Be a Safe Blogger

Blogging is fun. It's a great hobby. Blogging about your daily life, posting photos for friends and family is the cool. But, do you know who is reading your blog?

I'm not trying to be a "spoil sport" - really. I just want to talk about the real dangers of blogging.

Here are some examples of what can go wrong with blogging:

The pictures you post of your beautiful baby boy are for your friends and family to see. But who else is visiting your blog and what are their intentions? I know of one woman who posted photos of twins and told wonderful stories about them daily in her blog. Then one day she discovered another blog with similar stories and photos of HER children. Imagine how shocked and violated she felt. Why would someone do such a thing? Who knows. This is just one example of the strange things that can happen online. You never know what the intentions of others are. I'm not saying this is is an everyday occurrence. It's definitely not something that is normal - but it's one of those things that you have to be prepared for.

Don't give out too much information. Some people write every day in their blog. They write about work, family, events and their general day to day lives. But, just what are you really telling a stranger? A pattern can form from the details you write. You may not intentionally be telling people, but it can happen. Your day to day schedule is posted right on the Internet for anyone to see. Maybe on Monday and Wednesday you drop your child off at pre-school and go to the gym. Maybe every Wednesday you meet your best friend for lunch at Applebee's downtown. Maybe you spend every afternoon at the park. Even though you're unknowingly giving out the information, someone maybe be paying attention. Leave off names of places, specific days.. be more general in your posts. Even something as simple as, "Tommy and I went to XYZ Park today as usual. We loving go there for an hour each day before we pick Jessie up from school. It's our special time together." Now to me or you, this is just a plain old sentence. But, to someone with ill intentions you've just told him that every day between 2:00-3:00pm you are out of the house and at XYZ Park." Your home could be robbed, they could come to the park, anything. Again, I'm not posting this information to scare you, I'm posting it to give you good, honest advice about blogging personal information.

Are you planning a fabulous vacation? and blogging every detail? Don't! Is your husband away on a business trip for 2 weeks and you're tired, frustrated and wishing he'd be home sooner? Don't blog about it. Is your husband overseas in Iraq and you're home alone with the kids? See a pattern? Don't give out too much information. Whether you're away from home or home alone, it's probably not the safest idea to tell the world. Let me give you a quick example. You got your husband a cool, expensive, big screen TV for Christmas.. so you blog about it because you're so happy. Then you blog that your husband bought you an expensive painting that you've been drooling over for 6 months. Cool. So now you're super excited that he's taking you and the kids on a cruise for 10 wonderful days. Woohoo! You have to share the news with all of your blogging buddies. Oops! Over the year, you've been blogging about your life, your kids and your boring day to day activities. So, what? Well, you've just told a potential robber that you've got cool & expensive stuff, you're going to be out of town and through the posts on your blog he can figure out exactly where you live. Actually, if you own your own domain name a quick look at your whois info tells him your exact address. You just set your self up to be victimized. Unintentionally.. but it happened.

Google is your conscience, your big brother and it keeps a record of every single word your write on the Internet. Remember when you blogged about your daughter's diaper rash, or how she loved to put underwear on her head and dance to Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" and you even have the picture to prove it? Or hey, worse yet you posted a video of it online? Do you really want this to be archived forever? For your daughter to find when she's older? or worse yet, for her friends to find? Well with the power of search engines, like Google, you can't be too careful.

Here's a quickie solution to block Google from archiving your blog. Insert this code into the <head> of your blog:

If you'd like to block other search engines from saving your pages try this one:

If you want to stop it from indexing your blog altogether, insert this code as well:

I have more tips for you coming soon! If you have your own suggestions please feel free to send them to me.

Kelly Brown, Founder
Blogging Mommies™

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