Welcome to Nanny World

Turns out the Google block on my website is from www.stopbadware.org -- a nanny group who seem to have gone over-board on blocking sites that fail to meet some technical standard that I do not comprehend. I have had trouble with them before. They blocked my site last year -- having found NOTHING AT ALL WRONG WITH THE SITE. They have reinstated the block this year and since not that much has changed I suspect the result will be the same and that I will have to do this every year for the rest of my life.

I will fight this out with the nanny police and get back to you. I have no idea what set them off this time, but it is nothing that I have put on the page -- coded every word, every page, every image, every link myself.

I finally heard from stopbadware.org and got the specific code that caused the block. It was our guestbook and I have deleted the page and all pages that referenced it. So all should be fine -- unless they find something else to bitch about.

Frankly I am still angry that they do not contact the website's creator BEFORE the block. Because I never use Google to find the site, I would never know about the block except from friends who know to contact me. Their system of protection is very flawed because most sites that I find blocked I do not visit and do not know who I should contact about problems. I just go elsewhere. So a site's innocent owner might go for weeks without knowing there is a problem.

Thanks, Kit and Elpis, for letting me know. I will try to google my own sites from time to time, but it is just one more thing to fiddle with.

I know it's got me paranoid about mine now ... I'm checking them each day.


Out of curiosity, what guestbook code or service did you use? Want to make sure I don't try to use the same one.

TBH, I don't remember where I got the guestbook code, but it seemed harmless enough. Even with its removal the block remains in place over another piece of code that I can not find. In addition I did a through scan of all my drives on this machine -- where the original code for the site lives -- and found nothing of interest.

I am beginning to wonder if this net nanny feature of Google isn't just trying to make itself seem important and necessary by blocking sites without any real research. If they do not find sites to block, then their reason to exist would disappear. Makes me very suspicious.