GilaChess was Hacked!
Last night GilaChess.com got hacked. And the hacker was me! Yes I hacked my own site 
Some thought it was a big joke but most thought that my site was really hacked. Sorry for the deception and if you were fooled by this. I just wanted to test a theory of mine.
If GilaChess was to close down temporarily just for one day, the traffic should be diverted to other websites such as Stonemaster. It was only logical. That’s the main reason I “hacked” my site and rendered it useless for a 24 hours.
Some of you saw this:
or this:
10 minutes after the hack I already got messages via SMS, Instant messaging and phone calls warning me that someone “hacked” GilaChess.
Anyway it was worth it just to look at the stats:
My theory was wrong. Even though GilaChess went down, the traffic for Stonemaster did not increase significantly. So this can only mean both Stonemaster and GilaChess have the same audience. These are people who visit to both sites. So when my traffic dropped, Stonemaster traffic did not increase because the same visitors were already there. So I see no reason for a traffic fight as the majority of chess players will go to both sites.
Another reason for the hack was to show Stonemaster that who has the biggest traffic is not important to me. He can be the new no. 1 for forever 
. GilaChess main function is as a news website and making sure organisers gets their event publicised. It’s as simple as that.
Good luck and congratulations to Stonemaster.biz as the new No. 1 biggest no of visitors for a Malaysian Chess website.
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Comments
Papyn, you do realise the hacker was me don’t you?
I know. The other attractions of Stonemaster is
- chat
- online chess
- own sponsored chess tournaments
for that GilaChess.com at the moment cannot compete.
[...] on Nov 20 it was like a slap in the face. I never expected it. I went into denial and even hacked my own site. However, after a long think, I guess I deserved ‘kena tembak’ by SM for neglecting my [...]
Actually, the traffic figure may be misleading and greatly overstated. During times you did not update, I personally visited and revisited the site repeatedly only to see nothing had changed. This means that even if you do not update for a short period, the traffic may not go down too much immediately, but then you run the risk of a drastic traffic drop when people do not return when they think there are no more updates.
I also think your sms updates are too infrequent.
Wow.. Malaysian, you dig up a post half a year ago!
Yeah traffic has since picked up and yes there is a lag before traffic drops.
Yea, we Malaysians visit all the available sites because of the lack of it. I personally visit both, and one of the reasons why I think your site has been visited less is because, in my opinion, the amount of chess news has not been as much as it used to. While you did post, it was of something else.
Stonemaster, while not updating frequently, managed to keep his audience as he keeps visitors on their toes with announcements of the Stonemaster tourneys which attracts a lot of interest. There are also those who come back to play correspondence chess and chat on the gigantic shoutbox.
But at least the hacker had taste. The message was very cute indeed.