Traffic Experiment results

June 3, 2008

Okay, the experiment is not over, but I have noticed a few things through the course of running an experiment for nearly three months.

• Becoming PageRanked is not impossible
• People are scared of linking schemes, or anything that looks like one
• Bloggers who use free blogging systems do not get scared of the above point because they don’t know any better
• Advertising helps
• Progress is slow
• A fair (or would that be unfair) proportion of the results collected thus far are influenced by web spiders (robots)

Let me explain more fully:

PageRank

Traffic Experiment achieved a PageRank of 1 (out of 10) in about 55 days.  I don’t know if that is fast or slow, but it is faster than any of my other sites.  I see that as a win.

Linking Schemes

I believe that my Traffic Experiment has not snowballed effectively because it is seen by many as a linking scheme (which it isn’t).  Yes it does involve links, from me to you and you to me, but it is not a linking scheme because linking is not mandatory on the users part, and is not guaranteed on the Experiments part.  Therefore participants may not give or receive links if they don’t desire to do so.

In any case, I think the fact that Google has not penalised that site or any of my other sites shows that it is not considered to be a linking scheme by them.  And that is the most important thing isn’t it?

Bloggers

Half of the registrants to Traffic Experiment are from blogspot.  This indicates to me that real webmasters have not generally considered the experiment beneficial or worthwhile.  I of course disagree, because its a chance at a free link from a PageRanked site, so that is good for everyone right?  Well, perhaps it isn’t if your site has a higher PageRank than mine.  That’s the trouble with starting out…

Advertising

I have run six campaigns through Project Wonderful, and each time I run one, I get an applicant or two.  Not a stellar return on investment, but capable of generating smooth growth.  I do consider these ads to have been a success.  And for the most part, they have been paid for by the PW ads on the Traffic Experiment site.

Itsy Bitsy Spiders

I have noticed a lot of repetitive traffic from specific IP groups.  So, the first countermeasure was to change the algorithm to only count unique visits every month.  This prevented any spamming of the experiment.  However, the repetitious traffic continued, so after investigating that I found that the IPs were of search engines.  I have since added code to allow me to block IP addresses or address ranges.  It is very handy, because if I detect spiders or robots, I can find out who they are (ie which company) and block the whole IP range that they use.  And I could also blacklist flagrant spammers, if need be…
So…

The Traffic Experiment continues - I want to see how far it can go.  It is becoming more and more refined as time goes by, and it is gradually snowballing.  Besides, it can only help the PageRank of my other sites, and that doesn’t hurt.  It could help your PR too, so sign up if you haven’t already…

Posted in SEM SEO SMO