A couple of days ago I expressed my concern about having an open blog. I was starting to get slightly paranoid of the what would happen if...and the did you hear the story about...concerning blogs. Just yesterday I saw a clip about a mom with a blog who found out that someone from another country was using the pictures of her child to scam adopting mothers to adopt this child living in an orphanage. The scammer was asking for an upfront fee of 300 dollars for the paperwork, and then they would begin the adoption process. Luckily the mother of the child was informed and put a stop to it before any harm was done.
It's stories like this that make me weary of the blogging world.
The whole reason I started a blog was to update family and friends on the happenings of our life in Connecticut. So far it has been the best way to stay up to date. I chose to keep an open blog so that friends and family could come and go freely without special permission. So far I think it's the best option.
A couple of days ago I considered setting my blog to private. Ultimately this would help me feel safe, which is what I'm lacking right now, but it would definitely limit who can view it...which is kind of the point, right? I'm not so sure that is what I really want.
So I got an email from my friend Britney, who made everything better. Literally! I am very glad she passed on this great advice because it has helped me feel safe about my decision to have an open blog:
1-get some kind of stat analysis that lets you see who is viewing your blog. She suggests http://www.statcounter.com/ (I did have a stat analaysis through googleanalytics, but statcounter is actually better for me because I can see the address of the person viewing my blog, not just the analysis that someone is viewing my blog. It's great!)
2- change the settings in your blog to make it unsearchable. Go to settings, basic, and then scroll down to the very bottom. You have the option to change the search availability-which is awesome because the user has to know the exact blog address and can't just do a quick search.
3-go to your picasa album and make sure all your pictures are set to private. Apparently, and this is something that I just found out, blogger saves your pictures to a private Picasa Web Album so that your pics aren't floating around the internet. (which is something I was most worried about) So go to your picasa album, log in to your blog, and make sure your pics are private.
Great advice, huh? Thanks Britney...I just had to pass it on.
4 comments:
also, as far as picasa, you can set the settings so people can or cannot download or order prints of your pictures. Just added security. It's in the settings page, at this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/settings#permissions
that link also allows you to prohibit people from reusing your pictures :)
good advice. thanks for sharing.
on google analytics you can see the websites people come from. under "traffic sources overview" click on "view report," scroll down and select "view full report." just thought i'd share!
Thanks Faith! I wish I would have known that sooner! I thought I searched through google anlytics pretty well for it...guess not. thanks again!
Post a Comment