The Mystery of esx.ie
A week ago, esx.ie was quietly configured as the short-link domain for the Essayism family: essayism.org, essayism.ie, essay.ie, esy.ie, essayist.ie and so forth.
The logic seemed perfectly obvious. They all begin with es; x is an agreeable little code-letter for everything that follows. Neat, compact, almost self-explanatory.
Then, without announcement, promotion, or meaningful use – apart from a default error page and one modest footer appearance – esx.ie received 177 clicks.
This raises several possibilities. Perhaps people are intuitively drawn to concise domains. Perhaps the internet has developed a taste for unexplained initials. Or perhaps 177 accidental visitors were simply looking for somewhere called “Essex” and took a poetic wrong turn.
Whatever the reason, esx.ie has made its first small, mysterious entrance. It appears that even a link can have a life before it has a purpose.
For a micro-second I pondered
Ah. Of course. :–)
The 177 clicks may not have been a spontaneous celebration of elegant URL architecture after all. They were probably seekers of sex.ie whose fingers, morals, or browser autocomplete took a slight turn toward Essayism.
Which is rather wonderful: a short-link domain devised as an efficient code for a family of essays, accidentally masquerading as Ireland’s most optimistic typo.
“Essayism begins where expectation ends.”
David Marshall
Skerries