Spam followers?
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This may seem like a weird question, but I’m perplexed as to why in the last couple days I’ve received dozens more followers. I know everybody wants followers, but I’m concerned that the majority of these aren’t legitimate. For me followers have usually come one or two at a time, maybe after a recent post or after a post has been ‘liked’ or linked to – today there have been at least a dozen. Six of these are wordpress.com followers and when I go to their sites, they are either non-existent or contain a single badly-written post about I-don’t-know-what, and a couple of them were dated 40+ years ago! So I’m guessing those are spam followers? But it makes me then question all the new email followers as well, since their email addresses seem suspect too. Is there any way of determining for sure whether followers are legit or not? I just want a real gauge of my blog’s growth. Thanks – I’d really appreciate your input.
Sue
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hey there, Sue!
Well, the good news is that your site is becoming more popular, and the bad news is that there are folks who want to take advantage of this.
This is a tough one because public blogs are entirely accessible to everyone. It’s what makes it possible for strangers to find and follow your site. There’s no way to filter followers, or you’d be blocking valid traffic as well.
The only way to insure that only a select audience views your site is to make it private, and then invite the followers you want to see your blog. I suspect this might not be the best option for you, as it appears your intention is that strangers interested in horticulture should be able to find your site on google and follow it.
However, if you are interested in reading about your site’s privacy settings:
en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/
While there isn’t a way to remove followers without changing the privacy settings for your site, you can block unwanted people from commenting/spamming on your site. If you’re having any troubles with this at all, please let me know and I can share some advice on that topic.
Here’s some good leads:
en.support.wordpress.com/unwanted-comments/
I wish I could assist further, but unwanted followers are unfortunately, a pesky issue. I think you might find this article helpful. It was written by one of our terrific veteran forum volunteers:
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2013/04/09/wordpress-com-follower-management/
Please let us know if you have any other questions. Thanks much!
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Thanks so much – I appreciate your timely response and your helpful answers.
This is obviously a sore spot for many bloggers – I don’t want to belabour the point so I’ll try and keep my questions to a minimum………
As of today I have a total of 258 followers, 36 of which have appeared in the last 2 days and consist of:
Four active WP blogs which are clearly spam (bryonballard.wordpress.com, patriciaebswort.wordpress.com, steffebettis.wordpress.com, betseyzpnijodbu.wordpress.com)
Six inactive WP blogs (either suspended or just nothing there)
26 Email-only followersMy questions:
1. Can I assume that the Email-only followers are legitimate? They don’t have gravatars, profiles or any other links by which they could benefit from following my blog.
2. Obviously the 4 bogus blogs are hoping I’ll click on their links thereby directing traffic to their sites, but how does following my blog benefit the suspended or nonexistent blogs?
Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions,
Suep.s. I checked out Timethief’s post as well as many of the links on her site – very informative.
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Hey there!
These are good questions. I’ll answer each one separately, below:
1. Can I assume that the Email-only followers are legitimate? They don’t have gravatars, profiles or any other links by which they could benefit from following my blog.
Yes, I think so. These are people who have signed up to receive notification of your new posts, and because they have no links back to “spam” sites, it’s a safe bet that they were simply interested in your site.
Not having Gravatars, profiles, and links is fine. Many of my own blog followers are the same. A lot of those folks will be non-WordPress.com users, and that’s why they don’t have this data.
2. Obviously the 4 bogus blogs are hoping I’ll click on their links thereby directing traffic to their sites, but how does following my blog benefit the suspended or nonexistent blogs?
It doesn’t benefit them. Some WordPress.com users use a widget that displays all their followers with links back to their sites. Since you don’t have this, there is no way they are “tricking” your users or you to go back to their sites.
Also, some spammers might think that by following your site, and adjusting their settings so they receive notifications via email, that they can gather your email address for their own spam lists. This isn’t the case. When notification emails are sent about your new posts, they are sent from a noreply WordPress.com email address.
However, what you do want to keep an eye on is whether they leave spam comments on your site. If that’s the case, they’re getting aggressive and you can black list them. In fact, you don’t even have to wait until they do anything wrong. If you don’t trust these folks, you can add them to your Comment Blacklist pro-actively.
I notice you’re using a contact form, instead of adding your own email address and phone number. This is perfect. I was going to suggest it as a way to protect yourself, but you beat me to it.
I hope this clears up some of your concerns. Don’t hesitate to ask any other questions.
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Yes thank you – it clears up any concerns. Since the majority of the new followers are Email-only, I’ll rest assured that my blog is indeed becoming more popular (considering it’s a small niche blog). The spammers I guess I’ll just live with – I do get a lot of spam comments but Askimet catches most of them and any that do get by I can moderate before they actually get posted.
Thanks again,
Sue -
Hey Sue!
I do get a lot of spam comments but Askimet catches most of them and any that do get by I can moderate before they actually get posted.
Ok. That’s great to hear that Akismet is catching the majority of the spam comments. If this changes, let us know.
Your site is lovely and informative, with years’ worth of great content. It’s not a surprise that your readership would grow. As a brown thumb, I’ll certainly be checking it out for help! :)
Take care and happy blogging.
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Me again.
Another quick question which may or may not be related to this thread – today when I went to my stats page, I noticed under ‘Clicks’, a link I didn’t recognize. I clicked on it and it took me to a gaming website – this isn’t a link I would have included on any post, so how did it get there? I clicked on it again and it took me to a different gaming site. And again, to yet another gaming website. Then again and it took me to a travel blog of sorts. Anyway here is what the entire link looked like – I removed the hyperlink so no one would click on it in the forum.
a.targetingadvertiser.com/b url=140bee063f9765d9b943a88c4427201806ba400505baa991e919caf4e3774a0961c97d7c7c7ed84b49479e84c30b79f57ad68f7c6698b8c6827097670c29cfc3d21a61b1ba9defbf7bf5844cce7f8e415242d57aaba98175fb851babded8ac26194ecbe32711f3b47f2df99bd2e8094a4170fffa5c4ca9ec77088165de282c296414c9246439b0e6ba5bbdbf79fec70a04df1487919533369d9997aff1d3c3a4680dbaaf7773a97ae95a2267b922823bf15077b449483d4533dd8c82dc7cca4f8530d788e2b594b53bc4a4718ceab189c6305cb4&tf=0&ver=2.0.7.0&browser=CHROME+39&domain=bm90YW5vdGhlcmdhcmRlbmluZ2Jsb2cuY29t&subId=9280-1010&uid=0yCZTYrnrd2WLp0zV18K&uidts=1420729733&iQS=request_id%3D54aeb05e0af9e8.65545827%26adId%3D14879646%26keywordId%3D70616015%26keyword%3Dign.com%26keywordSourceId%3D1%26pkwSource%3D%26cpv%3DMC4wMDEy%26advertiser%3D15&d=%7B%22countryCode%22%3A%22US%22%2C%22adTimesUTC%22%3A%5B1420732169%5D%2C%22adLastSeenUTC%22%3A1420732169%2C%22lastServerAdReturnedUTC%22%3A1420733610%2C%22sgf%22%3A%22%22%2C%22sgte%22%3A%22%22%7D 1
What is this and why is it there? I have to say I’m kinda spooked. Has my site been hacked?
Thanks again for your help.
Sue -
Hey Sue,
Good to hear from you!
It looks like the person who clicked this link might have malware on their browser. This has nothing at all to do with your site. It won’t impact your blog in any way.
What happens in this case is that someone inadvertently clicked on a link they shouldn’t have. It added malware to their browser. This malware triggers popups to appear when the user is browsing websites. These popups are entirely unrelated to the actual websites.
However, because that malware popup link is what the visitor clicked on, and it made them leave your site, it is counted as a click away on your stats. You can disregard it completely.
Let’s just hope that poor visitor realizes they have malware on their browser, and takes care of the problem soon!
Take care…have a great day!
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Hi Robyn – can I call you Robyn? I mean we’re almost bff’s now right?
Thanks for your explanation. I actually feel a bit silly now – after I wrote to you about this I remembered that my husband once had this type of malware on his browser, so I wondered if this might be the case here. Leave it to me to assume the worst and ask if my site had been hacked! Anyways, thanks for putting my mind at ease.
As for the spam followers, I’m still not convinced that even the new Email-only followers are legitimate – at least not all of them. Almost 50 new Email-only followers in 4 days seems fishy to me, especially since some have suspicious email addresses like gsasearchengineranker.website and my-ears-ringing.com. Is it possible that spammers are just getting sneakier, hoping that by signing up as E-mail only followers, unsuspecting fools like me will Google these names and land on their websites (which I did)?
Nothing I can do about it I guess, but it’s a shame I can’t even get excited about a bunch of new followers since I don’t trust that the majority of them are real.
Okay I’m going to try and leave this alone now. Thanks again Robyn, you’ve been most helpful.
Sue
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Hey Sue, my new bff!
You’re so funny.
I remembered that my husband once had this type of malware on his browser, so I wondered if this might be the case here. Leave it to me to assume the worst and ask if my site had been hacked! Anyways, thanks for putting my mind at ease.
Malware is the worst. It’s especially tough on PC users.
You should always ask these questions, if you’re worried, though. Don’t by shy.
Is it possible that spammers are just getting sneakier, hoping that by signing up as E-mail only followers, unsuspecting fools like me will Google these names and land on their websites (which I did)?
Yeah, this is definitely possible. I wouldn’t put anything past these people. I think most of them really do want a reciprocal email address from you though. Then, they would be able to spam your email address.
I can promise you that none of these spammers would have come out of the wood work if your site weren’t well-visited and maintained well. Not really the reward you were hoping for, probably!
If you’re ever curious, you could create a contact form or poll that asks your visitors to tell you about themselves. Then, you’d be collecting data from active readers. Not everyone fills these forms out, of course, but if you ever wanted an entirely independent, “clean” list, that is a nice way of doing it.
You’re already familiar with contact forms…but here’s some info about polls:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/polls/Good luck with your site! I know I’ll be watching and learning! Take care.
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and it’s nice to know my blog is ‘spam-worthy’.
Ha! I love that you’ve found a silver lining!
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