BBD Updates

I have been updating BBD's companion sites and puttering a bit in this blog.

I experimented with different templates for BBD Blog Feeds and found one that is easy to update and looks okay. I will continue to select two Featured Blog Feeds working my way through the list from A - Z and from Z - A.

Ridiculosity Report and EclecticBlogs will be the featured feeds for a few days.

I have added a number of useful links to BBD Delicious. I have a number of blogs to check out and will be updating the site periodically. If you have any suggestions send me an email.

I have been adding links to the Resources section of the sidebar. I will add some more after I get a chance to check them out.

BBD Swicki needs to be updated but I haven't the time right now. It works and that's what matters most.

I removed the ip2phrase widget from the blog. Today it stopped BBD from loading in my browser. I find that third party applications can cause this to happen if Blogger has problems connecting to their host websites.

Dwarfed Films

Blog Name: Dwarfed Films

Blog URL: http://dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com

Description: film making resources, articles and info and all the news on DWARFED FILMS, the Irish film and 3D animation specialists.

Links to quality freeware and useful open source software.

RiteTurnOnly.com

Blog Name: RiteTurnOnly.com

Blog URL: http://riteturnonly.com

Description: News and political commentary from a conservative Canadian viewpoint.

New Blogger Widgets: Newsreel and Video Bar

Blogger has added two new page element widgets: a Newsreel and a Video Bar.



The Newsreel widget searches Google News for chosen keywords. It is dynamic and updates over time.

The Video Bar widget searches Google Video and YouTube for videos based on the keywords used. Videos open in the blog above the main body of text.



Check out the examples at my test blog. (via Blogger Buzz).

BBD Topics And Locations

There are now 76 blogs listed in Big Blog Directory. I decided to have a look at the labels used and see what I could find out.

I use an alphanumeric system to keep track of the blogs in the directory. The letters represent the first letter used in a blog's name. For example BBD can be found by clicking on the abc label. The most commonly used letter combos are: stu (17), abc (13), and pqr (12).

Most of the labels used are what I call content labels. They represent the topics discussed in each blog. The following list shows the topic name and the number of blogs using that label. I set the minimum at five blogs to keep the list manageable.

There is some overlap of photoblog/photography/photos set and the tech/technology set.

personal (27)
blogging (10)
local (9)
writing (8)
books (7)
photoblog (7), photography (6), photos (5)
politics (7)
music (6)
tech (6), technology (3)
culture (5)
health (5)
travel (5)

Some of the blog descriptions have location labels. These represent topics discussed in the blogs and often give an indication of where the blogger lives. I have grouped them geographically (roughly).


canada (9), british-columbia (4), victoria (4), new-brunswick (2), moncton (1), yellowknife (1)

south-africa (5), cape-town (1), gauteng (1), johannesburg (1)

usa (4), midwest (1), seattle (1), texas (1), utah (1), virginia (1)

uk (3), ireland (1), norway (1)

international (2)

china (1), japan (1), yokkaichi (1), india (1)

mexico (1)

Uncommon Notions

Blog Name: Uncommon Notions

Blog URL: http://uncommonnotions.blogspot.com

Description: Uncommon Notions explores with humor the enjoyment I find in everyday living. Experience family, children, work, marriage, and childhood memories via my perspective.

Magick River

Blog Name: Magick River

Blog URL: http://magickriver.blogspot.com

Description: Antares has been described as a visionary philosopher, chameleon of the arts, wild man of letters, veritable savant, incurable romantic... all of this is amusingly and luminously reflected in his Magick River Blog.

March 26 Featured Feeds

It's time to change the Featured Blog Feeds again. For the next few days BBD will link directly to the latest posts at Romsky's and Chihuahua Tales.

Feedback

I like it when bloggers get traffic from BBD. That is one of the reasons why I created this blog. SuperMomPreneur says:

The #1 referrer (where people came to my blog from) was by far the Big Blog Directory. Leon is running a great site there - he posts new submissions on his main page for a little while, which accounts for my high traffic. So thanks, Leon! (source)

Thanks. I just wish the new submissions could stay on the front page longer. It depends on how much blogging I do and how many submissions I get. But every blog gets to be on the front page at some time and will get featured at some point. It all works out in the end.

SuperMomPreneur

Blog Name: SuperMomPreneur

Blog URL: http://supermompreneur.blogspot.com

Description: Lessons learned and learning by a stay-at-home-mom figuring out the world of eCommerce, one PHP book at a time.

Snippets and Blabbery

Blog Name: Snippets and Blabbery

Blog URL: http://moxyideas.com

Description: One mom learning the ropes of eCommerce, the return to fitness, as many books as possible and other fun topics about which very few people care, but like to read.

Featured Feeds

Brian Cormier's Blogtastic World and South African Cricket Scene are the Featured Blog Feeds for the next few days. Check out the blogs and leave a comment or two.

The New Face Of Spamblogs Part 3

In part 1 of this series I explained that I found a spamblog stealing content from one of my blogs. In part 2 I showed that this spamblog was part of an elaborate spam network that was stealing content from over 300 blogs.

The content of the spamblogs in this network was stolen from blogs with two common features (in addition to being Blogspot blogs):

1. No copyright notice was visible on the blog or in the site feed.
2. The site feed was set to 'full' - which means most, or all, of the text of a post was displayed.

Content on blogs is copyright protected whether there is a copyright notice showing or not. Unless there is notification in the blog saying content may be used one must ask permission to use it.

Some blogs use Creative Commons licenses. These licenses allow some freedom of use but any restrictions must be adhered to. A 'cc' license doesn't mean a user can do everything with the content or use it anywhere.

If you find that a blog is using your content without your permission you can ask the blogger to remove it. If that doesn't work you can report the blog to the blog host if it is known. You can also report spamblogs and copyright issues to Google and other search engines. Check to see if the site uses Google Adsense. If it does report the blog to Google.

You don't have to feel helpless when faced with content theft. Things may seem to be taking some time to fix and you may be frustrated. The easiest thing to do is blog about it. Explain what is going on and how you are dealing with it. You can link to the post with the stolen content BUT don't link to any spamblog - that is just sending them traffic. It is better to write the URL without using a link and let people copy it to their browsers.

Reading List

Copyright

What is Copyright Protection?

Content Theft

Finding Stolen Content and Copyright Infringements

What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content

The Worst Excuse for Content Theft

Site Feeds

If you decide to use a full site feed on your blog consider adding a copyright notice.

Do You Need Permission to Use Feeds

Adding A Copyright Notice To Your Site Feed

Full versus Partial RSS Feeds

Feed guarding: Protecting your weblog content from theft — or worse fates . . .

Spam Blogs

How To Spot a Splog

Reporting Spam Blogs

Do You Really Want To Delete Your Blog? - explains how deleted blogs can end up becoming spamblogs.

Splogs + Scraping + AdSense = Fraud

How Spam Blogs Cheat Technorati

The New Face Of Spamblogs Part 2

In part 1 of this series I explained about finding a blog that had stolen content from one of my blogs. I suspected that it was a spamblog and that it was one of several hosted at addapad.com.

In this post I will show that content has been stolen from other blogs. I will also talk about addapad.com ,a similar site called thewhatblog.com, and the two search engines they are connected to. I will keep the links to these sites to a minimum since I don't want to send them traffic or boost their pageranks.

When I discovered the extent of the content theft from my blog I started investigating blogs hosted at addapad. I looked at quite a few blogs and then began searching for post titles in Google. I found that the stolen content all comes from Blogspot blogs.

Here are some examples:

Looking For 'Dryland' is a post from Sonya's Grab Bag. Here is how it appears on thsangelhsnohalo:



Good morning... is a post from Artsy Catsy. It also appears at grneyedfairie:



When I was investigating the spamblogs I used the search boxes found on most of them. I was taken to a webpage at searchmat.com and found that every outgoing link lead either to addapad.com or thewhatblog.com. The latter is another blog host that uses WordPress. It is set up like addapad and is associated with find-a-blog.com which is identical to searchmat. Some searches at find-a-blog lead to addapad.

The two search engines are the only places where I found any advertising. Both use Google Adsense. If the ads were in any of the spamblogs they would be violating Google's TOS. They may still violate the terms of service.



The ads could be the ultimate point of this network. The stolen content and referrer spam from the few blogrolls attracts people to the blogs. Visitors poke around and eventually find the search engines and the ads. Some people will click on the ads and escape what is essentially a well crafted and subtle maze.

The network may not seem like a spam operation at first but a quick Google search shows that many sites are dealing with 'referrer spam' from both hosts. Referrer spam screws up site stats and messes with Internet searches.

People dealing with referrer spam are being inconvenienced. Bloggers having their content stolen and used this way are being insulted. When we find a blogger taking our stuff we have someone tangible to contact or blame for our troubles. These generic spamblogs are faceless and unnerving. How do you fight something intangible? Just figuring out who to contact is frustrating.

I wondered how many other blogs were effected by this. Every blog on addapad and thewhatblog is stealing content from one Blogspot blog. I did a search at Technorati and found out that addapad had 112 blogs listed and thewhatblog 218. These two sites plagiarize at least 330 blogs!

This spam network is something I haven't seen before. I have seen individual splogs linked together before but not like this. When each component is looked at separately they look legitimate. When seen together they look like pieces of an elaborate scam.

In part 3 of this series I will present ways bloggers can deal with content theft.

The New Face Of Spamblogs Part 1

Spamblogs are mutating into new and scary forms. They are being made with WordPress blogs and appearing in their own dedicated blog directories.

If I wrote this post 24 hours ago it would have been completely different. I would have told about my experience with content theft and how I contacted a blog hosting service to resolve the issue. I found that there was more to this than copyright infringement.

This began by accident. I was doing research on Blog Directories for this blog and ended up in an obscure search engine. I noticed a blog called armandorico that had a post with the same title as a post in one of my blogs. I clicked on the link and got a shock! Every one of the 16 posts on the blog came from a blog of mine called Braindance!

Here is a post on armandorico...



and the same on Braindance.



The blog looked like some test blogs I had seen and that is what I assumed it was. I bookmarked the site and searched for the blog in Google. I found a cached page that made me very angry. It showed an older version of one of the stolen posts. Links had been added and the 'test blog' was turned into a spam blog.



I found my way to addapad.com's Abuse page to report the blog and have it removed. I was working out what to say and decided to think about it some more. I checked out the website and realized there was more to this than I thought.

I became suspicious when browsing the "Most Active" section in the sidebar. Every blog listed seemed like the one I had found. I thought a webmaster might need a few blogs to test out a hosting service or directory but this seemed excessive. Furthermore, none of these blogs were using Lorem Ipsum but were using text taken from real blogs.

Someone took a lot of time to create several blogs with stolen content. Were these test blogs or spamblogs? Who was doing this?

In part 2 I will talk about what I found and what I think might be happening.

Update: Roundup

The South African Roundup will be postponed until some time in April. I have been too busy to work on it.

BBD Del.icio.us

I set up a del.icio.us account for BBD. I will add blog related information I think is useful. I already had a personal account but felt a separate more-focused account was a good idea.

I looked at other social bookmarking sites but chose to stick with del.icio.us because I am familiar with it and it works. If you have a del.icio.us account you can add me to your network and suggest blog related sites.

Having a bookmarks site will help me provide better information. I don't have the time to blog about all the useful posts I find. BBD News is useful but presents various problems such as: subscribing and managing feeds, and obtaining permission to post copyrighted material.

The sidebar link is in the BBD Extras section.

Facing Autism In New Brunswick

Blog Name: Facing Autism in New Brunswick

Blog URL: http://autisminnb.blogspot.com/

Description: News and comment on autism and autism related issues in education, heath, residential care and government policy.

Spam Is Spam Is Spam

Word Verification is great for automated spam but it doesn't stop people from typing in garbage.

I clean out the comments in 'Submit Your Blog' periodically. I want people to see the finished blog listings and not something that may be 'in progress'. Another reason I do it is to control comment spam.

This morning I deleted a long-winded comment that had nothing to do with blogging. As usual I checked the Blogger profile and any links to determine if the comment was spam or just misplaced. I found out he blogger had been leaving the exact same comment on forums and blogs for at least six months! He is even using the same Blogger profile.

Several bloggers mentioned the spam comment but didn't delete it. Two of them even quoted from it.

We all look for interesting things to post about and comments are fair game. We have to be careful that we don't give spammers free advertising.

The person who left the comment is a spammer. He does not care what the content of a post is. He leaves the same comment in different blogs. He is the same as the person peddling v**gra. Spam is spam.

Don't help comment spammers. Report their blogs and/or profiles. (I did.)

Featured Feeds

Hockey and dieting take the spotlight for the next few days as Blind Sight is 20/20 and The Fat Chronicles become featured feeds.

I added the feeds from the latest blogs listed to BBD Blog Feeds as well.

I get a kick out of ...

Blog name: I get a kick out of...

Blog URL: http://thingsigetakickout.blogspot.com

Description: A blog of cheap thrills and simple pleasures. Things you think no-one else notices but probably everybody does.

yayacanada

Blog Name: yayacanada

Blog URL: http://yayacanada.blogspot.com

Description: Activist commentary on current events, social and political issues

Labels And Links

Labels

I moved the label widget to the footer because it is getting quite large. I am finding that most of the labels are used only once or twice. I expected this to happen. I am also starting to see spelling differences show up - for example 'humor' and 'humour'. I may have to do something about that eventually.

Overall I am pleased with the way the system is working. Enough common labels are used that readers can find groups of blogs to check out.

I have thought about requiring at least one location label. However, for many blogs, location is irrelevant. Furthermore, the bloggers who blog about their area a lot usually include location labels with their submissions.

Links

I have been checking out various 'referrers' and 'link-showing' services. I finally chose WhoLinks2Me because it works and the results match those I have seen on other sites. I added the site to the resources section of the sidebar.

Like all referrers this one sometimes shows inappropriate sites. I am not sure what the "Recent Websites" section is all about but I can ignore it.

New Listings 6

It has been a busy week here at BBD. I have had the pleasure of reviewing and listing quite a diverse mix of blogs. Check out the listings and then visit the blogs.

Ocean and Forest Walks

Eco Planet Canada

Musings from a jam jar

Ridiculosity Report

A view from three steps back...

You can't reason with Crazy

EclecticBlogs

the wonderful world inside my mind aka Miauland

Use Quick Blog Search to view all listed blogs alphabetically or Search This Blog Using Labels to search by topic.

Eco Planet Canada

Blog Name: Eco Planet Canada

Blog URL: http://ecoplanetcanada.blogspot.com

Description: It's all about adopting an environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Musings from a jam jar

Blog Name: Musings from a jam jar

Blog URL: http://justajamjar.blogspot.com

Description: This blog is written by the jam-jar, jam being a crazy blonde girl and jar an even crazier guy, who have 5 degrees between them and are working at a restaurant/pub in Cape Town, Looking at going to the UK to travel Europe and perhaps put the degrees to use...

Two Featured Feeds

I decided to post two featured feeds at once for a while. The new feeds are: Big Blue Wave and the wonderful world inside my mind aka Miauland.

I am finding that long URL's create problems with the site feed page element that Blogger uses. For example I could link to the Big Blue Wave listing if I just used the blog name. The title of "Miauland" is much too long and had to be summarized. I wonder what other problems long names create for blogs?

Submission Guidelines

What Is Big Blog Directory?

• Big Blog Directory is both a blog and a blog directory.
• Big Blog Directory uses Blogger labels (tags) to categorize blogs.
• BBD Blog contains news, information, and tutorials for bloggers.
• BBD is as much of a community as members want it to be. They can participate in activities or ignore them. They can ask for help with blogging - all I ask is that they help others too.

Linking To BBD

1. Links to BBD are mandatory.
2. Read this post if you need help linking.
3. Text links should read "Big Blog Directory".
4. Links must point to http://bigblogdir.blogspot.com
5. Links should be in the sidebar, footer, or designated links page - not buried in a post.
6. If there is a reason your blog cannot link to BBD let me know. I will make exceptions if needed.
7. When you send in your submission tell me where I can find the link.

Submission Process

1. Read Submit Your Blog and follow the directions.
2. If your blog is acceptable AND links to BBD it will be listed in 24-48 hours. Don't wait for an email or comment before linking.
3. If your blog is unacceptable I will contact you and explain why.

What Is An Acceptable Blog?

I don't worry too much what type of blog you write or whether I like it personally. I believe all blogs are equal and worth reading. That being said I won't list blogs that advocate violence, racism, homophobia, or illegal activities.

Blogs with 'Adult' themes may be acceptable as long as there is no pornography. I want to keep BBD accessible to everyone.

If your blog has lots of annoying features like popups, music that starts automatically, or unreadable text: I might not list it. If your blog locks up my browser or sets off my virus scanner it wont be listed. To be listed a blog has to be accessible.

One of the important things to remember is that only current blogs are listed in BBD. Blogs that are dormant for 60 days have their listings removed. Dormant blogs will not be listed.

Updated: April 8, 07

Site Feed Poll

I would like to know what readers think about BBD and site feeds. Do you prefer full feeds or are partial feeds okay.

Take my site-feed poll!

Testing Blog Intro

Blog Intro is a WordPress based blog directory. It looks okay so I submitted BBD and added a button in my Affiliations section.

I'll update this post when/if my listing is published.

I still haven't heard from Globe Of Blogs or Blogotion. Ah well, some advertising has to be free. :)

Update: Link removed April 3. The still hadn't listed my blog.

How To Create A Guestbook In Blogger

Some bloggers may want to turn off comments but still interact with readers. Some bloggers get frustrated with off-topic comments. These bloggers could use third party guestbooks or tagboards but that isn't necessary.

The easiest way to control comments is to create a 'Genaral Comments' or 'Guestbook' post.

1. Create a post called 'Guestbook'.
2. Make sure comments are allowed and set the way you want.
3. Explain what your comments policy is. (It can be as simple as: "Keep comments on-topic or post them in my 'Guestbook'.)
4. Publish the post.
5. Add a link to the post to the sidebar.

Note: This won't work if your blog comments are restricted to team members. In that case create a blog specifically for comments and link back to the team blog.

Canadian Blog Roundup #1

Canada has a dynamic and varied blogging community. As I prepared for this roundup I soon realized I couldn't cover even the major issues in one post. I hope this selection of blogs and directories will give you a glimpse of blogging in Canada, and that you find something interesting to read.

Leon

Canada

Blogging Change - is a group of political blogs. The site is a blog aggregator of member blogs.

Blogs.ca - is a new network of Canadian information blogs.

BlogsCanada - was the major Canadian blog directory up until 2005 or so. Jim Elve maintained Officially Unofficial (the house blog) and participated in the political E-Group Blog. I commented on the house blog a few times and was going to submit some of my blogs to the directory. I kept waiting, however, for it to be cleaned up. BlogsCanada seemed to come to standstill and then the house blog fell silent. The E-Group Blog was still active. Lately the house blog is showing some life and one can only hope that the directory will be renewed.

CanadianBlogosphere.ca - is a 'toplist' or blog ranking/popularity site for blogs from Canada.

Canadian Blogs is a blog aggregator.

Canadian Political Aggregators/Blogrolls - there are a number of them. Here is one example: Peter's Politics. There a quite a few listed in the sidebar at BC Blogs.

The Canadian Blog Exchange - is a linking/blogroll type site where bloggers participate by filing posts in relevant categories.

Canadian MetroBlogs

Montreal
Toronto
Vancouver

British Columbia

BC Bloggers is a blog aggregator and directory for British Columbians.

BC Blogs - is an aggregator and blogroll of (mostly) political blogs. The sidebar has a comprehensive collection of regional and political blog aggregators and blogrolls.

Blogs in Victoria BC - a small collection of blogs on the VicStart site,

Ontario

Blog Guelph

W.E. Speak- gives the citizens of Windsor and Essex County an alternative voice - their own.

Canadian blogs listed in Big Blog Directory


Big Blog Directory

Big Blue Wave

Blind Sight is 20/20

Braindance

Brian Cormier's Blogtastic World

EclecticBlogs

Excribidinglish

Firemind

Flotsam and Jetsam

Popped Culture

The Media Nook

You can't reason with Crazy

Blog Name: You can't reason with Crazy

Blog URL: http://blog.karaandrandy.com/

Description: A blog about a mother of 2 boys who are 12 months and 2 weeks apart.