Best Blogs Banned. TRUTH SILENCED

I mentioned earlier on my show that Atlas Shrugs has been banned in the UK and the EU according to Pim's Ghost. Stranger still, the number of visits to this site generated by google search have all but disappeared in the past couple of days. I am talking 3-4,000 hits a day to virtually nothing. I have been vexed by this. One of my readers just sent this;

EMAIL SUBJECT: ATLAS IN BEIJING /not

Your's is the first website I run to when I logon. I was in Mainland China from July 8- July 16. We stayed in a 5 star hotel (The Swiss Hotel in downtown). This is a marvelous hotel and it had everything...... except you.I couldn't find your website! Neither could I find Maverick News Network. The screen message said the server could not be found.I did find Ali Sina's Faith and Freedom International. Perhaps you have the honor of being on the Chi-Coms undesirables list. When I got back home I ran to your site and saw that on July 12 you made a posting for people not to buy Chinese. I don't know how it all works but I hope you break through the electronic 'Bamboo Curtain'.

A trend is a foot. Just last week we recoiled in free speech horror when Jihad Watch ran Banned in Chicago! and Spencer: Muzzling Jihad Watch    

In FrontPage this morning I discuss the continuing censorship of Jihad Watch:                        

I began getting the emails several days ago: Jihad Watch readers telling me that they had been accustomed to reading the site at work, but now their employer had blocked access to the Jihad Watch site on company computers. Many reported that the ban on Jihad Watch was explained with the assertion that Jihad Watch contained “hate speech.” This was true even in Federal Government offices. And it wasn’t only the Feds. Jihad Watch was blocked, readers informed me, on the computers of the State of Connecticut; the City of Chicago; Bank of America; Fidelity Investments; Site Coach; GE IT; JPMorgan Chase; Defense Finance and Accounting Services; Johnson Controls, Inc. IT; Boeing; Tenet Hospitals in North Carolina; Provisio; the Sabre Group TSG; Wachovia bank; and others: several people have written in to tell me that as of this week they can no longer access Jihad Watch at work, but haven’t told me where they work.

Wait, it gets worse. I just received this from Dymphna over at Gates of Vienna, the best of the blogs;

Some evil troll has done us in. Here's the message the Baron is sending out:

I just attempted to post at Gates of Vienna, and was told by an automatic message that our blog is suspected of being a spam blog, and has been blocked by Blogger.

The full text of the message:

“This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts.”

And here’s what  Blogger says about what we are suspected of:

“What Are Spam Blogs?

“As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused. The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.”

Some of the most coherent writing on the web.

I followed Blogger’s instructions, typed in the visible letters to prove that I was not a bot, and am now awaiting a response from the Powers That Be.

In the meantime, I can’t even post a notice at Gates of Vienna about what is going on.

If you don’t think Gates of Vienna is a spam blog, please post a notice about what has happened. If you know of a way to contact Blogger or Google, please let them know that Gates of Vienna is *not* a spam blog, regardless of how politically incorrect it is.

Anybody out there in Atlas sphere know anything that can be helpful? What is happening?

UPDATE: Baron is on it. He SKYPED me with Christine of the Center for Vigilant Freedom and we tried to figure it out. Check out the SKYPE conversation:

Pamela:   your test did not show on my site stats  

   * Baron Bodissey added Center for Vigilant Freedom to this chat  

Baron:   I hit you 2 or 3 times with regular google, and then looked for you on google images  

CVF:   hey  

Baron:   you used to get very high ratings on google images  

Baron:   but something is wrong now  

Pamela:   look ........i got a little action  

Baron:   I tried "bat ye'or"  

Pamela:   i am telling you something happened  

Pamela:   i always have thousands of google hits  

Baron:   you should have been in the top ten, but you weren't there at all  

CVF:   how can this be gamed - I know there are websites all about manipulating google links  

Baron:   Gates of Vienna was in the top 20  

Baron:   something's screwy  

Pamela:   something was done  

Baron:   and Google Web doesn't show you like it should  

Pamela:   absolutely  

CVF:   hard to do from the bottom up  

CVF:   conceivable  

Pamela:   like it did  

Pamela:   it always showed me big time  

Pamela:   my stuff is not coming up  

Baron:   But you still should have seen at least 3 Wild Blue hits, via google, probably listing ISP as Colorado  

Pamela:   even when you google me  

Pamela:   its stuff others wrote    

Baron:   that is true, mostly.  

Baron:   You're there, but not the main link  

Baron:   and your images have almost vanished  

Baron:   you used to be high on google images  

Pamela:   really?  

Pamela:   going to check  

Baron:   Yes, I use google images all the time  

Baron:   And I would see you on the first page with almost any keyword  

Baron:   I bet you used to get a lot of hits from google video too  

Baron:   and they're probably gone, too.  

Baron:   This is wild and scary  

CVF:   Even if I check "Bat Ye'or" and Atlas, it comes in about 6th not at the top  

CVF:   which means it's the domain not the terms I think  

CVF:   that is being pushed down  

Baron:   there are some which don't come up at all, but should.  

Baron:   "muslims and commies"  

Baron:   should produce this  

Baron:   http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/images/amuslimrrally3.jpg  

Baron:   but it doesn't  

Baron:   I know Google images very well, and something is distinctly fucked up  

CVF:   In images, if I search Bat Ye'or and Atlas Shrugs I don't get Pamela in the first page at all  

Baron:   not in the first 4 or 5  

Baron:   i checked  

Pamela:   I AM TELLING YOU 4,000 HITS A DAY  

Baron:   She should be in the top 3

CVF:   I get your domain in the 2nd page but no pix of you  

Baron:   I'm going to parse this chat and you should post it, Pamela, since I can't.  

CVF:   If I search Atlas Shrugs I just get you pamela that works - but if I add another term like Bat Ye'or, you disappear  

CVF:   so maybe it is term related not just domain related - it's both  

Pamela:   listen the pix of mine that show are those that ran on other sires  

Pamela:   listen to me  

Pamela:   they are not off atlas  

CVF:   yes you're right!!  

Baron:   Yes, you're right.  

CVF:   just checked  

Baron:   I saw that, too.  

Pamela:   they are picked up .......look at the source of the pic  

Pamela:   how did they do that???????????????  

CVF:   yes they have one from your site but its Ahmedinejad  

Baron:   You are being airbrushed out, like Bukharin in the Soviet photos.  

Pamela:   ha!  

Baron:   tell me when you want me to cut this out and parse it. Then I'll send it to you for a post.  

CVF:   ok so. what is interesting is that jihadwatch does appear on searches, and GoV  

Pamela:   how can this be done? can it be undone?  

Pamela:   different set of leftists jihad lovers  

Baron:   Google can suppress your ranking  

Baron:   I've heard that it has been done before.  

CVF:   From the top down or is that done by others?  

Pamela:   so its google?  

Baron:   I don't think it can be done by link manipulation though I could be wrong.  

Baron:   When did it happen?  

Pamela:   two days ago  

Baron:   all of a sudden?  

Pamela:   i noticed a drop in my daily hits from 9000 to 5000  

Baron:   one day?  

Pamela:   just like that  

Pamela:   swoooooooooooop  

Baron:   that couldn't be done by google bombing I don't think  

Baron:   Not unless the enemy has massive capabilities we're not aware of!  

Pamela:   the looters and moochers in one fell swoop  

CVF:   OK on yahoo, searching Bat Ye'or and Atlas, you come in #6 and 8  

CVF:   All the others are citing the interview but at other sites  

Pamela:   i am the only one with an exclusive!  

Pamela:   did i come up or charles martel  

CVF:   you come up #6 and #8, charles martel, solomonia the others  

CVF:   also thehillchronicles and israelforum  

CVF:   in single digits  

Baron:   If you go to Google images, and type "John Bolton", you should get Atlas near #1  

Baron:   but she's not there at all.  

Pamela:   none of my posts are coming up  

Pamela:   i'm sick  

Baron:   we need you to post a version of this conversation, and send a copy out via Larwyn.

Pamela:   wild  

Pamela:   copy and paste this conversation?  

CVF:   On images you come up in yahoo, ten out of 20  

Baron:   I can parse it and fix it up nice, send you as an HTML page in table format.  

Baron:   My own software.  

Baron:   tell me when to cut it off & parse it, and the result will come to you in a couple of minutes.  

CVF:   Hey  

CVF:   I have something at googlerankings  

CVF:   I put in the URL and it said valid Google API key not found

Pamela:   huh?  

CVF:   http://www.googlerankings.com/  

Pamela:   how is that possible?  

CVF:   I've never used this before  

CVF:   testing it on another site  

Pamela:   I was always like a 6 7  

Baron:   That's wild.  

CVF:   I don't know it says same thing for vigilantfreedom.org  

CVF:   let me try littlegreen  

Pamela:   what number.....how far on the bar are you?  

CVF:   maybe it's not working said same thing for littlegreenfootballs, now it's searching for msn  

CVF:   what is url for kos?  

Pamela:   shitheads.com  

CVF:   Valid google API key not found!  

   Querying MSN. Please be patient...  

   Sorry, Your site was not within the ranks in MSN™'s results (keyword:Atlas Shrugged)  

   Time: 0.77 seconds  

   Querying Yahoo. Please be patient...  

   Sorry, Your site was not within the ranks in Yahoo™'s results (keyword:Atlas Shrugged)  

   Time: 0.29 seconds  

Baron:   lol  

CVF:   The PageRank for http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ is: Page Rank (it says 6 and bar is about half way, a little more)  

CVF:   http://pr.blogflux.com/index2.php  

Pamela:   what happened to google?  

Pamela:   who would know this?  

Baron:   Charles  

CVF:   charles at lgf  

Pamela:   vexed!  

CVF:   glenn at instapundit  

Baron:   Yes, you should run it

CVF:   OK a different URL than the other one: http://googlerankings.com/prindex.php  

CVF:   I put in your URL  

CVF:   Google™ PageRank™ for atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/  

   PageRank™  

   Time: 0.13 seconds  

CVF:   it was 5/10  

Pamela:   this is getting so outta hand  

CVF:   Did you try this??http://diagnostics.googlerankings.com/  

CVF:   This is underthe "penalized" diagnostics:  

   f you can exlude with confidence ( or have already fixed ) all on-page and known linking pattern problems, and the penalty still persists, you may need to look for the most rare although at the same time most extreme causes as well, such as Hijacking. Another hint may be that it's not always the doing of the current webmaster or even the content, linking pattern of the actual web site, but the remains of a Historic Domain Penalty. Make sure you know of the history of the domain the web site is hosted on. If the domain name was pre-owned, and it was the previous web site that has been penalized, you may need to bring the change of ownership to the attentnion of Google Inc. to lift the penalty.  

CVF:   what is Hijacking?  

Pamela:   i am on typepad  

CVF:   ok but that shouldn't affect the google ranking per se  

CVF:   I think this might be the issue:  

   http://diagnostics.googlerankings.com/bad-neighborhood.html  

CVF:   or for Pamela this: http://diagnostics.googlerankings.com/hijacking-google-results.html  

Pamela:   something happened  

CVF:   yup  

Pamela:   this is a fact  

Pamela:   because the numbers are staggering  

Pamela:   and the search results are void  

CVF:   Did you put anything else on - install any other widgets or applications - in this time frame +- 2 days?  

Pamela:   no ......added nothing  

Pamela:   racking my brain  

CVF:   you might be able to check with Lexis Nexis before then to see if it's affecting them, and BTW this also provides you with what may be grounds for recovery of damages.  

CVF:   if you can find the source of the damage.  

Pamela:   if i wasnt so damn techtarded i feel like helen keller  

Baron:   ask my wife  

Pamela:   i only work with what i got  

Pamela:   cut and paste  

CVF:   hush Baron let her talk -   

UPDATE: This is the latest:

Looks like the blog is under a possible hijack or you have some serious routing problems. I would forward an email to blog to see what they come back with and the reason for the block.

Comments

[Josef K]

Gates of Vienna had a post as of 7/17/2007 11:30:00 AM, not that this means much.

[john jay]

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she
got the Mercedes Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty
boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said, 'We haven't had that spirit
here since nineteen sixty nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

[ Lyrics provided by www.mp3lyrics.org ]
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They're livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said 'We are all just
prisoners here, of our own device'
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,' said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!

[john jay]

yes:

i know what is happening.

just a little taste off of the sampler plate, for when we have a democratic president, a democratic congress, a liberal media, a far leftist maoist intelligentsia, a palistinean academia, the 60's radical all in charge of all the bureaucracies, and the 2nd and 3rd generation of rich idiot marxists in full control of all aspects of the economy.

just another day in paradise folks, just another day.

john jay

[barbarany_9]

sorry to burst everyone's bubble but its not political (I don't think)
Google/Blogger is running scared over a number of free speech issues these days. It appears that some Cyber-SLAPP suits and anyone who makes a "peep" about incorrectness gets a virtual spank from Google these days. Feeds are messed up too.
I keep checking EFF.org for more information.

dear barbarany_9:

am missing something, here.

"free speech." "suits." "incorrectness." "virtual spank from google."

just what about that is not "political."

john jay