For most of the day yesterday I was thrilled to watch the hits on my blog go up and up and up. Wow! Look what posting on the Wild Rose Press loop and putting something on my Facebook wall will do! About ten o'clock last night, a little niggling piece of fear began to work itself in my head. Look how many "unknowns" there are from my site meter. Gee, that's weird.By 11:30 p.m. I was definitely uneasy. Somebody was messing with me. By a quarter to midnight I was in full panic mode. SOMEBODY'S STALKING ME! I sent panicked e-mails to trusted computer geek friends. I considered waking up my husband (of course, I'd have to be in full panic mode to consider that!) The hits were consistent and were coming just about to the second in five and ten minute intervals. By midnight I had started to change passwords and finally decided to shut down the old blog to discourage the stalking. As I lay in the bed staring at the darkened ceiling in my ignorance, I wondered if changing the passwords was enough. Could this person who was loitering on my blog anywhere from less than a minute to over an hour somehow be collecting information on me so they can steal my identity?
AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!
This morning I called my I.T. guy. He checked it out and decided it was a spider. Spiders (as I understand it in this context) are these computerized programs that come in, crawl around, and collect information, then report that information to such search information sites as Yahoo and Google.
Well, that sure put a different perspective on the hits and creepiness. And yet...it's creepy.
Still, if that spider can weave its little web and get me some hits from Google, that's not a bad thing.
On the other hand, just to let you know. If you want to stalk me, how about giving me a little consideration and leaving a comment. I cannot believe I only had TWO comments from my awesome popcorn woman blog.
Gee whiz.
