We (Heart) Obama

Wow…. That was kinda strange. It appears after being identified as a potential Spam Blog by Google/Blogger, we were taken out of rotation until our files could be properly reviewed….. on our one-year Blogoversary, no less.

First, we want to thank everyone who stopped by to offer their support. It was all very gracious and much appreciated by us.

How did it all come to this? We’re not sure but our original and most logical thought was that Blogger had an unmanned search algorithm that sniffed out spammy-type material and indeed, just a day before being put on probation, we linked to a quiz site that contained a quiz called “What type of American accent do you have?”. This site was littered with adverts and since we had never before linked to a site with so many of the same, we went ahead and deleted the post hoping that would bolster our case before the Blogger Board of Review.

Then…. last night, we stopped by Foxie’s place and she had posted a very nice tribute to the merits of free speech, tolerance and dissent as a way of explaining our plight. The page locked up and we were greeted with the “Website cannot be located. Mission Aborted” pop-up before then being banished to the internet cornfield.

We realize Google owns the very apparatus that allows us to blog for free, so they are perfectly in their right to do whatever they want. Speaking to some of the internet buzz, though, it would be very disappointing to discover that people who don’t agree with the particular editorial bent of a site, would “flag” that site as “spam blog” if that is indeed the case.

So our apologies… we aren’t taking any chances from now on….

We (heart) Obama. We really do.

It was disappointing and frustrating… once we figured-out the “scheduled post” feature 2-3 weeks back, we noticed an appreciable jump in readership and that was encouraging so now we’ve got to regain a little lost momentum.

Its good to be back. Life is good – we’ve got the 27th annual Rolando Beach Block Sale going on today and the first football, albeit pre-season football but football nonetheless, tomorrow.

Thanks again to everybody for hanging in there with us.