The Saltmine Chronicles

Behind the scenes at a web hosting company

Clusty Controls

There's good traffic, and then there's bad traffic

by Sean Conner
on Friday, January 26, 2007

We all bow down to the gods of traffic, but the reality is that not all traffic is created equal. Perhaps if you’re selling junk page views to an ad network for rock-bottom prices, it’s all the same, but for most pages on most “quality” content sites, some kinds of traffic are definitely better than others.

Digg and other social news sites have captured the imagination of publishers because of the massive amounts of referral traffic that Digg in particular can drive, leading to the obvious comparisons to Google and search engine traffic. Danny Sullivan points out that, in terms of raw traffic, sites like Digg seem to beat out non-Google search engines. (TechCrunch’s referral sources was an important reference point.)

But mounting evidence suggests that Digg traffic in particular is less like networking with like-minded individuals at a social event and more like getting attacked by a pack of wild dogs, who leave nothing of value in their wake, other than lessons learned on closing comments and crashed servers.

Via Flutterby, Not All Traffic Is Created Equal

I hadn't given it much thought about the type of traffic coming to a website, but in this interesting (and short) article, a distinction is made between “good” traffic (traffic that leads to sales, say, or people sticking around to view more of your site) and “bad” traffic (a ton of people who aren't interested in your site thundering through and possibly leaving rude comments in their wake).

It's one thing to have your website inundated with traffic (that the server may not be able to handle) with people that are interested in your site; it's another to have your server taken down by people that are overly critical. So, just because you can “digg it,” doesn't mean you want to be “dugged.”

You have permission to link freely to any entry here.

Employees, customers and agents of Pick Internet maintain this web site to enhance public access to the general information about web hosting and Internet service issues. This is a service that is continually under development. While we try to keep the information timely and accurate, we make no guarantees. We will make an effort to correct errors brought to our attention. Users should be aware that the information available on this web site may not reflect official positions of Pick Internet or its management.

Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by Pick Internet. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Pick Internet.

With respect to documents available from this server, neither Pick Internet nor any of their employees, agents or customers assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.

The documents on this web site contain hypertext pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. Please be aware that we do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information. Further, the inclusion of pointers to particular items in hypertext is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed or products or services offered by the author of the reference or the organization operating the server on which the reference is maintained.

Copyright © 2006-2007 by Sean Conner. All Rights Reserved.