My blog following (a.k.a. “total subscribers” list) has looked like the January-to-January chart above since this site began ten years ago–for which I am extremely grateful!
But suddenly, On July 14th — even though dozens of new subscribers have continued to sign on — the total subscribers suddenly stopped growing. In fact, according to WordPress, for the first time in ten years it’s actually dropping, and now looks like this:
Only two explanations seem likely:
- Mass numbers of people suddenly realized they hate this blog site and began un-subscribing at a rate faster than new subscribers. There’s no way to verify this since WordPress doesn’t list un-subscribers, only new subscribers and total subscribers. Or…
- There’s a glitch in the WordPress system (there was one day recently when 200 people apparently un-subscribed and then re-subscribed the next morning). And/or I’m unwittingly breaking some kind of rule–even though I’m not doing anything different. Notice the mountains and valleys pattern on this Days chart for August; every time the total subscribers number goes up it seems to hit an invisible ceiling and drop.
The WP Happiness Engineer happily looked into this and told me there’s nothing wrong and everything’s fine. How nice. Sort of like your airline pilot assuring you that “the engine is supposed to be on fire.”
Help! I’m stuck. Any idea what’s going on, or what I can do about it?
With big bytes of love,
Mitch
I don’t have an answer for WP, but it’s similar to what happened with my Pinterest account. I had nearly 197K + monthly views and suddenly my numbers plummeted to 80K monthly but gained many new followers. Google revealed that others are experiencing the same fluctuations for no apparent reason. Maybe this is the same issue with WP?
Not sure, but something’s definitely going on.
Word Press is not letting me post new things unless I pay now. As an 87 year old widow I just spent a lot of money going to France with four of my grown children and their partners, so not spending right now. Besides I have more followers on face book than Word Press.
?! So sorry to hear that, Eileen! Are you saying they no longer offer a no-charge option? Or have they established a limit on how many subscribers you can have at the no-charge level?
They simply changed the way I get there. But after wading through a lot of additional offers I don’t want, I think I’ve found a way to post. Going to try it.
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