|
Actually the topsites scripts are an interesting measure to watch as you make changes on your site. Even watch as activity spikes and wanes because of certain issues taking place in your forums. When ReptiBid had the two headed snake on the auction, their stats went through the roof because of the advertising that one auction brought for them.
And to those of us who might spring for paid advertising, it is extremely helpful to see if our money is well spent or wasted. Yeah, certainly there are scammers in that sort of business as well, if you aren't careful and don't know what to look for.
Certainly some people will cheat, but in reality it is themselves they are cheating. They aren't using the tool as it was designed to be used at all. I believe few people actually use the topsites to in any way "rate" the sites participating there. Does anyone really go to a topsites program thinking I want to see who is on top so I can go there to see what is going on? I doubt it sincerely. Some may use them as a listing of websites to visit, and maybe it is beneficial to be on the front page, but beyond that, when push comes to shove, cheating is just not worth it in terms of the returns you get for the effort expended.
So quite honestly, I think Gary is probably far too busy just running his website to engage in something like sitting in front of the keyboard just to get his hit counter up. That's the kind of stuff I have caught kids doing who just didn't have anything better to do with their time.
The internet is too big, and the ability for browsers to jump so easily from one site to the next, that it doesn't make sense to get worked up over some on line hit counter.
And to be perfectly honest, I had to withdraw my own participation from a few topsites I had this site listed on because the throughput on page displays here was suffering from it. Surprisingly enough (or maybe not really), it didn't affect a thing here concerning traffic or new registrations.
So all in all, it really doesn't matter at all.
|