Tech Note: An Unblocking Experiment

Sci/Tech | Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 7:56:21 pm PST

Just to see what happens, we’ve deleted a bunch of the IP blocking rules from our .htaccess file tonight. Since most bloggers don’t watch for (and block) robots and spammers as diligently as Stinky Beaumont does, I suspect we’ve been artificially deflating our traffic numbers in comparison to other blogs. And sure enough, we’re showing nearly 5,000 visitors online right now—much higher than normal for this time.