>Charles Ellwood Jones at Ancient World Bloggers Group (AWBG) has very sad news about a notice that appeared in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review:

Please note that Google has removed all access to our blog after incorrectly flagging it as a spam blog. We had requested a review which did not happen, and on September 28 Google removed all access to the blog, which we are attempting to appeal.

The removal notice appears here.

I am having the same problem with Blogger and Google. Let me reproduce here my post of Monday, May 4, 2009:

MY BLOG IS NOT SPAM

On April 21, 2009, I received a note from Blogger informing me that my blog was locked because its robot spiders have characterized my blog as a spam blog.

It seems that a disgruntled reader or someone unhappy with my response to his or her comment reported my blog as spam and Blogger automatically locked my blog to prevent me from spamming.

On the same day I received the notice from Blogger, I notified them that my blog was not spam. According to Blogger, they would review my case in one or two days. After two days, I sent Blogger an email and received no response.

On April 28, one week later, I sent another note to Blogger requesting them to unlock my blog. They responded by saying that I would receive a reply in one or two days. Since then, I have sent two more emails and have received no response from Blogger.

Today is Monday, May 4, 2009. According to Blogger, in 7 more days they will delete my blog because this is what they do to blogs they consider to be spam.

A note to Blogger: My Blog Is Not Spam.

Here we are: It is September 29, 2009 and I have found no resolution of my situation with Blogger and with Google. My blog is still marked as “spam” even though it is not locked yet. I am afraid that this will happen one of these days, maybe even in response to this post.

This is what Blogger says:

Your blog is marked as spam

Blogger’s spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What’s a spam blog?) Since you’re an actual person reading this [emphasis mine], your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on September 23, 2009. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.

Every week since April 21, 2009 I have been sending a request to Blogger to unlock my blog. Every week for five months I have made the same request and I have never heard from Blogger.

My conclusion: There are no real people working at Blogger because no “actual person” is reading my request to unlock my blog.

My conclusion: Google does not care for bloggers.

I do not want to move to WordPress, but if I do not hear from Blogger soon, I will move to WordPress and then begin a campaign asking bloggers who use Blogger to move to WordPress. Why? Because Blogger does not care.

Will I hear from Blogger and Google? I doubt it! They just don’t care.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Blogger, Google

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