Safe Blogging

We love it when we see our blog linked on people's sidebars.

However, at this time we're asking anyone who has our last name on their sidebar to please remove it and just link us using our first names or our blog name.

We're just covering our bases and trying to practice safe bloggyness. :o)

Here are some helpful tips I found on a blog today. The author speaks from experience...she says...

1. Photos: Intimate {read: bath or shots only a grandma wants to see} pictures of you or your kids should be kept private; either on a private blog or not posted at all if your blog is public. It is possible for creeps to just save your pictures to their computer. So, even if you delete that one particular post or picture that your statcounter tells you is being overly viewed, you can never get those pictures back that some creep is looking at. Don't post a picture of your child in front of her school on the first day with the name of the school behind her. Also, no pictures of local, neighborhood landmarks that could easily give away where you live.

2. Calendar: Keep your calendar private. Don't tell blogland your day to day schedule of going to this particular gym, this particular restaurant, this particular park with your kids, or that you're leaving town from this day to this day. If you do, you are asking for trouble.

3. Personal Information: Keep your personal information personal. Some bloggers don't even use their real names, some only use initials, some only use first names. Please don't post your address, employment information, etc. If you have links on your sidebar with last names; switch them to first names only. If someone you know has you linked, ask them nicely to remove your last name. If you've included your last name in your blog url, it is possible to change it. Look here to see how. Make sure you educate those you blog with and your family. Maybe you don't know it, but your family or friends could be giving away your location or address or posting pictures of your house, etc.. Don't use names of people you are reminiscing about, unless you are fine with them finding you. On that same vein, google yourself occasionally to see what comes up. Be aware of what people can find about you.

4. Tracking: Add a sitemeter or statcounter to your blog. There are various kinds to choose from and they can be visible or invisible. I prefer statcounter. My favorite features show you which pages are most popular and getting the most traffic and also which blogs are linking to you and how people find your blog through google by searching random words or phrases. {If you allow google to search}

5. Search Engines: In your blog settings, you can click the option NO so search engines can't find your blog if you don't want people to find your blog or certain pages in your blog.

6. Backup: Even still, your blog is archived in the google index. Meaning, even if you delete a certain post, it can still be found through the google cache. I went into the google webmasters site , inserted my web address and asked for google to delete my blog from the cache. It only took a couple of days. You can also insert code into the html of your blog to stop all indexing and block the robots, google or not, from spidering through your blog to find information.

After reading these tips, I've done a bit of "blog safety housekeeping" here at Perpetual Motion. I hope you'll take a minute to ensure that you're safeguarding yourself and your family too.

Thanks for listening. I'll hop off my soapbox now. :o)

Here's to happy, safe blogging!