Change of blog comment system - back to Blogger comments

I feel like there's been a dizzying array of calamities on my blog recently and I want to address them all. If my head is spinning from all the stuff that's happened lately then I'm pretty sure yours will be too.

DEFAULT BLOGGER COMMENT SYSTEM

First and most importantly I've gone back to the default Blogger comment system. I know a lot of you find Google+ impossible, and I want you to be able to comment on my blog, or else I'm just talking to myself. 😝 I currently have zero blog comments anywhere on this entire blog. I lost 13 thousand comments when I uninstalled the ever-problematic Disqus about 6 months back and now I've just lost all the comments that had been left on the Google+ system since. Even though Blogger comments and G+ comments are both Google products, the comments don't transfer so feel free to drop me a comment and break my comment cherry! It feels so weird to have over 5 years of posts and not a single comment. 💩

MY BLOG HAD A MALWARE ATTACK

A few days ago a reader informed me that they were getting a pop up when they visited my blog. It was telling them their computer was infected and they needed antivirus. If they clicked yes in this pop up it took them to a site selling antivirus software. It was very sneaky though as you could only see it if you were visiting my blog for the first time, or if you were using a different browser than usual. That's how I didn't know it was there. James and I spent hours trying to find out what had happened, and eventually I found malware in my blog code. I was able to find it and remove it, so the pop up stopped. Apologies to anyone who visited my blog during that time and got worried. I'm going to write a post for fellow bloggers for what to do if it happens to you.

CONTENT THIEVES

For the last couple of weeks I *had* been cutting my RSS feed really short to put content scammers off stealing my content. In case you didn't know, someone had been nicking my blog and social media posts wholesale and was reposting them without credit on their own website, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. In case you don't know what an RSS feed is, it's a way for readers to subscribe to read blog posts in an email or read them on sites such as Bloglovin' and Feedly. The thought behind me only posting a tiny snippet of a blog post and having the reader click through to my blog to read the rest was it's harder for people to steal my work if I only post a snippet. But then I thought "Why should I disadvantage my readers because selfish people think it's OK to steal other people's work?" So I've gone back to publishing RSS posts up until the 'Read More' break, which is just the same as if you read it directly on my blog. That way you get to see the first photo and a good chunk of text and then decide if you want to click through and read the rest. If I'm unlucky enough to have my work stolen again I'll deal with it at the time.

I think that's all my blog issues for now. Go leave me a comment on something! 😉

Thanks for reading. Leah xoxo

6 comments

  1. YAY thank the deities, I can comment again.

    Happy moments! ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yay! Thanks for all your comments Snoskred!

      Delete
  2. Oh good. I am glad to see thus one back, much easier. I can never remember passwords to sign on disqus and G+. Or I'd type a huge comment only to lose it. Hence my one sentence comments. Lol. Ps. The pic with pinkish purple hair and purple lipstick was awesome! Purple is my color (after black, natch)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think this way is better for everyone. I would've done it sooner but I knew it would lose all the comments I had on G+. That was reason enough to do it sooner, not later, but still I prevaricated! Thank you - I love that wig! :)

      Delete
  3. Super glad you went back to showing more on the RSS. I appreciate it a ton!

    So I was in England for the weekend (2nd UK trip ever, ahhhhhh, need to see more!), and we took the train from London to Brighton for the day. I saw this really lovely looking womanf from behind, with the CUTEST leopard print dress and I was SO SURE it was you! Sadly not a famous blogger sighting, but loved seeing all the fun Brighton fashion :)

    xo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My pleasure Kerry! My first thought was to stop the content thieves from having easy access to my posts, but then I thought 'Sod this, I'm not putting my readers out!' If it happens again I'll have to kick arse againnnnn at the time.

      Ah damn, that's a shame! I would've loved to have met you, but I have terrible resting bitch face so I probably scare people off! I love Brighton. I hope you had a good time. xx

      Delete