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.