
89,094% Traffic Increase: Data on the Slashdot / Digg Effect - jakestein
http://themetricsystem.rjmetrics.com/2008/11/12/89094-traffic-increase-data-on-the-slashdot-digg-effect/
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gojomo
Two things that I wouldn't mention _except_ that the source is a metrics
company, and so these fine distinctions may be worth considering...

() when reporting an 890x rise in traffic, precision to the percentile
("89,09_ _4_ _%") is a bit silly. Hell, I'd just round up to 900x.

() the very idea of reporting the increase as a percentage or multiple is
suspect; the peak traffic is not a function of the earlier traffic. Rather,
it's an absolute spike based on keen interest in the article topic, and the
arbitrary multiple tells us more about how small the pre-spike traffic was
than the size of the slashdot/digg effect. The real number of interest is the
absolute value: ~110K page views over the peak 3 days.

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swombat
Yep, that matches up with my experience when my blog got slashdotted and dugg
and all that.

The thing they don't know yet is they'll get a good 2-800 daily hits from the
residual effects of being linked by so many other sites, many months in the
future.

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jfarmer
Traffic sharkfins aren't something to be proud of, really.

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brandnewlow
explain. It's better than a sharp stick in the eye, right?

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jakestein
Agreed. I think it's unrealistic to hope that level of traffic from the first
2 days of being on slashdot and digg would continue. And it's clearly a good
thing that our new company blog got lots of exposure. So I'd greatly prefer a
sharkfin to a flatline. Especially since, as swombat suggested, we have been
getting residual traffic as well.

