If you have any interest at all in webcomics, you should be reading The Floating Lightbulb. Since he started the blog, Ben has been doing his damnedest to inject some journalistic integrity into webcomics, and with today’s post on falsified traffic data in webcomics, he has once again hit it right out of the park.
Lemme tell ya gang, a number of people are probably feeling like they are gonna throw up right about now. Me? I plan on grabbing some popcorn and watching the fun 🙂
Read the article, don’t necessarily agree with some of his assumptions, but definitely want to see what the response is. You’re right about it being popcorn time!
Ken
@Ken, There are definitely some interesting hypothesis in it. Only time will tell just how much of it has a definite effect on traffic for webcomics. I’m gonna be watching things over the next year. Of course, for an experiment I’d like to see someone try the methods and see if they actually have a long term effect on traffic.
Using bots, people have been fudging traffic numbers high since there has been advertising. I used to be an architect for USWeb.
On a click basis, there is no way to tell the difference between a human and a bot. Now add to this the huge zombie armies that are floating around the internet, as a bot delivery source, and you can have sustainably high click traffic.
However, I can’t imagine anyone doing what that writer claims. What would be the point of all that work, is there money in it?
@Slamlander, Yes, it just one strategy out of many used to inflate traffic. Plus, it’s an ego boost as well.