The Case Of The Twilight Phantom #1: What We Know

Well guys, it happened again. At the strike of midnight there was another unexplained spike in traffic; coming and going just as mysteriously as before. That's twice within the space of 24 hours, and I'm still no closer to being able to offer an explanation as to what's happening.

I have however drawn a few conclusions from the data at hand..

1: There's a singular source.

 This is the only explanation that makes any kind of sense to me. It's not impossible for this to be more than one person based upon the data collected, but it is certainly implausible. One person creating these data spikes for some unknown reason is barely rational as it is, but for it to be a group or a network.. Well that just stretches credibility to breaking point.

2: The source is likely using a bot or web crawler of some kind.

Again, based upon the data captured, this seems like the most logical explanation. All of the views have been spread pretty equally among my posts. So where a human might simply refresh the page to create the spike, a bot or crawler is far more likely to work through links.. And each post is technically a hyperlink.

Another indicator that this isn't human activity is the sheer volume of traffic (175, 78, and 74 views respectively). Excluding this post there are only 67 posts on this entire blog, and I highly doubt that anyone is reading them twice.. Certainly not twice within the space of an hour! They are however loaded with links,  which might bounce a bot to the same post more than once.

3: The source is not malicious.

Whilst what's happening is a bit of a mystery, I don't believe what's happening has any kind of sinister undertone. Comments aren't being left that are either directing readers to download malware, or making threats; so I think it's safe to say there is no dark intent here.

4: This isn't off the back of links I've put out there.

The nature of the internet is inter connectivity, so I could well understand if the traffic was as a result of the suspected bot trawling a site where I had a link. That doesn't seem to be the case though. Blogger tells you where your traffic is coming from, and these spikes exceed all of  my listed sources considerably. It's almost as if this crawler is directly aimed at this blog for some unknown reason.

So that's what I think is happening. Not that I can be sure of course, but based on what I know so far these are the conclusions that make the most sense to me. Somebody for some reason as of yet unknown to me is crawling the site, and generating traffic spikes.

Am I concerned? Not at all, but I certainly am curious! I mean how often do you find yourself in the middle of your own mystery novel? It's exciting! So much so that I've decided  to chronicle this little adventure under it's own noir-esque tag; The Case Of The Twilight Phantom.

Now we just have to wait for The Phantom to strike again! 

It Happened Again!

A few days ago I posted that I had seen a sudden surge in traffic, without rhyme or reason.

Not that I'm complaining, but it happened again this morning. It was a little later today (11:00), and the spike wasn't as big (78 views); but I'd still love to know where it's all coming from. Partly out of curiosity, but also so I can say thank you.

Comparing today's traffic with that of the last time it happened, I have been able to draw a few conclusions; but nothing close to an "ah-ha" moment. For example, I can say without too much doubt that the traffic is coming from the US based upon the data captured by Blogger. The US is however a damn big place, so with regards to narrowing down the source, it's a bit like finding the haystack on the farm that the needle is in.

It also looks pretty certain that they're Firefox users.. Not that this helps me much either, as the list of Firefox users is probably as long as the list of US citizens.

So I'm no closer to working this one out, and solving the mystery of the data spikes. Not that I regard this as a negative. A little mystery keeps life interesting. Whilst we're on topic however, I would like to take the opportunity to say a big thank you to everyone who pops by, shows an interest, posts a comment, or generally gets involved.

Writing for your own pleasure is one thing, but writing for an audience is so much more.

What The Hell Happened At 9:00!?

What the hell happened at 9:00!?.. And can we make it happen again?

Stats are important when it comes to blogging. By keeping an eye on the views each post gets, I can begin to form an idea of what people reading my blog are interested in; and deliver more similar comment. That's why a lot of what I post is so eclectic. It's me getting a feel for what works and what doesn't.

So I would love to know what the hell happened at 9:00 this morning (GMT), that caused a massive spike in traffic.

By keeping an eye on the numbers, I know that based on my current exposure, a new post will attract 10-15 views for the day it is posted. Days with no traffic are also common enough, as I don't update each and every day. So to see a spike of 175 views at exactly 9:00 this morning, with apparently no rhyme or reason is to say the least a little odd.

I didn't post anything, there isn't one specific referring traffic source, and no particular post has suddenly shot up my most read list. In fact, it's almost like it never happened.. But the slightly blurry screen capture to the right doesn't lie.

Did anyone else see a similar spike?