger that I like, but it was a great day when I discovered WordPress, too! So what am I trying to say, I’m still “on the fence”, and haven’t decided to abandon Blogger yet:-)
Claudia L. Meydrech, CN
@Diane – Yes but they can’t confiscate your data. You still own it and have access to it! And your block wasn’t due to a huge error on Google’s part. Your blog WAS infected by a hacker.