Blogger Tips and Tricks

Spam blogs, Blogger Content Policy, A summary

Posted: 16 May 2012 09:29 AM PDT

While it is great that we can use Blogger to create blogs for free or for a paltry USD$10 a year for a custom domain, one of the worst aspect is that a lot of people are abusing it and Blogger is forced to use automated ways of trying to detect spam blogs or those which infringes the Blogger Content Policy for locking or worst, deletion.

On the other side, Blogger also provide a FLAG button in the navbar for members of the public who chances upon what they think are spam blogs to flag them. For blogs without navbar, Blogger has provided this form to report.

Unfortunately, just as there are false negatives (real spam blogs which gets cleared), there are unfortunately also false positive (kosher blogs which gets identified as spam blogs and locked or deleted). Depending, the unfortunate ones may be offered automatic ways to request review or none other than posting to the Blogger Help Forum. If initial request for review fail to result in a positive outcome, and if one is confident that one's blog is not a spam blog nor violates their Content Policy, the last resort is to request for a human final review over at Blogger Help Forum.

However, and that is a very big however and which frightens me, after a human final review and they decide not only that they were right but found your other blogs also spam blogs, not only will you not get that deleted blog back, your other blogs may also gets deleted or worst, you lose your account.

Reason for this post. It happened to me. One of my very old neglected blog got deleted with just a notification of deletion and no links nor info on how to request a review. Knowing that there is still a final chance of asking for a human final review, and if one is wrong, then risk other blogs deletion or worst, deletion of account, this concern made me to finally read and summarize their Content Policy.

And since I have got that summary, rough or whatever plus it will be a good idea too for you to familiarize yourself with it, I am now pasting the summary below hoping you will have an easier time getting to know Blogger Content Policy:

Summary of Blogger Content Policy

Content bounderies:

Policies may change

Exceptions based on artistic, educational, documentary or scientific considerations

1. Adult content including images/video of nudity or sexual activities allowed but put them behind 'mature content' interstitial

Exceptions, not make money on content, no incest or bestiality content or text encouraging them

2. Child safety, examples, child pornography pr pedophilia

3. Hate speech, ie. promotes hate or violence based on race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status or sexual orientation/gender identity

4. Crude content - shocking or graphic. Example, close up images of gunshot wounds or accident scenes without additional context or commentary

5. Violence. Example, death threats or promotion of violence

6. Copyright. Infringements or links to site for unauthorized downloads

7. Impersonation

8. Illegal activities or promote dangerous or illegal activities

9. Spam including blogs to drive traffic or influence search ranking of sites or products, scrapped content for revenue and personal gains

10. Malware and viruses

ENFORCEMENT

To notify, flag or use form at
http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?answer=76315

Possible Actions
1. 'matured content' interstitial
2. interstitial via which only owner can access
3. delete blog
4. disable author Blogger or Google account access
5. report to law enforcement

Now that old neglected (deleted) blog was one which talks about Google Adsense and helps users to use AdSense properly IN A VERY INNOCENT WAY, also has Google adverts and thus do generate some very modest return. But because it involves money and after reading the Content Policies and its very wide interpretation of what Blogger regards as spam, I decided to let sleeping dog lies and regretfully did not ask for a final human review.

and here is what Chuck aka Nitecruz has to added, his input is thus here acknowledged:

before you request an appeal, it's worth describing a few examples of what Blogger regularly removes, as part of its zero tolerance policy to abusive / inappropriate content:

Affiliate marketing.
Content created with scripts and programs, rather than by hand.
Content or links referencing referral-based activities such as GPT ("Get Paid To"), MMH ("Make Money from Home"), MMF ("Make Money Fast"), MLM ("Multi-Level Marketing"), PTC ("Pay To Click"), or PTS ("Pay To Surf").
Content scraped from other blogs / websites.
Copyright Infringement.
Large blogs with multiple, unfocused / unrelated subjects.
Links to Illegal Downloads / Streaming / Torrents.

Please be aware that this is the final review, and the decision of the umpires cannot be appealed. If you request another review, and the Blogger Team finds similar blogs in your Blogger account, you may lose access to all of your blogs.

If you want to explore further, refer to Blog deleted due to violating terms of service

FreakY TriKz

Wednesday, May 16, 2012