Ah, so that's how he did it. And my own blog ranking tricks

I found this on the Michael Psycho site. It seems he has somehow used proxy.org to vote for himself around 200 times.

Well, looks like at least for the time being, I've snagged the number one spot on the esteemed Sacramento Top 25 list. Amazing how many visitors have shown the love, eh? Thanks to all of me, I mean, you who have been so kind to click my page link and vote me up to the TOP, baby!

And oh yeah, on an, ahem, unrelated note, in my research on my previous accomplishment (namely, getting tagged up by Websense as NSFW) I got a line on a nifty site called proxy.org, which I would like to share with the workers of the world as a public service (at least until your company IT snoop calls you or drops by.) By all means, visit that site and it will help you surf your favorite sites without detecting your local IP address. And there's probably a whole truckload of other uses for anonymous proxy servers as well, but gee, I can't think of them off the top of my head right now!

... You see, being at the top of this list, week after week, makes certain site owners feel special about themselves. They look at their constant weekly number-one-to-number-three ranking as a reason to feel validated, nay, to feel alive. Oh, I'm not going to go into these silly allegations of how these paid actors are putting up advertorial blogs in order to generate money through these insidious shadow marketing sites because at this point, if they were actually stupid enough to do it, it would be chump change and irrelevant anyway. I also won't rant about any self-made attention whores who center themselves on a single scapegoat and think that "controversial" has the same definition as "pandering." No, we don't need to go there.

But, troops... you need to understand. These folks need their top rankings and little mentions in the SacBee Blog Watch. Yes, I know, I've even been there (on 12/16/2007- oh and also linked by the Washington Post) and never made much of a big deal, but to other folks it's a really special thing. So I don't want anyone slitting their wrists just because they checked in on their Top 25 ranking and see my media terrorist ass sitting on top of their chance at fame and fortune because the local media was looking for yet another local blog profile type story and doesn't notice you because you are (shudder!) number 2!"

I started getting massive web hits when put up a site with "finger butts" that got picked up by a major blogger. My site had over 2 million hits in one day, from all over the world, yes even Poland. (If someone used a proxy to view Xenophilia.com from there, I would not be surprised.) After the initial injection, word spread.

I've blogged almost every day for years, adding what I consider to be the world's top stories, pictures and videos, from one strange perspective. I've also put the bressler.org "Top Sacramento" banner on every page I made. Most those pages are still up, bringing in new traffic daily. My article on cavities brought in a lot of traffic, as did one on the hollow earth which got hit by a mention of another site on the Art Bell radio show (2nd largest radio listener population in the US).



I've investigated and copied various other schemes of those at the top and have changed tactics after getting a message from the owner of the ranking site.

I found that linking to other sites in my articles/post brought in more traffic. I have many links because I like to cite sources. Spammers linking to their own viagra posts on my old blog drove up the hits too, until I figured out how to use a spam blocker with WordPress.

The traffic got so bad that I got booted off of my ISP not too long ago. I've used Myspace, links from various dating sites, and other traffic generating schemes like writing a new song and telling people to click the Top Sacramento sites to get to the song. I also bought the domain Xenophilius.org after the character came out in the last Harry Potter Novel, and that brings in new visitors.

All of this over time has given me high Google ratings for some searches, which brings in more hits from all over the world. I was amazed when I put up a visitor map on my WordPress blog a few years back. At the time, I thought it must just be spammers, crawlers, automated bots, or whatever. I still think that is responsible for a lot of traffic.

Another tip: add RSS feeds to your blog. When I post new articles now, that's when my numbers go up. If I don't post for a few days, the site rank drops.

So, Michael, you caught me. I do constantly look for new ways to market. I have done so for years. And perhaps the point about validation from being in the top of the list is a good one. Perhaps I secretly feel unloved, so I resort to Internet validation. Perhaps. I'll look into that some time. But right now, I'm too interested in getting to the bottom of those Nazi UFO rumors as they may relate to the Roswell crash.

PS. Never heard of SacBee Blog Watch. Don't make a cent from this. No advertising.

PPS. Michael, fix your music link. I'd like to hear it, but I get "HTTP 404: File Not Found" on AcidPlanet.

Update #1: Okay, I've checked it out and here is how to use proxy.org to increase your page rank:

1. Go to proxy.org


2. Put in your blog address


3. Click the [Go] button over and over until you finally get working proxy that displays your web site. (Took me 5 tries.)


4. Find your "Top Sacramento Web Sites" banner and click it!


5. Keep doing that over and over for hours.

It works because the site only allows each IP address to vote once a day or so, but this way, as long as you find enough new proxy sites, you can vote for yourself many times. Brilliant... I guess

Update #2: Cripes! A lot of those proxy sites try to infest your computer with malware. Use at your own risk.