unusual e-mail follower sign-ups
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In the past 2 days, my main website got 4 new e-mail followers with unusual Outlook.com addresses, yet I didn’t see any visits. A few minutes ago my other website got 1 new e-mail follower with an unusual outlook.com address. Do you think this is normal?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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There are various ways your readers could signup to follow your blog via email, which includes WordPress.com Reader as a common choice.
When you say no visits, do you see any new referrers or increase in referrers stats on this page? https://wordpress.com/stats/day/referrers
Let us know how things are and we will help further.
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There were no referrers in the past 7 days, but there were in the past 30 days. They look like the same referrers I’ve had in past months, too.
Should I do anything else?
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I’ve had the same issue. No new followers for months on a blog that I rarely update these days, and suddenly today there are three new email-only “followers” with improbable Outlook.com addresses ( (email visible only to moderators and staff), (email visible only to moderators and staff), (email visible only to moderators and staff)) after zero page views. I came to the forum because I wasn’t sure if I should be concerned about this.
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usermattw and kristenharperbooks, thank you both of you for sharing your thoughts.
I am tagging the post with “modlook” for the WordPress.com staff’s attention. They should be able to check your accounts and might be able to offer clarity on such followers’ quality.
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Take a look at this topic : https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers?replies=49
Everybody’s been having this problem and one of the staff is looking into it.
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Thank you for directing others to the open thread which is being attended to by Staff at https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers?replies=49
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I have had several outlook.com new email subscribers on blogs that I rarely post in. Clearly these are spam or something ‘not quite right.’ Is there a way that I can block any with that address? I have been deleting them, but it’s a nuisance.
thisileave.wordpress.com
about70years.wordpress.com -
I would like to direct you to post to the open thread which is being attended to by Staff at https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers?replies=49
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Please see https://en.support.wordpress.com/followers/
How to Remove a Follower https://en.support.wordpress.com/followers/#how-to-remove-a-followerWhen you read this thread please click through and read what Staff said at:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers?replies=49#post-3063668
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers/page/2?replies=49#post-3064066
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers/page/2?replies=49#post-3064429 -
Hi folks,
Please see my reply here:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers/page/3?replies=49#post-3064901
We are aware of the issue and working on it, but your sites, accounts, and data are in no danger whatsoever. This is an annoyance, not a threat, and we’ll hopefully have them blocked soon. As part of fixing this we’re also removing the spam follows as we find them, so you don’t have to remove them manually unless you want to.
Please subscribe to the other thread for updates on this.
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Among all those crazy long outlook email followers, this just appeared: Daphne Fakename. There is no email address or gravitar or blog associated with it.
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On what site is this? If you don’t see an email address, it means it’s not an email follower, but someone who followed via their WordPress.com account, thus it is completely unrelated to this issue.
It’s not necessarily suspicious that someone doesn’t want to use their real/full name as their public username on WordPress.com. Many if not most WordPress.com users don’t use their real names. And it’s not compulsory to have a site linked to your username, nor to have your Gravatar profile publicly visible.
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I’ve had 8 aliased outlook.com email followers in the past 5 days with more to come I expect. I wrote a post in my blog about this. Am becoming quite annoyed. I am ready to block any and all outlook.com. Please advise.
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My advice is not to sweat this. There is no danger posed to your site at all by fake followers ie. spam followers.
Please see: How to Remove a Follower https://en.support.wordpress.com/followers/#how-to-remove-a-follower
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Good info, I have had over 20 in the past week alone. Keep deleting yet they keep coming. Will wait it out :-)
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