Private site new follower
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I received an email to say someone is following my private site. How can they when it’s set to private, and I received no request, which would have been declined.
WP.com: Yes
Correct account: YesThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to moderators and staff)
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Hi there!
Can you let us know what the URL is of the site where you’re having this problem? Once we have that information, we’ll be better able to advise.
Thank you!
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Can you copy and paste the text of the email you received? I have not seen any new followers on and we’d like to take a closer look at the message you got on your end.
Thanks for the additional info!
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Hi again,
Oops, please disregard my recent test of follower invites on your private site. You can disregard this notice, which tame from my test account and was made during my initial investigation of this issue.
[The Anfire Books] WordPress.com user 'mypandaracoon' requested access to your private siteThat’s me, testing things, sorry for any confusion!
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(email visible only to moderators and staff) is now following The Anfire Books
(email visible only to moderators and staff) just started following you at http://theanfirebooks.wordpress.com. They will receive an email every time you publish a post. Congratulations
Soz for the delay in replying, in UK went to bed!
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Ah, thank you for that screenshot. After taking a closer look it seems this user subscribed 7 years ago, possibly when the site was once public on the internet?
Our activity logs do not go back quite that far, but we’re working under the assumption that they somehow (we have no idea why) confirmed the email we send to all followers… they are not officially a follower until they confirm and it seems this individual opted to do that many years later.
The good news is that “being a follower” is not a vector for attack, and this does not appear to be suspicious in any way. If you wish you can remove them as a follower. The steps to do that are here: https://wordpress.com/support/followers/#how-to-remove-a-follower
However, even if you do nothing they would not receive any email updates from your site. Once you set it to “private” as it is now, emails do not go out to past followers if you make changes while private.
Hope that helps. Please let us know if you have any more questions.
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7 years ago? Most peculiar, only saw 2021 and I only started the blog in 2016. And I’ve just found the follower, from 2014. I can’t make sense of it, but thanks for your help, I shall remove them and hope things return to normal!
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To clarify that timeline a bit, our records indicate that theanfirebooks.wordpress.com was created 8y ago on 10/13/2013
It is a “private” site at this time, but that was not always the case. According to our logs it was public from 10/2013-07/2015
Then it was private from 07/2015-11/2015 for a short time before you once again set it to public.
It was public from 11/2015 – 06/2016 when you set it to private again, which is how it remains to this day.
So it is possible that a visitor from 2014 could have followed the site (it was public during that period) but never confirmed that follow. Even though the site is set to private, the follower confirmation email still can be clicked on.
To underscore though, when they accepted the invite, it was to follow a site they can’t actually see or access in any way. Removing them will be fine and I doubt that you will see this issue again. If you do though, please let us know!
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Oh I understand now. Senility plays tricks with my mind!!
Thank you so much for all your help. Much appreciated 💚
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