Okay, so here is an overview of a story involving blogger, blogspot domains, spammers, Google Pagerank and me. The subtitle of this one could also be:
How I Got a Site With a Pagerank of 5 With Absolutely No Work ... and Then Gave it Away
It began when I was reading through some blog posts about del.icio.us integration with blogs. In one good post there was a comment recommending a site with a post explaining How to Create Those del.icio.us Link Posts. By the summary in the comment, it sounded like exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately, the link was dead and I was confronted with the blogspot 404 error. The URL was:
techlifeblogged.blogspot.com/something
Even though it wasn't there anymore, I noticed the post URL had a Pagerank of 1. Curious, I checked the root directory of this blog and found that the root had a Pagerank of 5. So even though the site was not there anymore, it was clear that the blogger had done a lot of work posting and promoting the blog. Now it was gone. It had either been deleted or the blogger had changed the URL (perhaps posting over FTP).
I had some experience with posting a blog with blogspot for awhile and then switching it to a hosting provider. Sometimes this worked really well and sometimes it didn't depending on how Blogger set it up. In one example, I'd had http://arco-friends.blogspot.com/ but wanted to set it up with a subdomain on a hosting account at http://friends.arconati.name/. Prior to switching these settings within the Blogger dashboard, I modified the template to redirect using JavaScript or a meta refresh. I'd done this more than once:
I'd also more recently used Blogger's new feature for Custom Domains, which allows you to actually point your DNS to Blogger's servers. Hey, it's like free hosting!
The cool advantage to this latest feature is that the old blogspot URL actually redirects to your domain with a search-engine friendly 301 redirect, meaning any listings in the SERPs and inbound links will still work correctly with no JavaScript needed.
However, between the first list and the day that Blogger added the Custom Domains feature, there was one site that didn't quite work out that well. When I went to set up and move - http://arco-quotes.blogspot.com/ - to - http://quotes.arconati.name/ - it didn't work out quite as well. I set up the redirect correctly, but moments after changing the settings to FTP, the old blogspot site was showing PAGE NOT FOUND. A blog I had built up with almost 250 posts and was well listed in the search engines was now gone. Minutes after I had discovered what happened, I did the natural thing and posted an emotionally reserved rant called BLOGGER SCREWED ME.
With all this as a back story (phew), I was staring at the techlifeblogged URL and wondering what happened to it. Still being curious, I wondered in my head how long Blogger kept blogspot subdomains before they went back into circulation and someone else could get them. So I went to the dashboard page and attempted to sign up for that as a new blog. I assumed it wouldn't work.
And I just about fell out of my chair when lo and behold, it did work. All of a sudden, I was the administrator of a site that had a pagerank of 5! But then the dilemma sets in. What did I just do? What do I do now? Naturally, I blogged about it --can you sense the theme?
Okay, what has just happened tonight was that I was browsing around and found a link to a blogspot site that was giving 404 page not found errors. I was sad cause the content I wanted was on it. I checked the root of the blog but was still getting 404 errors. Curious, I decided to try signing up for this subdomain and assumed it wouldn't ... [read more]
So I posted that and I waited. Not much happened. I wondered if anyone was actually coming to the site. I also wondered if the pagerank would drop very quickly, so I kept my eye on things.
As of today, the pagerank on this site as measured in both Firefox and IE is currently 4. When I ... [read more]
Thinking about it the next day, I tried just using Google to see if I could find where the original blog had gone and it was surprisingly easy. I posted again, linking to the original TechLifeBlogged and browsed around a bit enjoying the site. The blogger was a good writer and a geek like me. I had to get in touch with him. I found the contact page and hovered my cursor over the email link... and then wasn't sure what I would say.
Thankfully I was saved from the trouble. Scott Kingery, owner and writer of the TechLifeWeb Network posted a comment on what was once his blog but was now mine. He confirmed what I had already guessed. That he had owned and maintained that blog for a long time and then switched to a hosting plan. Without realizing it, he lost the 'blogspot' address that he had been promoting for so long and a spammer picked it up. When it became available again, I was the first to notice while simply browsing around.
By the end of this weekend, Scott should have his old blog address back. I am going to be adding him as an admin and then when he logs in he should be able to remove me. Prior to hearing from him, I briefly entertained turning this into a project for myself and using it to promote my own interests in technology, hardware, software and web development. But besides the fact that I'm already very busy, I just can't morally do this. Even if I had never figured out who Scott was, I'd always have assumed that someone out there had lost something that was their labor of love. I know it sounds stupid and sentimental and pretentious, but I just couldn't do it.
Any comments? What would you have done in my place? What would you have done in Scott's place? Thanks for visiting and thanks to Scott for being understanding!
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