Slashdot effect
The
Slashdot effect, also known as
slashdotting, occurs when a popular website links to a smaller site, causing a massive increase in traffic. This overloads the smaller site, causing it to slow down or even temporarily become unavailable. The name stems from the huge influx of web traffic that would result from the technology news site
Slashdot linking to websites. However the name is somewhat dated as flash crowds from
Slashdot were reported to be diminishing as of 2005 due to competition from similar sites. The effect has been associated with other websites or metablogs such as Fark, Digg,
Drudge Report, Reddit, and Twitter, leading to terms such as being
Farked or
Drudged, being under the
Reddit effect, or receiving a "hug of death" from the site in question. Google Doodles, which link to search results on the doodle topic, also result in high increases of traffic from the search results page.