The problem was: I had a largish amount of traffic coming from a rather… inappropriate site. I can’t say I’ve resolved it, but I’ve done as much as possible. If you see me go private again, you’ll know why.
Why you should be careful: As I said, I’ve cleaned up past posts, and taken some personal information offline. I know many of you have your last names online, as well as pictures of your family, etc. Please… please be careful. And check your “traffic sources” in your stats section regularly. If you see a shorted, mass-generated url pop up with multiple visits, please ask your parents to look at it, and make sure the site is above level. Just trust me, and don’t look at it yourself, especially if you’re under sixteen.
(If you want more information, just send me an email, and I’ll be glad to try and explain what’s up.)
So yes, I’m back – a bit more cautious this time around. Some changes will be coming very shortly, which I will explain more fully some other time. Right now, thanks for sticking this out with me.
Farmgirl Writes 
I completely agree with you, Amanda. These are the reasons I choose not to post photos of me or my family, not to share my last name publicly on my blog, and the reason I made my photography blog private. It's easy to think "nothing will happen to me," but trust me, as you found out, IT WILL. It may seem like a slight inconvenience to guard your privacy in this way, but it's far worse to find out you are getting traffic from an innappropriate site.
*sigh* Please know I'm not trying to lecture you, nor am I saying I am "better" because I don't post pictures of myself or my family. The main point of this comment is to let you know that I completely agree with everything you said in this post, and I hope others will be warned not to post private info on their blogs. I could not say this enough: the Internet is a SCARY place. Really. You'd be pretty unnerved to know how easily people can learn information about you just through reading your blog or website.
Love in Him,
Elizabeth Rose
Ah yes, I know.
Don't worry, I won't take it as a lecture – I completely agree. I was fairly careful of some things before, but am working on being even more careful now. 🙂 I hope no one else has to learn the hard way.
P.S. I would like to hear more info about what's up, if you don't mind, so I can be on the lookout for it with my own blog. My email is your text here.
Sorry, that didn't work right! I was trying to link my email, but it didn't work like it was supposed to. 😦 I'll just do it the old-fashioned way–my email is literarylaneblog@gmail.com. 🙂
Hey there! I would love some more info about it- lately I've been getting a lot of traffic from sites that, frankly, I have no idea what they're for. You can email me at katiebk12@gmail.com
Thank you! 🙂
If you'd email me as well, I'd appreciate it. I never post pictures of myself or my family, but had been considering because I wasn't sure that a picture could hurt if 'they' couldn't find me, you know? I'd like to know exactly what you're talking about so I can better take care of my own blog. Sorry you've been having to deal with this :(.
~Elizabeth
Wow I'm so sorry this happened. Exactly why I don't post pictures or link to any person info online. Please send me an email telling me what happened! Or if you want to call tonight, that's fine. I'm totally free.
Sorry this happened! I try to keep most things private but you just never know who's out there lurking…I would like more info too, if you can and don't mind. Just to be on the safer side.
Wow — yeah…hearing what happened is very disturbing. I'm actually in the midst of changing some stuff on my blog. I don't usually get any suspicious stats, but it definitely can happen. That's why I post some pictures, but don't give my last name, real email address, address, state, school, or anything else that people could identify me by. But I think I'll be more cautious about some pictures now…because even that can be too much.
Hope you work things out!!
~Liz B
I try to be very careful online already. Some people don't seem to realize that once they put stuff out in cyberspace, it's out there! Sorry to here about this unfortunate situation. I don't regularily check my traffic sources, I'll try to look at it more often. Hope you're able to fix the problem. Thanks for this helpful information! 🙂
BTW, are you going to re-do your header for privacy reasons?
I'd like more info about this, Amanda! I do post pictures of myself on my blog. I like to every now and then, because I know I enjoy actually "seeing" my bloggy friends, you know? 😉 But yeah… you never know who else might be viewing your blog too! Anyway, if you could also put me on that "email list", that would great. You can just use my blog email. 🙂
❤
I am so sorry about this. But I am thankful you are back. I love the look of your blog. So nice and clean!
Amanda, I have to agree with everything you say. It's very, very tempting to just post everything about you for either fame, compliments, ego, etc, but it's better to not do so. I don't put my photos up and I call everyone by initials, but it truly is very tempting because I do like to get attention, compliments, fame, etc. Fortunately, thus far, I've kept my ego in check and have not yet put any pictures of my face anywhere.
This kind of worried me….in a way..I tend to over react a lot!
But I checked my stats and someone does check ou tmy blog quite abit not as much as some,but their link is a bunch of letters numbers,usually has the word google in it I have seen a few that were friendsconnect google or something like that! Is that anything like what you had? Cause the link goes to a blank page or never loads!
Should I not post photos of family on my blog? Just thought I would ask! 🙂
Those links are google friend connect links – you should be perfectly fine. 🙂
For the second question – I think it's a matter of personal discretion. I would talk to your parents about it if I were you. Keep in mind – safe is better than sorry. This is the internet, after all, and anyone can look at your blog. Anyone.