Why I'm Keeping this Blog Active

I've been around Blogger for nearly five years and in that time one sees a lot of blogs come and go. Lately as I scroll down my Reader (yes Google Reader may have disappeared but Blogger has a very effective Reader feature that shows you all the recent posts on blogs you follow), I've noticed weird posts on writer blogs. Articles about the latest diet drug, posts in a foreign language, information about car insurance.

It appears that abandoned blogs are getting taken over by spammers. I mean why not grab a url on blogspot if you can, with all the attached followers and start posting spam? Maybe someone will read them and buy your diet drug, right?

So I'm keeping this blog relatively active to avoid potential problems.

These spam-controlled blogs have removed all former design features, including the follower icon on the blog. They give you no way to unfollow them except through the Settings feature on the back end of your own blog. Here's how:

From your Reading List, go to the tool icon on the far right and click it. Every blog you follow will be listed. You can click the link and check to make sure it's a valid active blog. If so, fine; if not, click the Settings on the right of the blog and it will give you the option to Stop Following this Site.

I've begun a major clear out this way, unfollowing abandoned blogs before they're taken over. Some are taken down completely with their url offered for use. Some haven't been posted on for several years, and who knows how long Blogger will allow these old sites to stay.

If the original blog has died, I'd just as soon get my name off as a follower, because I don't want any link to a spammer.

The Blogs they are a changing

Weird things are happening in Blogger land. Like someone who hasn't had her blog very long said Blogger told her she had too many pictures on it. What??? And someone else who just started a new blog can't put up a Follower icon, only gadgets that let followers sign up with RSS feeds, email, or by Google + . I guess the Follower icon is now outdated, old-fashioned, done away with. Who knows how long before an old blog like mine just one day disappears?

They'll say "She has too many blogs anyway. Be gone!" And that'll be the end of that. When it happens, I hope you will come see me at my lovely website, karenjonesgowen.com.