Web Traffic Explained – Oops

Over the past few months my web traffic has grown like crazy. In the last few weeks it’s doubled. Unfortunately, I think I know why – a disappointing reason.

Someone in Finland inserted a graphic from my website into his. This is not the same as simple linking, in that he used my photo without credit, and had my server send it to his users! So, my traffic was up, but no one consuming that extra traffic actually came to my site or even knew they were looking at a picture from here.

It would be similar to your neighbor running his lights off your meter.

After I found the Finnish site, I found a few others. I have cut them off and now expect my counters to register a whole lot fewer hits… I think.

Too bad. I liked the mistaken thought that I’d become a popular web stop.