There is a rumor going around that bloggers are obsessed with their numbers: followers, hits, tweets, retweets and so on. This is a total fallacy. I don't think I check my numbers more than once or twice a day.
If you cast your eye over to the right side of the page, you will see a list of my most popular posts. Although it's a fair representation of my work, there are a few interesting anomalies there as well.
According to my stats, the most popular piece I have ever written is called "If You Can Find the Words" which is a piece I wrote about the great Irish poet (and Nobel Prize Winner) Seamus Heaney, after his death in August of 2013. It got a very nice response from the initial readers, some of whom had similar stories to share about their favorite poets, but nothing spectacular.
My other most popular posts were the sort of things that pop up in search engines: book and video reviews, an account of vacation disasters, and a post about The Pennsic Wars. Somehow I kept getting more and more hits on the Seamus Heaney post, to the point that it was half my total hits on the blog, which just seemed ridiculous.
Well readers, I have solved the problem, it seems I have a very devoted spam commenter. His name is "Anonymous", and he shows up many times a day, but only on that blog post.
Here is an example of his efforts:
Inspirіng quest there. What occurred ɑfter? Good luck! Here is my page
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(Ad infinitem with the Cheap Jordans)
Even better are the ones that pretend at friendship before heading to the sales pitch:
Howdy would you mind sharing which blog platform you're working with? I'm going to start my own blog in the near future but I'm having a tough time choosing between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your design and style seems different then most blogs and I'm looking for something completely unique. P.S Sorry for being off-topic but I had to ask! my web page: Louis Vuitton Sale...
Unfortunately you won't get a chance to read more of his creative efforts, as my blog filters out anonymous posts, so all of his efforts have been in vain. However, he has done wonders for the blog numbers. Moreover, my personal web guru has figured out how to disable this sort of activity from my page.
Sometimes I wonder why the fascination with this particular post? What is it about Irish poetry that leads a spammer to believe this was the place to spread the word about Jordan shoes and Louis Vuitton handbags? Irish Wool Sweaters and Claddaugh rings I could have understood.
But I have at least one positive about all this, which is that for the foreseeable future, the piece that will come up first when you take a look at my popular posts is a tribute to one of the finest writers of the 20th century, suggesting the literary sophistication of my readership.
We could all do worse.
Photo "Spam Museum" by stgermh licensed by CC 2.0
I always wonder when I see huge numbers on specific posts if these are real people or spammers? It's impossible to tell since Blogger doesn't give me the breakdown.
ReplyDeleteI found it in this case because of the spam comments that were being left on the post, and that post only. Plus when an old piece draws hundreds of hits daily when new posts draw a dozen its grounds for suspicion.
DeleteSpam, spam, spam, spam...I don't like SPAM! (But it's entertaining to read the comments!)
ReplyDeleteThe only time I want to see spam is when Monty Python sings about it!
DeleteOh gawd I get these spammers waaaay too much. You're right---they start off trying to sound like an old friend, then beg you to go to their coupon site or whatever the heck it is they're selling. i had to re-install Captcha on my blog site recently because I was getting too many spam comments.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had to resort to Captcha yet, but I did switch to registered comments only, which will probably cost me a few honest observations, but is worth it for the sanity.
ReplyDelete