Peaches at A Lateral Plunge has a great post about “liking” blogs. It’s on the front page of WordPress as of this writing, so probably lots of people have seen it already, but I wanted to mention it because it confirmed what I’ve suspected about likes on here for some time: to wit, many of them are worthless. I mean, why would a real estate agency “like” a whimsical post about Antarctic aliens and H.P. Lovecraft?
I’ve had similar issues with “likes” on here. When someone “likes” a 1,000 word post 3 seconds after I posted it, and without apparently viewing my blog, I know that something is rotten in Denmark. Or Russia. Or wherever the spam “likes” happen to be coming from.
Also, I don’t think I’ve ever “liked” a blog. I prefer to comment, even if it’s quick, just so they know I’m not a spammer. I’ve also never re-blogged, although I considered doing that for Peaches’ post, because it feels a little lazy to me. Just my opinion, though.
P.S. I’m leaving “likes” on for this post. I’ll be curious to see how many it gets–and how many are genuine.
UPDATE: Too awesome–this post earned me my “200 likes” award! And my pageview count remains the same as it was before.
Oh. wow. I woke up a little stunned this morning. Thank you for your vote of confidence!
No problem. I really do like your blog, even if I didn’t “like” it!
The like-spamming phenomenon was something I wasn’t even aware of before reading Peaches’ post on Freshly Pressed. I have only had my account for a few weeks and was startled and gratified to receive a few likes and and a follow from total strangers. I couldn’t, however, understand what exactly our connection was. Now I feel sort of betrayed. Glad to be aware of the issue, though. Thanks, both of you.
We’ve all been there–I thought I must be becoming a wildly popular writer at first… then I realized what was going on. Oh, well.
That’s three of us who feel that way.
By the way, you probably already know that one of the most prolific “like spammers” has already liked this post, completely not getting the irony of the situation 🙂
Oh, yeah, posting about spam leads to some great ironies. I wrote a post about funny spam comments awhile back, and I’ve gotten tons of spam comments on it.
Jamcracker! She had me feeling popular a while back!
Pssst! If you complain about spam, she eventually stops liking your posts. lol. I don’t think she’s liked me since I wrote that.
Though she did like that post….
I disabled likes and still get them!
It’s an old post, I know. But I’m researching the topic for my own blog post. I hope you don’t mind me dropping a line here. I actually see two gravatars next to the “Like” button of this post that I’ve identified long ago as “spam-likers”. 🙂
I plan to quote this passage of yours in my post, if you don’t mind. It’s not up yet, but you’ll likely receive a pingback when it is.
“I’ve had similar issues with “likes” on here. When someone “likes” a 1,000 word post 3 seconds after I posted it, and without apparently viewing my blog, I know that something is rotten in Denmark. Or Russia. Or wherever the spam “likes” happen to be coming from.”
Sure, that’s fine. Thanks.