I got curious about the spike in new followers (though I’m purposely not posting regularly) so I dived into my list and noticed a bunch of “greyed” out blogs that follow mine but that no longer exist.
I removed one, then two and quickly found myself scrolling through my entire list to delete all the other no-longer-existent blog follows.
Yeah, I said all.
Of course it was a waste of time but it was so strangely satisfying that I didn’t want to stop.
And since I had no mental energy left to do something more worthwhile, I deleted all the ones that were clearly spammy as well.
So my list of followers is considerably less but it doesn’t matter. Why keep them around if they aren’t “true”?
In a few months after I’m finished with my newsletter course, I’ll need to refocus on building my email list anyways so false inflated numbers don’t serve any purpose, right?
Have you ever sifted through your list and deleted followers?
Marquessa 
Yep, I have done some followers purging if they haven’t posted in 6 months or more. Sure there are exceptions. However some lapsed bloggers have returned and that is good.
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Oh, the ones I deleted aren’t lapsed – they simply don’t seem to exist anymore. When I click on their blog, it’s greyed out and impossible to click. A quick Google search comes up empty or they have now have independent affiliated paid sites under a similar but different name.
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Honestly, after 11 years on Twitter, I never gave it a thought until about four months ago when a buddy browsed her followers and found weirdness. Looking over my own list, I deleted 118 people/groups/accounts I would NEVER have followed – mostly hard-line alt-right groups and political orgs. Of course, I got a bot-response after contacting Twitter saying they knew nothing about it and didn’t arbitrarily add to their users’ accounts, but whatever. I changed my password and now check weekly…and still find accounts I didn’t add.
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I’ve noticed a few more sus[ect blog about – it’s normally that they don’t exist but I have follows from pill sites and hotels which smacks to me to selling. I should go through my follower list and get rid of some.
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I most definitely have. I started on IG but it does take a long time.
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I’ve been blogging since 2011 and formed a good connection with a number of people who I then put on my blogroll only for them to vanish without comment a few years later. That’s one of the marked aspects of blogging, “No forwarding address!!”
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2011?! Whoa! That’s a long time. Congrats! I agree, when people disappear I wonder if they are okay.
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I never thought about it. I’m trying to get the writing bug back. I’m so mentally drained. Maybe I’ll add this as a goal.
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