Google has implemented new security measures to control splogs, spam blogs. Google asks the blogger to solve a CAPTCHA to prove it is not spam.


Google has implemented new measures to prevent spamming in blogs. The “CAPTCHA” is a test of a sequence of letters, which a human being can read but an automated robot or computer program cannot read. So by asking the blogger to type in the letters seen on the screen, Google can find out whether the blog is created by a human being or an automated program.

Jason Goldman, Google’s Blogger Product Manager, wrote in Blogger Buzz, “We pushed out a change that will prompt some users to solve a CAPTCHA if our spam classifier identifies the blog as spammy.

We plan to quickly iterate on this approach a bit (as well as extend it to posts created via the API). So far, we have observed a slight decrease in the amount spam being created. There’s clearly more to do”.

There are also reports of some bloggers finding it difficult to solve the CAPTCHA. Google is working on this and trying to fix the problem.

In the Blogger Forum there are messages which complain about CAPTCHA.

“Kenken wrote:
After filling in the verification word I get the message: “We’re sorry, but we were unable to complete your request”. Only when creating new posts, not when editing previous posts.

Whiggles wrote:
I’m getting this too, although oddly enough only one of my blogs is affected. I tried multiple times to enter in the verification sequence but each time I get the same error message. In my other blogs, I can continue to post as normal – they don’t even ask me for the verification code”.

Jason Goldman has said, “Some users are having trouble solving the new CAPTCHAs and are seeing CAPTCHAs when they shouldn’t be. We’ll be pushing out a fix for that shortly”. [source]

 

 

 

 

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