[matthew]

I happen to share a name with a couple of people who should be better known that I am, one of whom hosts a "Pet Rescue" show in the UK and is married to somebodyorother famous, I think.

This past day or so, I've had massive traffic to my website, all coming from the UK, and all searching on "Matthew Robertson", mostly with MSN. (Ironically, most of it's been to a secondary site I maintain, which ranks higher on MSN than my main site.) I've recorded 1100 hits so far today, yet I can't find any news or gossip to drive the spike. Any ideas?

[byrt_001]

hi
maybe they like your photos? or your name has gone public and your famous!!

there is also something that kills your bandwith, sometime like a robot that hits your website a few times. not sure of the name or term. im sure someone will know more about it.

are you a celebrity?

[matthew]

I wish! (Although those people in the UK are pretty smart...) I have heard (thanks, mom) that an image of mine was shown on the Toronto news -- without attribution -- in a general-interest piece about bloggers, but I'm pretty sure they aren't looking for me. A few are sticking around to check out some other photos, though, so that's nice.

I've checked the originating ISPs, and they're varying. Most hits are coming through MSN, but a few are from Google, and not all of them are from the UK.

Stumped. Stumped, stumped, stumped.

I was pleased when my main site broke 1000 hits for March. Now my rarely-updated essay site broke 1,100 in a day. Have I mentioned that I'm stumped?

[Keith Alan]

Pet rescue star Matthew Robertson's wife, TV presenter and Big Brother UK star Davina McCall has announced that she's 4 months pregnant with their third child.

You know how people get with famous baby news.

[shuttertalk]

Lol... enjoy the popularity

I think Keith's on the money - if you search your name in news.google.com, there's some stuff about someone getting pregnant or other.
http://news.google.com.au/news?q=matthew...a=N&tab=wn

By the way, a straight google search on your name goes to your robertsonphoto blogspot page. Well done!


p.s. you should put an automatic redirect and drive all the traffic here!

[shuttertalk]

By the way, check the #2 post on the google news page above... what do you see? A link to this thread!! rofl...

[alastair_hm]

Hope you've got some banner ads to make use of the extra traffic

[matthew]

Thanks, K, ST, for the info. I did check google, but didn't think to check their news engine.

Jules, I checked that link, and ST's now #1.

We rock.

I should have put up banner ads. Unfortunately, I think the crest of the traffic has peaked. Now I need MR-PR to get himself arrested...

(NO, if you're linking to this discussion through Google News, that has NOT happened. At least, authorities haven't confirmed it....)

[NT73]

I would say Davina McCall is more famous than Matthew Robertson TV UK wise.
Davina was the presenter of 'Big Brother' and at the moment, she is on a lot of shows. Don't know which as I am always on ST.