I sat down to do some blogging.
Something I’ve been meaning to do all week, but life kept getting in the way. And now, all I want to do is delete my whole blog.
Apparently, I messed up. And I am sick about it. Literally sick.
For those of you who don’t blog, when you login to update your blog, it gives you different options to click on like design, comments, settings, stats, etc. And because I haven’t blogged much this week, I was curious to see if anyone had been reading my old stuff.
Well, someone has. But not anyone I want.
On the stats page, it will list my five most popular blogs with view totals. And normally, they’re the most recent blogs or ones I’ve mentioned on Facebook. But today, the top blog, with 26 views was “Naked Babies”–about how summer was hot and I let my cute kids be in underpants/diaper all day. I thought that was weird because the post is from June and nothing special.
And then it tells where the site traffic comes from.
And this is the part that is making me cry. And be ill.
The traffic sources are from Google. Specifically, when someone searches “naked kids” or “naked children,” they were being sent to my blog to see three pictures of my kids in their underpants.
People were searching for child pornography and ended up on my page.
What.have.I.done?
I keep looking at those pictures–my innocent, little babies. And the thought that someone was looking at them in such a sick and perverted way is breaking my heart. And it’s something I could have prevented.
As a mom, I’m consumed with keeping my kids safe. Every time we’re in the front yard, I’m on edge about someone driving too fast while Elliott is within fifty feet of the street. When my girls were little babies, half my day was taken up by going in to check on them while they were sleeping. I had such fears about SIDS and them dying in their cribs (there were times I’d just have to stop and pray for God to take the irrational fear away–it was literally the only thing I could think about). When we’re at the store and a nice, old man says hi to the girls or compliments me on how cute they are, I immediately (after saying thanks) leave that aisle because it freaks me out. People are weird and I’m super-paranoid.
But then I come home and post pictures of my kids on the internet and let anyone look at my girls naked. How paranoid am I, really?
I feel so guilty. My precious babies are in their beds sleeping (I know, because I just went and checked) and at some point this past week, sometime while they were playing at the zoo, having story time at the library, or coloring at the kitchen table, some pervert was looking at my kids.
I haven’t decided exactly what I need to do. At first, I just deleted the pictures and changed the title. Then I removed the post completely. But that still doesn’t seem like enough. This feels dirty now. Which is frustrating, because I was looking forward to writing today.
Oh my goodness! That is gut wrenching stuff… as soon as I’m done commenting, I’m going to check my stats and screen my posts as well! *shudder*
Is there any way to make a blog not “googleable”??
Oh Mary. I am so sorry!!! I will ask Steve if there is any privacy setting you can use. XO!
go under “settings”. Under “basic settings” you can select whether or not your blog is available to search engines. But you probably already found that…
Mary – I am sorry – fixing my site now. I am glad you shared this, but sick that it is at the expense of your babies. Your heart is in the right place, you couldn’t have known this would happen. Just know that you are a VERY amazing mom . . . seriously.