This is the continuation of my first Link Spam article, let’s call it Part 2.

Redux :)

So let’s assume I make a blog on blogger.com/blogspot.com - let’s say I tailor it towards one particular narrow field. It could be about a product, it could be about one subject like cars, or it could be a personal blog. It doesn’t really matter because recently, from personal experience, and from scanning the blogosphere, it appears that Google/Blogger/Blogspot is now deleting people’s blogs for absolutely no reason.

The reason -I- was told, that 5 of my blogspot blogs were deleted was because of link spam. I wasn’t spamming. I was actually focusing on narrow fields, talking about products from one particular company for each blog. The articles were real, I wrote them out by hand, it wasn’t some stupid piece of software.

The reason given to this blogger? None.

The reason given to this blogger’s friend? Read more…

This blogger had his blog deleted for no reason, and is trying to garner support. He got it fixed though.

Now I only list a few, I’ll admit. But regardless they were deleted without warning. Now I understand that they have an ultimate right to delete blogs, but using “link spam” as an excuse is flimsy at best. So here’s my train of events.

When I was deleted, I mailed them. I got this back:

All issues regarding login problems are covered in our Blogger Help
article here:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=654

This includes information on recovering your username and password, as
well as what to do if this doesn’t work, or if your browser settings are
preventing you from logging in.

Other pages that may also be of use to you are the following:

DEALING WITH INVITATION ERRORS
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=642

BLOGGER STATUS
http://status.blogger.com/

KNOWN ISSUES
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=791

If your question or problem is not addressed anywhere in our
documentation, please simply reply to this message and let us know. We
will help you out as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience.

So no, it wasn’t any of those, I replied back and got this:

I was not able to locate an account username that is associated with ‘blahblah’

If you could give me some information about your account, I may be able to help you regain access to it. Please tell me the email address on file, your blog address, your username, and the first and last names you registered with, and I’ll see what I can do.

So I did. And got this:

We have disabled your account and removed your blogs due to the fact that you have been misusing our service. Based on our records, there are a number of blogs that are not compliant with our terms of service. This behavior is not looked upon favorably.

For more information on our Terms of Service, please see:
http://www.blogger.com/terms.g

So I asked, ‘what terms have I violated specifically?’ And finally, got their reasoning:

Blogger reserves the right to remove those blogs which are setup either automatically or manually for the purpose of directing traffic through hyperlinks to specific external site(s). This practice, known as link spamming, is in violation of our Terms of Service. In accordance to the termination provision of the TOS, we have therefore terminated your account.

Ok well that’s interesting. Firstly because those blogs were about specific subject, and specific products. Let’s say it was talking about Baseball Caps, that’s a nice safe subject. Regardless of what the subject really was, it was NOT pornographic, it was NOT illegal, it was a very safe and standard subject. The blogs were set up manually, and I took the time, manually, to add articles to them.

So let me see if this is right, ‘for the purpose of directing traffic through hyperlinks to specific external site‘, this is in effect saying that ANY link to ANY other site outside of blogger/blogspot, means you are link spamming.

So if you are considering setting up a serious blog about one subject, on blogger/blogspot, beware. Linking outside to ANYWHERE, means you are a link spammer, and you will probably have your blog removed if they don’t like it.

I am a little peeved about this, I put a lot of work into those blogs and to be called a link spammer (which btw, I abhor) is just an insult. Then to cap it ALL off - their support email address, support@blogspot.com, doesn’t work from hotmail anymore. I get this:

MSN Hotmail does not recognize one or more of the addresses. They are either not in your contacts or they are incomplete. E-mail addresses must be in the following format: ‘example@hotmail.com’ and they must be separated by a comma. Please check the spelling and the separation of your e-mail addresses.

So, if you are one of those bloggers who have had this happen to you, post a comment, post the blog that was deleted, and let’s hear about it!

Update: Dec. 11th; read my other related post about Hotmail now blocking my outgoing mail to blogspot.com. I verified this by mailing them from MY domain here, and it got through fine. I have mailed Hotmail about this, waiting on a reply.