Monday, July 2, 2012

Help! Requesting advice / assistance from fellow Bloggers

I wouldn't normally do this but since I have a captive audience and most of you have blogs of your own I thought why not. HighPlainsFlyFisher (this blog) was recently deemed SPAM by Blogger according to an e-mail that I recieved. After jumping through a hoop or two I was able to get most of my functionality back but still have several serious issues. One...I keep getting error messages on my dashboard and still have some functionality loss and Two....I can't leave comments on any of your blogs without it being deemed Spam as well. That was the first thing cluing me in that something was still wrong , I kept leaving comments on blogs I normally frequent and they weren't showing up. To make a long story short , I havn't been able to get any technical assistance from Blogger. Their first advice was that I should stop commenting on blogs where I wasn't welcome and had been deemed Spam , are you kidding? I explained that I was pretty sure that just overnight everyone didn't decide that my comments were spam , that it had to be a Blogger issue. They then explained that their filters could not be changed and if someone had declared my comments Spam there was nothing they could do about it. They just weren't getting the picture or just didn't really care to help me , I'm not sure which.
To make a long story short(er) I think I've decided to move on and try to host my own domain name at another site like WordPress or one similar. Basically I'm looking for any comments as to whether this is a good idea or not? I'm not extremely computer literate so I'll have to do some major research and figure it out but if it's a better place to have the blog hosted it'll be well worth it. Has anyone utilized both sites (Blogger- WordPress) and can give me a comparison between the two , which one did you prefer? Will I be able to maintain my current blog content at a new site without losing anything? I don't want to lose content or Followers because I switch but I am pretty frustrated with the Blogger support right now and don't really seem to have any other options. I sure appreciate any comments you have that might help me decide which direction to move forward with. Hopefully I'll still be posting in the meantime but with the issues I'm having , unless Blogger does something to correct them ,  who knows.
In the meantime I'll still be following all of your great work out there.  I  can't leave a comment to let you know that I enjoyed it....but trust me I did!

18 comments:

  1. Man, that is terrible! Sorry stuff. Wish I could help but I'm computer stupid and don't deal with a blog, now I may never. Good luck!

    Gregg

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    1. Thanks Gregg...I happen to be in that same boat , computer stupid that is!!

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  2. I like blogger...haven't tried any other options. Hope you are able to get this resolved satisfactorily. I enjoy your posts!

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  3. My buddy has wordpress and really likes it. I am almost certain though if you switch it would be starting new. I dont think your stuff transfers. I would say if you do jsut do a post on here and let all those who follow know and I am sure most if not all will follow there also. I know I will. Sorry to hear aobut your bad luck. I hink my next thing I will do is just buy an actual domain name and make that my blog/webpage. They are dirt cheap these days.

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    1. TroutAddict - I'm leaning towards WordPress right now so glad to hear that. I'm sure hoping content transfers though , I'd hate to lose it all.

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  4. Exporting the blog to wordpress is pretty simple. Directions can be found on google. You'd end up with the same blog but a new domain name.

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    1. Thanks for the information John. That's the best news I've heard yet , I know it wouldn't be the end of the world if I lost content but I'd still hate it.

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  5. Sorry to hear of your problem. I know nothing about these things, computers that is. How long has this been going on?
    If you do switch post it here several times and I'm sure your followers will switch over to your new place.

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    1. Brk Trt - I got the e-mail sometime last week and have been having issues ever since unfortunately. I'll definitely try to let everyone know where I'm moving to before it happens so those interested can still find it. The worst part will be finding the time (and patience) to deal with getting it done.

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  6. I'm with John but I'm not 100 percent sure. Kinds of brings up a good point though. Where is my stuff really and what if I wanted copies???

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    1. That's a question I couldn't begin to answer. You know me Kevin , I can just barely figure out the twist top on a beer!

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  7. Yeah, per John above Blogger has an export feature.

    That sucks. I'm not sure what to do to get your current profile not deemed spam. I do know that as blogger users we have two profiles, a blogger profile and our google plus profile. Sometimes I will stop following a site with my old profile and then sign back up with my new profile because...well I don't know why I'm just anal.

    Give that a try.

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    1. JGR - I sure wish it was that simple of a fix. I've tried everything I know to do so it looks like a move is inevitable. I already purchased my domain name so now I just need to find the time to make the move.

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  8. I am curious what on your blog is being flagged as spam? Did they say what their filters are looking for? Great pics, great fish, great food... Who doesn't like that?

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    1. Richard - Good question , I'd like to know that too. The guy gave me a brief explanation of their special "Heuristic Filters" but it was over my head. Bottom line was they couldn't solve my problem , even if they're filters were just showing a false positive.

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  9. I'm with Richard, they need to tell you what you're being flagged for. Should be easy, these Fu**ers track our every move anyway.

    I wish I had some advice for ya...I'm not very savvy when it comes to dealing with blogger. good luck, and hopefully it is already resolved.

    If you switch let me know how it goes...been thinking about it myself.

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  10. After watching your posts my interest in carp fishing has enhanced tremendously. I am fond of carp fishing since my childhood but I get bore after watching posts in different sites but after watching your post I started taking more interest in carp fishing and it has enhanced my confidence and my spirit.

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