I've noticed a lot of "spam" commenters. For example, check out the EIEIO post on the Babers' Blog; click on comments and you'll see what I mean. Blogs are public unless you make them private so it's easy for spammers to find them. A while ago I switched Ignatzes to Private status so this blog shouldn't be showing up on any public listing which means we hopefully won't be getting much if any spam on
this blog.
Spammers, however, can get to your personal blogs one of four ways, the first three are preventable:
1) They click on the "Next Blog" link at the top right of the blog header;
2) They surf the menu of most recently updated blogs that blogger provides on all public blogs;
3) They link from your profile (if you ever comment on another blog they stumble across) and get to your blog;
4) They guess at the name of your blog.
If you want to make your own blog private (takes care of the first three blog-finding methods), take the following actions:
1) Log into your blog as though you are going to compose a new post
2) Look at the tabs in the top and find the Settings tab
3) Under the description box is a link that says, "Add your blog to our listings?" Select NO.
You can also go to your dashboard and click "change settings," whatever is easiest.If you want your blog to be public, but don't want the public to see all of the blogs you write and maintain:
1) Log into your blog dashboard
2) Click on "Edit Profile" from the top right of the page.
3) Under the orange Privacy heading, uncheck the boxes if necessary
4) Under the orange Privacy heading, click on the link which says, "Select blogs to display." If your blog is already private, it will not show up here. If it is public, but you don't want it linked to your profile in case someone traces you when you comment, uncheck it.
Again, to be perfectly clear, this Ignatzes blog is private, so there shouldn't be anything more to do on this blog. However, I'm especially concerned the children's blogs not be public blogs. You can give people the addresses for the blog and they can get to it (or someone could conceivably guess the blog address) but why have it public and on lists or in the "next blog" rotation? If spammers can find it, I'm concerned about who else can find it.
