Correlation is not causation, but . . .

Remember all that fake traffic I was getting from Pizza Hut, The Economist, and the government of Mexico? It all disappeared at an awfully suspicious time.

I know some of the other Romantic Christian bloggers have experienced the same thing.

Note added: I don't just mean it stopped around the time of the shutdown. It shut off like a tap. In September, with the fake traffic, I averaged 2,416 views per day. For October so far (excluding October 1 from the calculation), it's 486 per day. Here's the exact moment the change occurred:

• September 30: 2,410 views
• October 1: 1,470 views
• October 2: 480 views

The shutdown began at what in my time zone was 12:00 noon on October 1. If I was getting September-level traffic before noon and October-level traffic after, you would expect about 1,451 views on that day, which is almost exactly what I got.