For the last few weeks, I have been getting several, new followers each day (usually overnight), but not your typical follower.
Usually, WP will provide a name and if the follower is a blogger, their URL.
None. 
Typically, a new follower will leave some sort of comment, mentioning why they are following.
No notes.
Even my resting “A Simple Village Undertaker” is getting these type followers.
All the e-mail addresses are Outlook accounts and all have unusual names.
Here is last night’s batch of five. (all are @outlook.com)
sanchezxckatherinfuz, garridopvaliciasf, lopeztcomoralesmdo, plazaqiandrews, torresqliricardoddj,
This is becoming a daily occurrence.
Has anyone else experienced this? My guess it is some nefarious effort, but have no idea exactly what.
I haven’t had time to do any research, so I’m throwing it out there.
Thoughts?
Ray, this has been happening to me for weeks. I have no idea why. A few months ago I was suddenly followed by DOZENS of floor sanding ‘businesses’. I have no idea why either. I attribute it to spamming. But I don’t see the point of it since we aren’t monetized.
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The floor sanders haven’t found me but all sorts of other unlikely businesses have–and the people with strange non-names. I have no idea what anyone stands to gain from this, but I doubt they’re doing it because they’re looking for deathless prose.
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Ha! That’s what I don’t get. There’s no money to be made from ‘connecting’ to me…..
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Ray, this has been happening to me for weeks. I have no idea why. A few months ago I was suddenly followed by DOZENS of floor sanding ‘businesses’. I have no idea why either. I attribute it to spamming. But I don’t see the point of it since we aren’t monetized.
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Thanks, Colleen. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone. Maybe the WP folks will chime in.
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I hope they do. I’d like to understand better.
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This sounds strange, throw them to spam
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I have as well, uneasy feeling.
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Same here, 3 new ones lasts night. Bizarre.
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So I looked and found this… https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers?replies=49
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Thank you. Good Info.
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It’s happening to me too. I honestly haven’t worried about it because as long as they’re just following me it seems harmless to me (if strange).
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That’s how I’ve been looking at it, but why?
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Honestly, I don’t have a clue.
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Spam likes/follows. They are bots who like WP blogs to get you to click on their links or follow their blogs – it’s a way for them to generate clicks on their site to improve their google ranking or click count for advertising. They are scams. A few weeks ago I had one like my blog, follow and unfollow about 600 times in one day (seriously 600). I’ve been deleting their comments – if read them carefully, most are generic and could apply to any blog. The most common one I am getting at the moment is a web site that is selling “woodworking plans” that are widely known as copyright thefts. You might report them to WP, but so far the good folks over at WP seem to be ignoring the problem.
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These are not comments, Andrew, just email following.
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Could also be a broken bot – some ‘script kiddy’ trying to run a scam, but not doing right.
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Yes Ray, me too. I am also treating them with the merit they deserve – ie ignoring them. Most are Outlook addresses, some appear to be businesses. No comments – yet!
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I concur with Peter’s pondering treatment method and have applied the same response to the 3-5 I have gotten each day.
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Me too! And with the weird Outlook accounts. Thanks for posting this so I know I’m glad I’m not the only one. Still wonder why it’s happening though.
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Yikes! My twitter acct. has had this type of activity. It always seems to be similar accounts and there will be similar content among them. At that point I just start blocking each one and it eventually stops. It sounds like a wordpress bot has gotten hold of your account.
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It’s happening to me too. I found this https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/unusual-e-mail-follower-sign-ups?replies=38 and there is a link in that forum to another forum.
It’s speculation, but I think a blogger maybe purchased followers and the source they purchased it from got confused so the bots are following lots of wordpress blogs. I’ve also noticed that I’ve “like” posts on two blogs that I follow, but was just reading the posts.
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Same exact thing here dude. Exact same thing. I don’t mind it if they like my stuff or not, but it hasn’t caused any problems.
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All the weird Outlook accounts have been eliminated as followers (by WordPress, I guess). So I have 107 followers, not 117 or something like that lol. The issue seems resolved though, at least for me. Has anyone else experienced this too today?
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Ill check later. Thank you
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You’re welcome!
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Word press resolved this and deleted the fake followers.
There’s a pretty long thread on a Word Press support forum. https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers/page/6?replies=135
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Yeah I saw parts of the thread. Honestly, it was painful to read how bloggers were complaining about this for days without anything getting resolved.
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Word Press explained in one comment that they could not do an easy fix by blocking the outlook.com domain. Doing so could block legitimate blog followers. So, it took them time to fix the problem. One support person said it looked as if the influx was attempting to clog Word Press email notifications. Evidently, the problem was massive. Another person said they traced one of the email addresses to a blog hosting company in China. At least that gives us an idea for the reason/motivation and throws my speculation to the wind. 🙂
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At least it wasn’t those pesky Russians again 😊🇺🇸.
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LOL! Russians can operate out of China. 🙂 Seriously though, I’m happy that Word Press has resolved this. I can’t imagine the number of blogs that have been inactive for years who received these fake followers and didn’t know it.
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Being an obsessive nature, I notice every new follower and every time I lose one too. Increasingly my stats are up down up down and the reason is this stuff. I am interested to read some of the comments here which rationalise my slightly anxious thought processes. I don’t like it but that applies to much of life, sadly!
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I’m having the same problem!
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Read the earlier comments. Problem is solved system wide , apparently
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Pingback: To My Recent Outlook.com Email Follower, Alex: Your Comments Have Been Noted – Feeding on Folly
This was happening to me too. I was just removing these outlook emails from my follower list when new ones would be added. I’m glad the issue has been resolved, but for awhile I thought I was getting really popular.
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As of May 6, 2018 I still get about 5 notifications a day of these outlook “followers” WP is doing a good job of stripping them from my follow list so I don’t have to delete them, I just get the notifications..Just exactly the “end game” of this spam bot is a mystery for sure!
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Yes, they are showing up again. I’m just ignoring it.
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