If you have the latest google toolbar, it comes with the new sidewiki installed that lets you open a side bar on any web page and enter your comments, visible to anyone else who opens the wiki while on your site. This has caused a lot of concern among web site owners, that control of the space they have payed for is now in the hands of any visitors.

While I have seen a few comments that downplay the concerns, the very first program that I saw available was on a forum. The next post, and I paraphrase:

I spent all day using the sidewiki on websites to help others and leaving my website for them (After I installed the blocker). I’m the kind of guy you don’t want posting to the sidewiki on your site.

There is sure to be many more blockers for the sidewiki, these 4 were easy to find just within a day after the storm.

Editor’s note: I have not tried any of these, please evaluate based on all the information provided in the links and your own research. Feel free to leave your comments so we can all benefit.

SideWiki Blocker

This one is a wordpress plugin, download and install. Free right now!
SideWiki Blocker

Claim Your Site’s Sidewiki

Not really a blocker but a (sort of) work-around. If you can verify yourself to Google to be the owner, you can write some nice stuff about your site that will show at the top of the wiki. Some of the comments indicate getting verified is not that easy. Personally I would do this, as it appears entirely possible Google will come up with a circumvention for at least some blockers.
Claim Your Sidewiki

Block Google Sidewiki Users

If you’re looking to get radical (the title actually reads “Block Google Sidewiki Users From Commenting On Your Site” but it actually blocks anyone with the Google toolbar from accessing your site. If you can edit your .htaccess file and feel outraged check it out: Block Google Sidewiki Users.

Sidewiki Comment Blocker

This is a software program that you can download for $27. If “you get what you pay for” is implied here, it might be the way to go. I’m not an affiliate (yet), we’ll take the wait and see approach right now.
Sidewiki Comment Blocker

So what do you think about these approaches to the sidewiki? Have you used any of them or found another? Please post!

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Technorati Tags: Google, Sidewiki

Tags: Google, Sidewiki
Categories: Google, Sidewiki, Web sites

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Google, Sidewiki, Web sites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.