So how does the traffic I get here compare to an established Web site, like the OpenBSD aggregator undeadly.org? Undeadly linked to my OpenBSD story…
Can you guess when?
No, they weren’t the only ones. But 6 of my top 10 referring URLs were in undeadly.org. The lesson is, do not feed the puffer fish. They will swarm and eat you like the tender tasty morsel you are. They even crashed my helpless little server. (Admittedly, I’d done terrible things to the server configuration, including twaddling knobs labeled DO NOT TOUCH, but that’s not the point.)
This is not the first spike I’ve gotten; my BSD/wikileaks article dang near went viral. So, another lesson I might learn is: if you write something that’s honestly interesting, people will find you. You really don’t have to break your back promoting it. Lots of writers babble about self-promotion, but most of it is an example of “solving the wrong problem.” Rather than pimping what you’ve written, make your work more interesting.
But that’s too positive for me. I think I’d rather just fear the Puffy.