What is Slashdot Effect?
The Slashdot Effect refers to a temporary surge in traffic to a website that can occur when a high-traffic website posts a link to a smaller site or blog, causing an unprecedented increase in traffic. If the traffic surge is very large, it will slow the site down or make it inaccessible. The website is then viewed as a "slash".
This term is believed to originate from the website slashdot.org, a technology news site that posts links to other websites to post interesting news. This can lead to a large influx of traffic for these websites in a short amount of time. Websites without adequate server support may be unable to handle the traffic and become unavailable.
This phenomenon has been reported on a number of websites including Drudge Report, Reddit, Digg, and even Twitter accounts with large numbers of followers.
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