Since my last post about the huge spike in this site’s visitors and views (up over 500%) I’m pretty sure that it’s not my content but another, more malicious, activity causing my sudden popularity. I’ve learned more about internet bots, sometimes called spiders and crawlers, systematically browsing the web for content or (in my case) looking for vulnerabilities in old blog posts. I’ve contacted WordPress who helped me to arrive at this conclusion. I’ve deleted some of my old posts which were receiving thousands of hits, and, for the time being and until this issue is resolved, I’m going to use my Substack newsletter for blogging. I’ve already begun the National Year of Reading by publishing notes from my reading journals over there.
As always, thank you for reading and bye, for now (or see you at Substack).
Josephine Corcoran 
Such a shame the bots are driving you away. I looked into installing a plugin to stop the crawlers but that would involve a big hike in cost. So I’m not inclined to do it. Depressing. All I could do is write an angry poem called Ban the Bot which I will probably post as a futile gesture.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Heather, yes it is annoying! I like the sound of your poem, though 🙂 I’ve been in touch with a Happiness Engineer from WordPress who was very helpful – but has only said there is an issue with webcrawlers which they are looking into. Reading various WordPress forums I see that there are a lot of complaints about WordPress monetising the issue by selling plugins for crawlers. I already pay to be ad-free and for my domain name so I’m loathe to spend more! I will see what happens and if the situation improves. Thanks, as ever, for commenting here. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s the poem https://wastiesspace.co.uk/2026/02/01/ban-the-bot/ I have tagged you. Please shout if you’d rather I didn’t! Thanks for the Happiness Engineer info. On my site, the only thing I knew was being downloaded was an old poster. Very odd. I located it and removed it anyway. The other bulk hits are more general so I can’t see what’s going on. I hope the situation does improve. I don’t use Substack so I’ll look out for you on Instagram.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Do you save your old posts?
Quite a few blog people I have come across have had such spikes at sometime or other.
Vulnerabilities?Is that a tech phrase, or does it mean what we know it to mean?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Michael – not a tech phrase! I simply meant bots searching for weaknesses (perhaps in coding/security breaches etc) to exploit. I don’t save my posts elsewhere, perhaps I should – but for what purpose? I’ll just have huge files lying unread on my laptop. I’ve copied some of my #writerinschool posts over to Blogger (but they look dreadful because I don’t have the heart to learn/re-learn how to lay them out over there). Perhaps everything will settle down soon. I really hope so! Best wishes, Josephine
LikeLike
I’ve never liked the look of Blogger.
It’s that niggle from the future ‘I had a good idea there, but I didn’t save it’. I get them for old writing I’ve either lost on computer crashes or elsewhere.
But, as you say, you must have so much work (but it is your work; some value there, surely).
Best wishes, as always.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I will keep everything here for now (certainly the workshops I’ve blogged) but I have already deleted some old posts and I don’t miss them! Thanks again 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a hassle Josephine! And very unsettling I imagine. Sorry to hear this has happened. I wasn’t aware of this issue until your post, so at least I am now forewarned… wishing you a lovely & hassle-free weekend. xx
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s not a big thing but, yes, annoying! Deleting some of my older posts that were receiving masses of hits has calmed things down, for now. I will monitor. For now, I’m going to post over on Substack, though. Thanks, and have a good weekend yourself! ❤
LikeLike
[…] Sing a song of AI bots Crawling on the net The more scraps a bot scrapes The happier it gets Snag the bot, crush the bot Batter the bot to blazes Bash the bot, burn the bot, boil the bot in a red hot pot Got the message yet? © Heather Wastie January 2026for Josephine Corcoran […]
LikeLiked by 1 person