Weird followers
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I am facing a similar issue where I keep receiving emails about new followers with outlook email IDs but they are not listed on my site’s “Followers” page.
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I keep getting notifications that I have acquired new email followers with really odd names @outlook.com but when I look in my email followers list, they are not there. has anyone else experienced this?
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Yes I am facing the same issue… No idea how to fix it.
The spam followers appear for sometime in my Followers list and then it automatically disappears. -
I just read some earlier posts in this thread – one of the fixes the WordPress tech team is doing is to remove these fake followers for our email followers lists
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I’ve also had this problem. Momentarily thought my blog was now super popular, then noticed the weird Outlook trend. It seems harmless, but peculiar. What are they getting out of it??
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What are they getting out of it??
If people email them back to say thanks for the follow (some bloggers feel this is necessary), they’ll get your email address which they can then spam directly, or use to try and hack your accounts on other services. But that’s the only thing I can think of.
As spam attacks go this one isn’t very effective, just extremely annoying and difficult to block. But we have people working on it. For now it’s best to just ignore these follows, and either disable email notifications for now (you’ll still get notifications of new followers via the admin bar and push notifications if you have the mobile app), or set up a filter in your email account to automatically delete new follower emails referencing a outlook email address.
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I hope you are right. It’s May 2018 and my site continues to get outlook followers. I get almost 4-6 a week.
Is there an update on this issue? I don’t believe I have an increase of spam in other areas such as my email or comments. So far I simply find it annoying, but is there a real concern?
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Just to clarify, you can disable notifications for new follows and still keep your other email notifications intact.
Head to https://wordpress.com/me/notifications
If you have more than one site, click the little arrow next to the site name.You’ll see several checkboxes for different notification options. Take a check out of “Site Follows” on the email options, and save settings. If you have multiple sites, you’ll be asked if you want to save those settings to all sites.
That’s it. :)
You’ll still be able to get notifications in the bar if you’ve left the check in that box. And we’ve confirmed the spammer notifications go away once they’ve unfollowed (or have been forced to unfollow by our spam catchers!)
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I am having the same problem. I tried the remove followers steps but the 30+ email names that are in my mailbox are. On the way. ahowing Up there. I only have 6 followers and I know who they are but everyday for the last month I get emails saying I have new followers, all with outlook email addresses. This is so annoying and I can’t figure out how to stop this nonsense. How do you remove them if they aren’t in your list? How do you stop getting email notifications?
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@rosegoldpearl did you try the steps I posted? They’re in the comment just before yours.
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Me too – about 30 outlookdotcome email followers since last week in April, one of which may be real, and shows up in my site list of email followers. I see from the various online threads that this has now gone on for a long time; I appreciate how difficult it must be, but how close are wordpress.com staff to setting up a block?
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I’ve had more than 48 (yeah, i counted) such email followers with nonsensical email addresses since January 2018. On one hand, I’m relieved I’m not alone in facing the issue. But seeing that the thread has started way back in Jan and the people (including me) still face this issue, why is it not yet solved?! I do appreciate the efforts of the staff in addressing the problem and responding to the thread.
It is quite creepy to be notified of outlook followers when I haven’t posted anything in a long while. And these email addresses do not show up when I check my email followers list on WordPress.com. I don’t want to stop getting email notifications on legit followers either!everparadoxical.wordpress.com
Appreciate your help!
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I’ve had a lot of these fake followers with outlook addresses as well, but just for one of my wordpress blogs — http://www.biodivvy.com. I have seen some follow and unfollow themselves, each time with a randomized email address. Even when I receive multiple notifications about them, when I check, I often just find one or two followers at a time. I find it annoying to have to remove them and I would like to block them somehow.
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Just to add my name to this – I’ve had several notifications a day from weird Outlook accounts over a period of several weeks. I will turn off notifications as suggested, but hope the situation will be resolved soon
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After I posted and read your orevious post. I did just that and lo and behold this morning. I get another email…how do you really stop this annoying nonsense? These little patches aren’t working ! 😤
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Okay, we’re all getting these (I get at least 3 or 4 a day) and WP has yet to track down the perp. A minor annoyance, but intriguing! Somebody has created a so-far impenetrable and endlessly self-generating bot for the sole purpose of annoying WHOM? Random WP bloggers? Specific WP bloggers selected by key word usage? We’re all, obviously, writers and thus capable of generating plots explaining possible origins/purposes of our bot. Mine? It’s a 14-year-old in Vladivostok named Tatyana whose WP bot submission to Putin’s “Make Russia Control the World Again” program has been successful beyond her wildest dreams. “Tatty” now has a full scholarship to tech school and a promising career ahead of her manipulating world politics through social media. Meanwhile, her WP bot grinds endlessly on.
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Okay, that just made this entire thing worthwhile.
But I think Tatty grows up to be the Girl with the Dragon Tatty instead.
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I have people doing the same type thing. But mine are making up names and linking them to proxie sites and leaving comments on my posts. Some of the comments don’t even relate to the post. hehe. Spam filter is catching them so far though.
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