11 Years

Reflections, , , ,

On May 31, 2015, 11 years ago, I first registered my blog with WordPress.

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 11 years ago.

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

I thought I would celebrate by looking back at some of my previous posts from May 31. On May 31, 2017, I Posted A Beautiful Monday, a post that has been viewed only 54 times over the years and likely at least half of those views have not been real people.

Earlier this year I noticed that something seemed off with my stats. My blog, which throughout the years has averaged less than 30 views per day, is now averaging over 300 views per day. While I would like to believe the popularity of my blog suddenly exploded, I am not that that naïve, especially since the ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ have not increased. It seems that bots have been visiting my blog. I find that a little unsettling. I wonder what they are doing with my content. It also means that my stats, at least the number of views and visitors are no longer reliable. Disappointing? Yes, but it is what it is. There is one thing that could help me distinguish real visitors from bots and you can help if you would like to. If you read a post, hit the ‘like’ button or leave a comment so I will know that a real person has been here. I understand that life is busy and you may not have the time. I do, however, appreciate you taking the time to read my posts, even if you don’t have time to leave a comment.

All of that leads to my post from May 31, 2018, I‘m Not Gonna Wait To Tell You. According to my stats this post has been viewed 258 times. Interestingly more than 150 of those views have been in 2026. (Bots! GRRR!) Though the numbers have changed, since I first wrote this, my thoughts have not.

Before I go I just want to let all my readers know that although WordPress now has and AI feature all of the writing and photos on my blog are and will continue to be my own. I have not and will not use AI.

As always, thanks for visiting!

25 thoughts on “11 Years”

  1. Congratulations on 11 years!
    Something that I think helps with the bots is if you change it so your readers have to click through to your actual blog post on your website. (Instead of reading it through the WP reader or reading it in the email. I have done this, and it has also helped with people I don’t know and/or bots from reblogging my blog to their site.
    Good luck with more blogging!

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  4. I think everyone who blogs for free is being harvested for AI “training “ so that AI generated writing sounds human and authentic.
    It is seriously creepy and I worry that our innocent blogs will be used for language models that will trick readers into thinking that they are dealing with a human being.

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  5. Its a different world that we live in. I hate that i have lost my trusting nature. But the continual bombardment of scams has robbed me of it. I will try to always like and comment from now on to help keep your stats legit

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  9. Hmm – that is interesting (not to mention scary) Ruth. You sent me scurrying to my stats to see what the bots had done and it was similar to what you said … the green bar graphs showed 2020 through the present and 2020-2025 looked the exact same and 2026 exploded with 159,560 views/118,445 visitors. I think not. Well, at least we know our circle of bloggers that visit our respective blogs are real and they comment and like on a regular basis. I have never used AI for writing, but I have used it three times for fun photos that I can’t create or take myself. But writing – no, because then it is not from the heart.

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      1. Yes, I don’t understand it at all Ruth. Before I closed my comments after 30 days, I used to get SPAM comments from 100-200 people/bots a day. It was crazy! Now I rarely if ever get SPAM comments.

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