Nothing in the internet industry has caused more confusion than the meaning of web traffic statistics.
Whether you are talking about "page impressions" or "unique visitors", nobody is too sure what the relevance is. But the City was so obsessed by these numbers when valuing web sites, it ignored the fact that visitors, no matter how unique, mean nothing if the site cannot make a profit or, at least, be close to a profit. Which was really not too smart.
Events during the past week have reaffirmed interest in visitors, unique or not. Because when you have too many of them they can hit profits in the most obvious way - the web site crashes and downtime is very expensive.
Not that you would want some of these people visiting your site anyway. Basingstoke-based internet service provider (ISP) Cloud Nine Communications said it had been forced to cease trading by hackers who overwhelmed its networks with bogus traffic.
The company suffered a denial of service (DoS) attack which lasted for five days and prevented legitimate customers from using its services.
DoS attacks are not new but in Cloud Nine's case they proved fatal and the company agreed to let Zetnet, another UK-based ISP, to take on its 2,400 customers for an undisclosed sum - another example of the industry consolidation analysts fear could reduce competition and increase prices.
Although geneologists aren't as dangerous as hackers, too many clicks make light work of crashing web sites. Last month's downing of the 1901 census site was by no means malicious but an example of the age-old maxim you can have too much of a good thing.
The bad news for geneologists everywhere is the site's re-opening has been delayed - again. The site lasted only four days after more than 30 million users tried to access the Public Records Office.
Lib Dem MP Edward Davey said: "More people went to this site than watched Big Brother, than voted on Pop Idols, than voted in the last election." Which makes you think, doesn't it?
The office said the site would be up and running by the beginning of February but the relaunch has been delayed another three weeks. It is a delicious irony when the future of e-government is at the mercy of information more than 100 years old.
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