[KarinG1]

If you would please continue to indulge me, and I appreciate your patience, how exactly would they know where I came to your site from? I don’t allow their scripts to run on my computer and I don’t allow referrer logging, so it seems to me that they would have difficulty tracking connections from my network. If they are doing so I’d really like to know how they do it so that I can put a stop to it.

[Richard Poe]

KarinG1: If you would please continue to indulge me, and I appreciate your patience, how exactly would they know where I came to your site from? I don’t allow their scripts to run on my computer and I don’t allow referrer logging, so it seems to me that they would have difficulty tracking connections from my network. If they are doing so I’d really like to know how they do it so that I can put a stop to it.

Actually, I don't know how they do it. I lack the expertise to answer your question. It is entirely possible that Google may be unable track you, for all the reasons you state.

However, the fact remains that WordPress Stats showed anywhere from 326 to 413 Freepers viewing the BadEagle site on January 31, so obviously some Freepers can be tracked. The technological hurdles are evidently not so difficult to clear.

My question is, if WordPress Stats can do it, why can't Google? Is it because WordPress Stats has superior technology? Or is it because Google prefers not to track FreeRepublic-generated traffic?

If it is the latter, I humbly suggest that it might be in all of our interests to show a little more intellectual curiosity about this phenomenon, and try to understand what Google might have to gain by systematically underestimating the amount of FreeRepublic-generated traffic some Web sites are receiving.

I suggested a possible answer to this question at the end of my article. If my suspicion is correct, it would mean that Google is rigging the system. It would mean that Google is generating fraudulently misleading data, inflating the traffic statistics of Web sites it likes while deflating the statistics of sites that it dislikes.

The possibility that this may be happening should be a matter of concern for Freepers, in my humble opinion.