Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Blogging oddities

This site doesn't get a huge amount of traffic, and so when a post jumps way up in the stats I wonder about bots.

And when a site jumps high in the referrers' list I wonder about that too.

Let the referrer site have an oddball name, maybe something associated with traffic statistics, to attract the eye of the sad soul wondering about his blog's place in the world.

Who wouldn't click on it, just to see who, for a change, is reading his deathless (undead?) prose? And promptly get inundated with ads and maybe a JavaScript virus or two.

Cynical and suspicious sorts will look the site up first. I guess I'm not very trusting.

But those referrer sites can be a nuisance until "your blog becomes mature and it starts getting real traffic." Or until "you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same."

I get the occasional email saying that on the basis of such-and-such a post I ought to be interested in reading and publicizing their site. The most recent one was for an online math course aggregator; something I'm actually interested in and which looks real--but the "post" they selected as their inspiration for contacting me had zero to do with their topic. Bots again, probably--or else an unlucky typo.

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