Strange or odd blog followers problem
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I have a total of 8 followers for this blog. Two are people I have known for a long time. The other six are very strange followers that appear to be “get rich” or “check my business deals” or “I’ll increase your readership” type sites. Four of those have signed up this week.
A man who earned enough from blogging to move to Costa Rica and has a blog with over 100,000 readers wants to follow the blog of a little old lady living below the poverty line? Really? Why?
Another person also has over 100,000 readers too and is a fashion photographer traveling all over the world. She or he takes time to read the blog of an old lady writing about getting food bank foods? Really? Why?
I know there is something not right about these strange followers but what? I don’t know enough about computers to figure it out. How do I get rid of unwanted followers? Must I close and delete my blog to get rid of them? I only want truly interested followers.
Help appreciated. Please reply so a little old lady with limited computer knowledge can understand. Thanks.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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They are most likely just spamming, following tons of blogs to try to get people checking their links and following their main projects. Julian Sherman isn’t a wordpress.com blog at all, for instance. I doubt there’s anything valid behind these followers—you can’t prevent them from following you, but it won’t affect you negatively in any way.
By the way, I really love your blog. :)
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Thank you for the help.
So what you are saying is that these people are using my blog to increase revenue on their blog because my readers might be curious? These places get paid by the number of visitors?
I kind of thought there wasn’t a way to stop them. It sure does feel creepy having them follow my blog. Hmm… could I stop people from checking their sites if I got rid of the “community” widget? I don’t want to contribute visitors to their profit schemes. As far as I can tell that’s the only way someone could check out my followers. Or am I wrong about that?
You really like my blog? Thank you!
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Oh, I see. The community widget is probably the only way that anyone could end up accessing their links from your site. If you’re fond of the widget, though, I say keep it anyway—very few people are actually going to follow through to their sites.
I do! You post tons of great ideas.
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I had the same thing yesterday. Four new followers that in the notification email to me showed as me actually following my own blog. But in the followers list they show as what I think are spam email addresses.
Do I need to be worried about my account security since they showed as me? Can I get rid of them?
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Yes, that’s what happened to me and the reason I started checking into just who was my new followers. I do follow my own blog though.
I’ve been thinking this is some new form of spam or phishing or virus or something that isn’t being caught by filters. I don’t know enough about computers to sound an alarm though.
lettergrade I like your blog too. It’s way over my head but I like it anyway.
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The notification email showing you (rather than them) is very odd. Do you still have it? Could you post a screenshot of the notification email for us, as well as a list of the followers you suspect might be bogus?
@anitaestes, thanks. :)
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I looked but I don’t have the email notification anymore. I only had one like that. The others looked different. At the time I remember thinking how odd it looked but didn’t think anymore about it.
Maybe Sara has a copy of the ones sent to her?
Hmm, should I be the one to mark this as resolved now that I know the answer?
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