Twitter recently announced that they were working to clean up spammy accounts and data inconsistencies. Every since Twitter’s traffic exploded , its become a soft spot for spammers. If you have been on Twitter for a while you would have seen your follower count fluctuate drastically. The reason for the fluctuation is Twitter’s initiative of cleaning up spammy accounts and followers.
According to Twitter , “For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.
However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.”
What does this mean for your Twitter account ? You might see a significant drop in your followers once the clean up process is done. I have not yet noticed a drop in my Twitter followers since the clean up activity began, but it may take sometime till I see a drop in my followers.
How about you, have you seen a drop in your Twitter followers or an increase in your Twitter followers ?
57 comments
I did lose about a dozen or so followers, I thought it was something I said. I guess it was because of this new change in policy.
.-= Tycoon Blogger@Make Money Blogging´s last blog ..Sunday’s Best- week ending July 26, 2009 =-.
I lost hundereds looks like lot of spammers in my a/c
Yep… I lost almost 400 followers in a day last week.
Thinking back, that’s how many spammers that followed me…lol
.-= Roseli A. Bakar´s last blog ..List of Wordpress Thesis Theme Tutorials, Tips and Hacks =-.
I’ve lost about 300 🙁
.-= ZK@Web Marketing Blog´s last blog ..Twitter Cleans out Spammy Followers =-.
I’ve seen a drop on my twitter followers too, since I don’t have huge twitter follower yet, so it’s not a big deal for me. But I’ve still seen many spammers who tweeted the message “View my sexy profile” and followed me..=.=”
Regards,
Lee
.-= Make Money Online´s last blog ..John Chow Is Back! =-.
Thank you for having explain this.I didn’t guess about it.
.-= videostar´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
I did lose about a dozen or so followers, I thought it was something I said. I guess it was because of this new change in policy.
Yup i loose few but i don’t mind bcoz some how the crap will go out from the garden …
Nice Work twitter
I think I have gained new followers instead. Well, maybe it’s because a lot of people are playing this Twitter game I’m also playing. LOL.
The change in policy may be the reason for this. Many are lossing these days followers in a quantity.
Even though many have lost a lot of followers, I’d say it’s a good move. No one wants to support the spam that’s spreading out there. 🙂
.-= Swastik´s last blog ..51 Ways to get traffic to your site! =-.
You are right , we rather have followers that interact with us
.-= ZK@Web Marketing Blog´s last blog ..Twitter Cleans out Spammy Followers =-.
I don’t see how they are going to reliably clean this up. I’m sure some accounts are obviously spam accounts. Like if they are twitting aff links en mass. Whereas it will be hard to tell with others.
They have ways to track this stuff. It may seem complex but they are smart.
.-= paul´s last blog ..Vernon Forrest Dead =-.
Fully agree with above post. I have already seen it on my twitter account 2-3 back. My 20-30 followers deleted automatically and i surprised. Maybe they all spammers..
Twitter is one of the famous social media sites most used these days, you can get sales by referring other person or professional to a certain product in return thy will refer you the same thing you did for them
.-= History of UNIX´s last blog ..Read how UNIX books make your administration task easy =-.
Can I just tweet but not have twitter txt me with updates the people I follow post? Will the txt still count as part of my plan or will it be a different charge? Hope my questions are clear.
.-= History of UNIX´s last blog ..Read how UNIX books make your administration task easy =-.
I know how to turn off overall twitter updates for my phone but I dont know how to turn on/off updates for a specific user on their site.
.-= History of UNIX´s last blog ..Read how UNIX books make your administration task easy =-.
Twitter needs to take action against hard core spammers but not penalize people aggressively looking for people with common interests.
.-= paul´s last blog ..Vernon Forrest Dead =-.
I agree
Twitter does need to be cleaned up!
I have noticed a significant drop in followers. Good thing Twitter is doing something about cleaning out the spam accounts. It’s really no wonder Twitter would be besieged by spammers, it’s one of the hottest and most effective online communication means, and spammers will surely take advantage of that.
I lost about 10%. But apparently not the ones that would definitely look human. I did have a number of spammer followers that does not need careful scrutiny to notice.
Thinking back, that’s how many spammers that followed me…lol
.-= DotComSecrets Review´s last blog ..Why not be your own psychic? =-.
It’s really no wonder Twitter would be besieged by spammers, it’s one of the hottest and most effective online communication means, and spammers will surely take advantage of that.
This is good news. Spamming really annoys the hell out of me. With blogs in particular. I just wish people would only contribute to these things if they’ve got something to say.
I fully agree with you spammers always seems irritating. They try to ruin your search engine ranking. I also had such type of exp earlier.
I think that is better , fore me 200 targeted followers read my tweets better than 2000 followers even never open their accounts
greeting to twitter 🙂
Exactly, there’s no point in having followers who aren’t interested.
I do hope that this transition will be a smooth one. I think that it is going to be impossible for Twitter to make changes without affecting genuine accounts…..
Great post! Direct Agents also recently posted an article about inconsistencies in Twitter accounts, namely the problem of fake celebrity accounts. Check out the article, “Twitter Impostors” at http://blog.directagents.com/2009/06/is-that-your-favorite-celebrity-on-twitter-or-just-an-imposter/
Thanks for posting the link to the post
Twitter is getting pounded by spammers, they need to come out clean and be known as a spam free tool if they need a new round of funding. The twitter team needs to show that they can handle spam effectively.
.-= ZK@Web Marketing Blog ´s last blog ..Twitter Cleans out Spammy Followers =-.
ZK, There is no doubt that social media is spammy and yet will be around for a very long time. However, while tools such as Twitter are neat, they can potentially take up every spare moment that someone has during the day! There needs to be a balance to all of this technology. Also, who can a company trust to ‘tweet’ for them? Many big corporations that you think could hire someone to do this menial work actually can’t afford to trust anyone else besides their senior executives to take on this task. Social media has also been the stimulus of major gaffs that have been quite embarrassing for several big name companies. So, it pays to be careful, and to have someone eminently trustworthy to be the companies’ ‘Internet voice.’ The time factor is probably why some people choose to spam automatically, but it is a very poor decision due to the importance of public perception. -Ben
.-= Ben@ToysPeriod´s last blog ..LEGO: From Vacuum Cleaner to Newton’s Bench =-.
At least Twitter does not want to accept spammers. It is a good thing that the company is combating people who start acts involving negativity.
It such nice policy of twitter. I really appreciate it.
Twitter is quite promising for business and marketer and they really consider it to interact with other peoples. Because its really quick and interactive. Thanks for more info
Twitter has this good idea so that twitter will not be abuse in every different way.That is an informative post. Thank You and keep posting such articles.
The information you showed above are really superb. I’m using twitter and it happened with me earlier. It really help people to learn more about twitter..
That is really and optional method to have such a great insight.
It’s good news and thanks for sharing twitter info with us
Really its very informative related to twitter. I have mu own twitter account with 500 plus followers and i had experienced it few days back when my 20 plus followers deleted automatically.
I appreciate this policy of the twitter. Its very nice and cool idea.
.-= DotComSecrets Review´s last blog ..Frank Kern’s Mass Control 2.0 Review =-.
Many people are obsessed with the number of people who are following them and I’m expecting that this will cause some people to complain and assume that Twitter screwed something up. For those of us who were aware of this bug, this is good news and another indicator that Twitter is taking their war on spam very seriously.
I think its a nice step by Twitter…there lots of them..I think even now some of them exits, but matter of time…
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Hi,
It is always good to avoid spammy followers since they not only degrade your reputation but they can also result in getting you blocked by others.
However, I didnt find any decline in my followers.
– J
Reverse Mortgage Information
yes there are many who just spam around with their own site links as to promote their business or for traffic purpose.
i try to follow or add those who are active and not there on twitter just to spam around. thats y i got less followers of my profile till now
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I’ve seen alot of people starting to follow me, but yet when I check their twitter page, all they have is just one tweet which looks totally like spam post related to a girl… I didn’t click threw, but I am sure the link was to a bad website.
Till then,
Jean
Good to know about this. If the cleaning process is smooth with no errors, hopefully we could all have a cleaner Twitter followers’ list. The followers count is not too big of an issue for me as I value more on the beneficial connections with the Tweeters. Looking forward to a tidy list soon.
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
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I foresee that twitter is going to be judged on how effectively they eventually deal with spam. It is going to take a superhuman effort to get it right, and I am intrigued to see where twitter will be over the nexzt 12 & 24 months.
I think that this was an excellent move on the part of Twitter. There is nothing that cheapens their site as much as those long lists of spamy followers.
On my Twitter account ‘reverse counselor‘ I never accept spam followers.
Smart move
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Twitter is the biggest player i ever seen in doing its online marketing and coming in front of the audience. It’s a good step for spammers.
Ya, Twitter has to take some steps to restrict the spammers!
I have actually noticed I lost a lot of followers the other day. Maybe they didn’t like something I said? It kind of still puzzles me. But I do think it is good that Twitter is cleaning up the spammers 😉
.-= Get More Twitter Followers´s last blog ..Is Twitter Good For SEO? =-.
It’s really good clean out spammy followers. I seen many spam accounts use twitter for promotion.
I am sick and tired of the spam messages I keep on receiving in my twitter profile. I don’t think twitter is controlling spam messages or may be it has controlled it, otherwise I think I would be getting even more spam messages.
I haven’t been on twitter long enough for that to have affected me, but I think it is a good thing for them to do. It happens all too much on the net.
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