Google locked one of my blogs, the one I use to promote my book of essays, ten days ago, claiming it was spam. Hopefully that's not a commentary on the book.
They were good enough to provide me with an appeal link, which I promptly clicked. "Since you clicked the link, you're obviously a real person." Okay, great! "Our team will review your blog."
The team is obviously comprised of slow readers, and I have very little text on my site to peruse. Google as a whole is cloistered. No one can penetrate its veil of protection. Perhaps the company is too busy dealing with its Hamas employees occupying the executive offices, but I have my doubts. Google has always been impossible to contact.
"Blogger Help" does nothing but allow users to post questions/concerns on its forum. Apparently any responses to those posts are generated by volunteers who basically throw up their hands and say, "Well, there's nothing, really, I can do." Thanks!
Having kept the original email, I once again clicked the appeal link and once again received the message that the team would review my appeal. I have no faith in that.
I'm going to have to figure out from whom I purchased my domain name (I have a few domains; it's hard to remember) and make sure I don't renew it. The domain is now useless to me. That wouldn't be so bad, but I included it in the back matter of my book. What kind of amateur author would refer readers to a non-existent website?
I have a feeling ~ I can't quantify it ~ that Google is eventually going to dismantle its Blogger application. Once a company stops supporting an arm of its business, the end is near. If that happens, it'll be a bummer for me. My main author website is hosted by Blogger, as well as my long-term music blog, which would be devastating to lose. I'm not panicking, yet. I don't know how popular Blogger blogs are anymore, but contrary to the many rah-rah articles online, I don't think many people read blogs. It could be that Google can no longer justify supporting it. It sold off its domain registrar business recently. Maybe the company is in shedding mode.
The last back and forth I had with the Blogger Help volunteer ended with him saying, essentially, "Well, looks like you're screwed." Looks like he's right. I'll do one last cursory search for a way to contact the company, but nothing has ever turned up before and I'm sure it won't now.
But by all means, Google, stay undercover. After all, who do you have to answer to when you monopolize the market?
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