Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook Talking technology, computers, and the Internet… for the average computer user

Here’s another example of why any serious blogger– or even the casual blogger who cares for his blog– should consider leaving Blogger and going with one’s own domain and web host service.

Google Deletes Blogger Posts

Ryan Spaulding: Beginning last summer, I slowly began to notice that several older posts were beginning to disappear. This didn’t come to my attention for some time since I wasn’t in the habit of reading old posts except when I pulled down the material. Sometimes I received emails from frustrated readers who were looking for a topic I had written on – only to find the post deleted.

I had no reason to think this was anything other than a software glitch at first. There were no takedown notices or emails in my inbox. Then the instances began stacking up – and I began comparing notices with other bloggers. What was initially a series of seemingly unconnected blog post disappearances – by fall, became the topic of discussion in blogger emails and chat rooms. The change of tactic of the industry and the poor handling of it by blog-host Blogger (Google) was being seen as a conspiracy.

Have you contacted Google about the issue, and if so, what kind of response did you receive?

RS: They never responded. An “opportunity” (in legalese, of course) offered a means to have the post restored – but like most bloggers, I didn’t have the knowledge or time to fight “city hall” on every post. Especially, since Blogger/Google didn’t even take five minutes to send a simple email response. Nothing professional, nothing courteous. Again, the tactic they choose belies their basic lack of respect for their users – which is why I took up the cause. They have a relative monopoly on blog hosting services and rule with an iron fist.

OK– so Blogger (owned by the giant Google) is a free service. I started out with Blogger back when it was Blogspot, before Google, nearly ten years ago. LOVED it. But Google bought them out, they became Blogger, and, while some nifty stuff has been added to the software since then, there are lots of little grumblings along the blogosphere that cause some alarm. While no one’s ready to call out the Seattle injury lawyer against the company, it’s enough to make me move further away from Blogger. As a matter of fact, I am slowly extracting all my Blogger blogs away from Blogger and shifting them to my own domains and web hosting company. (I recommend Hostgator and the WordPress blogging software platform, by the way).

If you make money from your blog or blog about controversial topics (everything from politics to the recording industry), you are in jeaopardy of losing your posts and/or blog. These days, companies make you sign a EULA promising you won’t have “hate” or “offensive material” on your site. What constitutes “Hate” and “offensive material” is up to interpretation. These companies have REALLY screwy ideas of what constitutes as acceptable material, too –you can, for example, have nude photos of the latest celebrity or slanderous material about Jesus Christ, but you may be blogless if you post about monkeys and Barack Obama, or other “politically incorrect” content. Fact is, your content is more protected and 100% controlled by YOU when YOU pay for it and work on it yourself. A domain name is generally about $10 a year, and Hostgator hosting service is about $7 to $8 a month. You can easily recoup that by putting up affilate links or some other small-time advertising service, if you wish.

So, this is all one more warning to you Blogger users. Google is shifty– they aren’t going to blackball bloggers with one swift stroke (not yet, anyway). Their policy seems to be to eliminate small groups at a time, and then remain quiet when the small rush out outrage goes public. All the while, they are buying up the competition and squelching the dissent.