Anatomy Of A FARKing

Back in November Diggers Realm got linked by FARK. FARK is a large site that posts news items and if you ever get linked by them you'll see a surge in traffic. The traffic can be so intense for some servers that if your site is dynamic -- such as running off of PHP or PERL -- it could actually take your server down. I didn't have this problem because all my pages are static HTML and the load on the server was almost non-existent.

Traffic Numbers

In terms of traffic after getting linked I was receiving 6,000 hits an hour or roughly 1.5 per second. In the end I estimate that over the next day or two I clocked about 50,000 page views from the link. A hefty number for any website and only my 7th largest traffic day ever. It was nowhere near my largest day, which approached 90,000 page views.

Affect On Advertising Revenue

What does this bump in traffic do to your advertising revenue? You'd figure it would probably make it your highest revenue day ever. I mean the numbers are astronomical. You'd be wrong though. It's affect on the eCPM (earnings per thousand page views) and CTR (Click Thru Rate) was to cut it to 1/10th of normal. You heard that right, 10%. In terms of revenue and clicks, they doubled those days. So the effectiveness of the advertising went down 90% and revenue when up 100%. Not very efficient.

Final Thoughts On This

While a large traffic link seems like a great thing and there are a number of people out there who specifically try and get a link from these high traffic sites I don't think the effort is worth the time spent. If it happens it happens, but to actively seek these links is a waste of time. Most people will go to your article read it quick and close your site. Your time could be better spent making your current traffic, design and advertising more effective.

While it's cool to say you've been FARKed, in the end it's only worth is really bragging rights.

This entry is in the following archive(s):
Analysis Of Changes Archive

Traffic Does Not Equal Revenue
CrispAds As An Alternative To Google