Thursday, May 12, 2011

A Mystery

If somebody can provide me with an answer to this mystery that has been bugging me for months, I will be very grateful. Why would a person come to the same post on this blog (always that one post) on 139 different occasions and on each occasion just sit there for hours pressing the Refresh button? Why would a different person from a different country do the same thing on the same post on 214 different occasions? The post was written almost a year ago. There is no discussion going on there. What do these readers want? And how can I give it to them because this is starting to get too mysterious.

In case you are wondering what the post in question is, you will find it here. But, please, don't join the party and start refreshing it every 5-10 minutes, or I will go nuts.

P.S. And while I was writing this post, one of the people in question pressed the Refresh button on that post once again.

P. P. S. Another interesting detail: one of the readers in question is from Norway and another one is from Sweden. I wouldn't confuse them with anybody else because the names of the towns they are from are very long and difficult to pronounce.

Here is a picture of the visits, too:

It's much longer but I cut it because I don't want to fill up the entire blog with it. And this is just one of these 139 visits, as you can see. 

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, because of the phrase "end times", probably... you know those end of the worlders are pretty obsessive. Just a guess, but...

Clarissa said...

So they might be waiting for the end of the world right here, on my blog? Hah. I don't think I will be able to oblige them in this respect, though.

KT said...

It could also be an internet bot - meaning there are keywords in the post that an automatic computer robot finds interesting. Happens on my blog too.

Clarissa said...

It isn't trying to place spam or anything. Maybe it's a curious, philosophically minded bot.

Clarissa said...

Ahh, now that sounds very probable. Might that be true?

Saia Sikira said...

oh, maybe they just want to make publicity of the book you reviewed ad they think making your post "the most viewed post ever" would make a point...

feMOMhist said...

damn I saw the teaser and thought I was in for a book recommendation, not that I should be reading mysteries or anything :)

Pagan Topologist said...

"maybe they just want to make publicity of the book you reviewed ad they think making your post "the most viewed post ever" would make a point..."

That sounds really likely, in fact.

Clarissa said...

"damn I saw the teaser and thought I was in for a book recommendation"

-Oh, sorry to be misleading! To make up for this gaffe I will post a review of a mystery from Norway a little later.

Tim said...

How do you know that it is one and the same person ?

Same IP address ?

Does your blog provide you with a referer ?

Because if it is the same IP address over and over again, it might be someone who snatches your review for their own side.

Clarissa said...

I guess it's the same IP address because how else would the statcounter recognize it as the same person? But there is no referrer so I have no idea how these people arrive here.

I guess the version of somebody trying to boost the ratings makes the most sense. I never even considered it before people mentioned that it might be possible.

Kay said...

This is interesting because I had a somewhat similar problem with my blog a couple years ago, getting a lot of unexpected traffic from Libya, Eritrea, and Sudan.

I never figured out exactly what the problem was but the theory that made the most sense was that someone had either bookmarked or downloaded one page, and was using it to send spam through the "email me" link that I had placed on the sidebar. I figured maybe they were changing the email address to suit whatever purpose they had.
I removed that popup link and just posted my email address instead with (at) and (dot) so *I* would not be getting spam.

If it makes you too nervous, there is a service called Toolator (Google it) which enables you to block by IP address. The lowest tier of service is free.