SHLASHDOT

Press releases can often trigger increased interest in a certain topic, and if a web site link is provided in the release, this can translate to increased hits to the web site. If the increase in traffic is so dramatic that it causes the server to be almost or completely unreachable, the server is said to have been "slashdotted". The name slashdotted is used because the first incident of this occured in October, 1998 when a press release was published on Slashdot.org web site, causing a major surge in traffic to another web server, causing it to go down. You can also use the term as a verb, such as, "Dude, thanks to that stupid article, our server got slashdotted today, man!"