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What the heck is "Reddit" and what have they done to my stats?

  1. mistressneko
    Member

    Woke up this morning... logged in to check my Blog and something made my stat numbers go all screwy overnight. A quick check tells me I'm being "referred" by something called "Reddit".... nearly doubled my views, but looks like some sort of spammy web spider in behavior.

    Looking it up I find it's some sort of social networking thing... but I've never joined it or anything, so what the heck is going on? Is this anything to worry about? Is somebody messing with me?

    The blog I need help with is nekonekomovielitterbox.wordpress.com.

  2. mistressneko
    Member

    Grrrr!! It's all being directed by something targeting one single post....

    It's thrown all my stats completely off to suddenly have over 1000% of incoming traffic going to this one single post. Not liking this.... not at all.

    I'm going to edit the shortlink code for that post and see if that stops it. Any suggestions to make it never happen again?

  3. robrubin
    Member

    Reddit is a web bookmarking site like Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. Someone must have submitted your post to Reddit because they liked it and gave it a clever title that now several people are clicking on.

    My question is, why are you upset about that? Wouldn't you want more readers?

  4. mistressneko
    Member

    The traffic doesn't seem to act like additional "readers"... they arrive at one post and disappear without even a single view of any other page, has more the look of a sudden assault by web spiders from a search engine than anything else. My site hits have tripled overnight but without comments or any other sign that anybody actually read a thing they found. If it were actually bringing more people in, I'd at least expect the Frontpage to get some increase in traffic as well.... but nothing like that is happening.

    I do want more "readers".... just not loads more meaningless traffic skewing my stats. At least with search engine hits, you know the search term that brought them to you. This all just seems so random.

    Anyone else have a similar experience?

  5. teamoyeniyi
    Member

    Reddit is legit, as robrubin says. You don't know if you will actual capture some of those readers or not. Give it a chance. Some come back!

  6. teamoyeniyi
    Member

    Well, when I say "legit" - as legit as any of these bookmark things really are!

  7. mistressneko
    Member

    Ahhh.... paranoid suspicious lil' me reeeeaally hates when things go goofy and different. Just part of my nature.

    So... this is a simple "non-problem" then.... (Breathe girl... Breathe... and it'll all be alright...)

    Still gonna keep a fuzzy eye on it for a couple of days though... (Remember... it's not paranoia if they turn out to really be out to get you...Hehehehe!!)

  8. timethief
    Member

    Search produces results > http://en.forums.wordpress.com/tags/reddit

  9. timethief
    Member

    @mistressneko

    The traffic doesn't seem to act like additional "readers"... they arrive at one post and disappear without even a single view of any other page, has more the look of a sudden assault by web spiders from a search engine than anything else.

    Your observations are astute. Your blog will experience queered stats due to the fact these "readers" who spend seconds on the site click in and out on the same link. That's called a "bounce". There may be a tiny number who clicked in on one post for seconds who may actually return and read. It's a slim possibility at best. Ten Strategies for Reducing Bounce Rate

  10. raincoaster
    Member

    Redditors are very very focused. If you want them to look around your blog at other posts, put a list of Related Posts in the post they keep going to.

  11. teamoyeniyi
    Member

    I can't figure out their tag things..............

  12. mistressneko
    Member

    It's calmed down to normal again after a two day spike.

    I ended up cautiously sneaking back along the referrer link to find out what was the origin point. Seems somebody put my review for the odd Indonesian horror film "Toilet 105" up as part of one of those "aren't Asians weird" kind of posts. Harmless... and apparently fleeting in interest.

    @timethief thanks for the link, I'll certainly read up on some of this stuff so I don't go freaked out again so easily.

  13. robrubin
    Member

    I wish other people would submit my posts to Reddit, Digg, etc. You are not really supposed to submit your own content there.

  14. timethief
    Member

    You are not really supposed to submit your own content there.

    Correct and if you do you will eventually find that other members will start voting them all down.

  15. raincoaster
    Member

    Reddit's interest, unlike that of Stumbleupon, has a very short half-life, same as Fark. You've got to get in there and add

    "Edited: HI REDDITORS! IF YOU LIKE THIS POST, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE THESE RELATED POSTS..."

    and you have to get it in there the first day.

  16. mistressneko
    Member

    No longer getting the weird surge of hits on that one post, but maybe there is some actual benefit to the whole thing... Today, without any referral hits coming in from Reddit (222 yesterday, but only 1 single one today) I'm actually way up in visits still. Nearly a third more than normal for this part of the week.

    These new ones are mostly on my frontpage and scattered through a couple of more recent review postings. Some of those "returners" maybe? That would be nice....

    Having some of them comment would even be nicer.... :)

  17. raincoaster
    Member

    Getting a link from a powerful page, like the front page of Reddit, is going to have a lasting effect (for at least a few months, till Google decides it's stale). I find something going viral does drop off within 48 hours but as long as you have new, interesting and preferably related content, 10% of those people return.

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