I'm Getting Tired Of Saying This...

I wrote a whole post about people who stop blogging about a year ago, and I've said it before in countless emails and comboxes whenever I've discovered a blogger threatening to remove their blog.

How hard is it to understand: by "removing" your blog you don't remove the links which may have been created. These links tend to get hijacked by adult-content sites. It's all very well to say that we can take the links out of the blogrolls, but it doesn't help with tracking down all the links which have been made in individual posts.

Added to this, sometimes, in order to encourage traffic to visit another blog, a blogger (like me) might post something along the lines of "Jenny has made a good point about this and you can read her opinion at her blog," giving a link. This is done to be kind, as, if I just copy and paste what Jenny actually said, people will be less inclined to go and visit Jenny's blog. If Jenny then goes and deletes her blog, not only does that leave me without a record of what Jenny actually said, but if someone clicks on the link they risk getting diverted to a site selling Viagra (at best) or some really objectionable stuff.

I'm not being paranoid. A friend of mine didn't listen to my warnings about five years ago, and then had to spend several days contacting Blogger to try and get her blog put back up because of the stuff which was now associated with her name.

It isn't rocket science. One doesn't have to continue blogging. It is possible to stop. You can simply disable comments, so nothing further can be added without your say-so. And what you have written previously remains as a record.

Please, out of courtesy to any bloggers who may have been kind enough to link to you - DON'T DELETE YOUR BLOG!