Normally I would list more than two photos but today it is more about a very strange thing that happened on this WordPress blog yesterday and makes you wonder who is tracking who and what. I just added two photos today to show you what these two hounds have been doing a lot of lately as winter approaches.
Be sure to scroll down to read my strange, weird WordPress story.
This is not my main blog but one I started as a test by listing just a few photos and only a paragraph of content. I wanted to see what kind of response I would get (dismal) and to find out if I could spend less time blogging. Plus I like WordPress better than Blogger but it's almost impossible to import 7 years of blogging with a million photos from one free Blogger blog to the free version of WordPress. They don't play well together.
So you will not see many blogs that I follow on the right sidebar. That area is the key to this story.
When I glanced at my blog yesterday, maybe the day before, I saw a list of blogs under "Blogs I Follow" ... and I did NOT know any of the five that were added to my sidebar!!!
Who added them???
I am the only administrator/owner for this blog ... but there they were ... listed below my original four blogs.
As I told the story to my friend is when this story went beyond the bizarre. He traveled for many years, living on the road fulltime on a motorcycle. I don't own nor have I ever owned a motorcycle .... BUT THE FIVE UNKNOWN BLOGS WERE ALL BLOGGERS WITH MOTORCYCLES.
During our conversation I found out he made a rare visit to my blog that morning to check on my photo quality as he is trying to sort out some photo quality issues on his own WordPress blog where he pays for his own server and domain name.
So here are two things that make it possible that something this weird could take place on my blog without my input.
He has friends that travel on motorcycles and they own blogs on WordPress
He visited my blog within an hour that I noticed the strange blogs listed on my sidebar
He made a comment on my blog
I think that is the answer to how it 'started'
As I moved to my blog Dashboard to remove them from my sidebar ... they weren't listed anywhere. I could not delete them because they were not listed and showed only the four blogs that I personally added and are listed even today.
I opened a new tab and clicked on my WordPress blog home page ... THOSE FIVE BLOGS THAT WERE LISTED WERE GONE !!!!!!
To say I was confused would be an understatement.
I am computer literate. I have blockers installed to block advertisements and videos from auto-playing when I look at any website. I don't even have Google Chrome installed on my computer to decrease the chance of being tracked everywhere I go. I also don't have a Facebook, or an Instagram account. My location setting is turned off on my iPhone.
The story gets much much weirder.
My friend that I told this story to, KNOWS ALL FIVE OF THOSE BLOGGERS, and had talked to me about one or two of them in a phone conversation. His phone OS is Android based, my is an iPhone.
At no time did we mention names and he did not even know the addresses of those blogs so he could send them to send me. He does not have any blogs listed on his WordPress blog sidebars. Only the first names of two of the bloggers were mentioned in our phone call.
I only found out that the five bloggers traveled by motorcycles when I clicked on each blog link to see who they were. I found their blog links on the "Reader" side of my WordPress admin page.
For my own sanity and the sanity of my friend that knew these bloggers ... can anyone explain what happened here? Has anything like this happened to your 'free version' WordPress blog?
I am not concerned just mystified.
