Sunday, April 04, 2010

Vanity, thy name is.....Ron? UPDATED

About the middle of last month, someone made a rather brash promise, which I thought they would make good on, and did.
I got this little love note in the form of a comment from "Ron in Houston," whoever he/she/they is/are:
"Apparently your

'Authori -Tay'

has diminished and is well on its way to obscurity.

Your current Alexa rating: 387,641

Current rating of Texas FLDS: 383,772 and rising every day."
I'm sure it will, "Ron." Since last month those behind the site Ron brags up have been conducting what amounts to a small "denial of service attack" against their own site. Well, more accurately a "denial of service" attack is the same sort of tactic used to phony net ratings, multiplied exponentially, so as to block legitimate users from accessing a site, a sort of internet traffic jam.

The point is, the "hits" aren't real.

How do I know?

Aside from the fact that the "ratings rise" was meteoric in nature (approximately 2 weeks from the internet boondocks to stardom in a "no FLDS news" environment), there is this curious fact. FLDS Texas site visits, have no antecedent, no "precursor," or in internet lingo, no "upstream."

100 % of FLDS Texas visits go downstream to "Google," and none of them come FROM somewhere before they get to the blog.

By contrast there were several upstream sources and downstream destinations relating to the Modern Pharisee.

An analysis of search terms shows nearly 81% of the "other" site's visitors that came as a result of a search term, coming as a result of just the term "FLDS." The next place finisher also included FLDS and Walther, so really 85% came from one search term, the next place finisher was "Merril," at 1.26%.

For the "Modern Pharisee" there were 8 other search terms that outranked their second place finisher, including searches for me, by name, specifically as an exact phrase.

All this means is the numbers were "doped" or "juiced" and the obsession of those at that site is so overwhelming that they sought to win our little match by monkeying with their own score card. It also means that I am so important to them, that they felt it necessary to tie up several computers nailing their own site repeatedly so as to create the impression, all for my pleasure, that they were kicking my behind.

As you wish.

I haven't blogged about site rankings as a topic much in the last 7 months, the last significant post on the topic being in September of 2009.

It's also hard to believe that I'm dealing with many real people in that group, it's hard to even call them a "crowd." They continue to have remarkably similar sensitivities and bursts of temper and styles of trying to get a reaction out of me personally. You should see the emails I get. "Ron" even ended his little tantrum, with this:
"Post some more Marty Braemer posts and maybe those folks who really give a crap will boost you a few points."
Why do they care so much about Marty?

Marty is a guy who diddles teachers, and does it right in front of kids, and then calls the kids liars. He's an apparent embezzler from charitable and non profit organizations, like the Fort Plain Little league, and "they," whoever "they" are, seem to really be sensitive about me picking on Marty, "TxBluesMan," whatever the heck THAT is, once tried to extort me to remove posts ABOUT Marty.
TxBluesman (August 31st, 2009) - "I'll make a deal with you.

You take down the series of posts dealing with the adulterous preacher who you apparently dislike and issue a public apology, and I'll take down Stamp's comment and issue an apology for his comments.

You incessantly slammed this preacher, humiliated him and the woman he was involved with, when one post would have been sufficient. There was no need for that type of conduct."
Why the concern for a lecherous, adulterous Independent Free Baptist Pastor who abuses kids (albeit indirectly) by conducting sexual affairs right in front of them? I mean, I thought they were all about old men abusing kids in some sexual way. Granted, what Marty did isn't having sex with kids, but groping someone else's mother right in front of a kid, isn't a whole lot better.

Why the concern about someone who seems to have stolen kids baseball money?

Weird. I can't fathom it and I really don't spend much time trying.

Oh, while I was composing this, Ron wrote another love note:
"Boo!!!

Perhaps I'll boost your ratings...

Oops maybe not, because I only have Alexa installed on my firefox account!

How does it feel to be rapidly sinking into obscurity?"
Go back to your boiler room Ron. By the way, are you admitting to hammering your own sites with hits?

UPDATE (4/5/10 6:41pm Eastern): Best theory as to how "Ron" (who doesn't care about site rankings) faked it.

There is no "upstream" source for the hits to FLDS Texas, they are all direct.

Ron rigged the home pages for the Houston Public Library so that the would pull up FLDS Texas. The next page DOWNSTREAM from FLDS Texas, is Google. (Average user signs on, and says: What the !(*@)^#)(*, and then goes to Google.)

Is "Ron" more than a Lawyer? Is he...a....a.....LIBRARIAN?

Or is that just where Ron gives legal advice?

MORE WONKY STUFF: I mentioned above, there is no "UPSTREAM" to FLDS Texas site visits. What this means is that whoever is coming to the site, came there because the browser they used had it's "home page" set to the site, or they typed in the web address or accessed it from favorites on a "blank page."

FLDS Texas, during it's rocketing rise in Alexa Rankings, had a corresponding "Descent into Hell" plummet in it's visitors by "search results." Namely, over the last month, 75% fewer people found the site as a result of "googling" it. That suction was so powerful, that it took the 3 month ranking to -73%. By contrast, this site experienced a 114% increase in discovery by search, maintains a healthy "upstream" number and downstream one (in terms of diversity). The Pharisee's rise reversed a 3 month downward trend at a time when I wasn't posting much (sometimes going a whole week without opening my yap).

For those of you wondering, a "diverse" up and downstream means I am being visited by individuals, of their own volition who have their own agendas and come from wherever they were, going to wherever they want on the internet.

When no one looks for you in the cyber age, but you're suddenly found, and all those who find you go to the same somewhere immediately, the behavior is programmed and unnatural. Quite frankly, it is the "preponderance of evidence" needed to say that someone rigged a bunch of computers to go to a site to "fluff" it's numbers. Those computers (or some of them at least) are probably those of the Houston Public Library. And yes, I do have IP evidence, publicly available if anyone wants to know, of at least one "static" IP used at the Houston Public Library.

The network administrator of the Houston Public Library can identify and walk you to the actual computer in question.


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8 comments:

yutthehay said...

I don't read "Ron's" blog. I don't want to. If I wanted to hear a bunch of crap from People who know nothing about the subject thay are talking about then maybe I would be interested. For someone who dosen't really know the FLDS, This blog "Modern Pharisee" Does a very good job.
Thanks Hugh, for you honest insite. It's people like you who help to build up our country and stand up for the Constitution and it is people like RON who tear it down and tred upon it.

Hugh McBryde said...

As far as I know, there is no "Ron."

yutthehay said...

Oh! My mistake. The Blog is "Texas FLDS" and it is not what's its name's. I think maybe that "TBM" has something to do with it. Another "IT".

Hugh McBryde said...

Don't worry, I don't think you CAN make a mistake, they could be all the same dude/gal/committee.

Ron in Houston said...

Who is the vain one here? It's not even my site, so I don't care what the Alexa ratings are.

As to your assertion that it's manufactured and that I'm in some way manipulating Alexa in some Machiavellian way that so absurd as to be way, way off the charts.

I'd be nice to you and tell you how it was done, but I don't want to spoil your conspiracy theories.

Hugh McBryde said...

Someone posting as "ron" bragged there last month they'd "juice" the numbers. You're the one sending it crowing announcements that the site is now bigger than this one. Whatever was done, it was done as direct access to that site. That's not people finding or seeking the site.

The tale of the tape says someone turned on a bunch of computers and set them to that site, you announced it to me twice, with glee.

Who cares?

You do.

The numbers are faked, if I have it wrong how you did it, they're still fake, and the numbers here aren't faked. The only thing I've done is modify site structure so as to make it more "searchable" (site map/pretty standard stuff) and dump every article into a two page "read." I don't have the resources or anything but general knowledge anyway, but thanks for admitting you juiced the site's numbers.

I can tell you how such a thing might be done in principle, but I don't know how to do it. I only know some people do. Usually the sites display a sudden lurch in "offshore" visits, but there are a variety of ways.

Ron in Houston said...

Yeah Moron

The "bunch of computers" are the READERS of the site. That site has actual readers unlike the two or three you have over here.

Hugh McBryde said...

So which pages at the Houston Public Library did you set to FLDS Texas "Ron?"