This morning I got an email from one of my good friend Tiffany over at tiffanydow.com and Tiff's email got my attention because she had just spent time, and a little bit of money too, creating a free blog over at blogger.com.
But after putting tons of time and effort into creating this blog and getting it looking the way she wanted, she just today got an email from Google (Google owns Blogger.com) that her blog was considered SPAM and it was removed, you can read Tiffany's blogpost here.
Imagine, all your hard work all gone in a single poof! Heartbreaking.
As much as I like Blogger.com, and I have recommended it as a free blogging service because it's super easy, the basic problem is you are at the mercy of Google. If Google deems your blog SPAM or you violate their terms of service in some way – you're gone.
The moral of the story is if you can manage the $10 or so it takes to purchase your own domain name I'd recommend that instead. It doesn't seem worth it to me to put all that time and work into something that could be gone in the blink of an eye.
There's certainly plenty of help around with setting up a free blog on your own domain, I even have a free blogging set-up guide that will step you through it. I use WordPress.org which is also free. The process isn't as drop dead simple as setting up blogger.com but your blog will be completely your own and won't be taken down.
If you have a blogger.com blog, don't panic, it's still a great blogging service, just be sure you read and comply with the terms of service and you should be OK 
You May Also Find These Interesting...
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Surprise! From my experiences I had the same problem with Wordpress. And their TOS’s are much harder than Google’s blogger. In that case if a blog in blogger account got suspended we should take it as our fault!
You wouldn’t have the same problem with Worpress.org but you could have the problem with Wordpress.com. As long as your domain name resides on someone elses server you are vulnerable to their terms of service.
I’ve never been a fan of Blogger for this very reason; why take a chance that all of your hard work might get deleted without any advanced warning whatsoever.
Domain names are cheaper at GoDaddy (there is always some type of coupon (It’s around $6.99 for a .com) the last time I checked.
Twitter: blue_Icetech
April 1, 2010 at 2:43 am
I dont like the blogger services they offer, I like Wordpress.com for blogging.