We all get spammy new followers, but what exactly is the point? In this post, I thought we could chat about that.
First, what do I mean by spammy followers? I’m talking about people who are following your blog for reasons other than having any intention of reading it. I would consider a good 90% of my new followers to be spammy, and I will never see them again after that new follow shows up in my notifications.
So if the intention isn’t to read a blog, what’s the point of following it? I see two main reasons why people might do that. One is that they’re hoping that you play the follow-for-follow game (or are simply nice) and will follow them back. Another is that some bloggers have a widget displaying their followers, and the spammy person is hoping to show up there. Aside from that, though, I’m not really seeing other potential benefits that could be motivating them.
Oh, and if you get a new follower and clicking on their Gravatar in your notifications takes you to a page that says the site no longer exists, that’s probably not a spammy follower. More likely, it’s because the blogger changed their site’s URL at some point, but their Gravatar is still pointing to the old URL. WordPress doesn’t let people know when this is happening, so the blogger is probably blissfully unaware that it’s an issue. This blogging toolbox post goes into how to check and fix that.
You can remove someone as a follower if you want. Go to “My Sites” > “Stats”, and click on “Followers” near the top right corner of the page. That’ll take you to a list of your followers, and there’s a “Remove” button next to each one. I’ve found that some people are fairly persistent, either because they’ve built themselves a bot or because they’re blindly going through the Reader following any blog they find that they’re not currently following. Rather than getting into an unfollow/refollow war with these people, it can avoid much frustration to just let them be and ignore them.
If the follower’s gravatar is an obscene image (like a dick pic), you can report that to WordPress and they would probably remove it as a violation of the terms of service. Back in my earlier days of blogging, there was a dick pick gravatar that would repeatedly refollow me even though I kept deleting him. Once I reported him to WP, that stopped.
I used to get mildly annoyed by the masses of spammy followers, but now I just don’t care. Part of that is because I’ve stopped caring at all about my follower number because it’s so meaningless, so I’m not sufficiently motivated to make the effort to remove the spammy types. I know for some people, though, getting that follower number to be more reflective of reality can be very satisfying.
Do you get a lot of spammy followers? Does their presence annoy you?
The blogging toolbox series has tips to support you in your blogging journey. It includes these posts:
spammy followers are the worst! I get some of them! Its annoying, but I just don’t bother deleting them! Xx
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I’ve noticed the same thing, and most of those followers never seem to interact with any posts afterward. I came across rioace casino while looking into this topic, and it had some useful advice on spotting genuine engagement versus accounts that are just hoping for a follow back. I’d much rather have a smaller audience that’s actually interested in the content than a large number of inactive followers.
I think every long-time blogger has noticed this at some point. A lot of new follows seem to be more about boosting someone’s own numbers than building genuine connections. I’d much rather have a handful of readers who actually engage than hundreds of silent followers. I was browsing different websites recently, including https://subwaychicken.net/, and it reminded me that authentic communities are always more valuable than inflated statistics.
This is such a relatable topic for anyone who has been blogging for a while. Spam followers can definitely be confusing because at first it feels nice to see new people discovering your work, but then you realize many of them are not actually interested in your content. I like the point about focusing less on follower numbers and more on genuine interactions, because real readers and meaningful conversations are what make blogging enjoyable. The tips about handling suspicious followers are also very practical for newer bloggers. It’s always interesting to read discussions about the behind-the-scenes side of blogging, and I found more useful content here nv casino.
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