Computer whizzes, help me figure something out.

I noticed I was getting huge traffic this morning — over 3000 visitors an hour — and it was nearly all coming from the Yahoo search for "mccain obama vogue photos" — those exact words, in that order. Right now, Site Meter is showing 68% of my recent traffic as coming from that one search! Here's a list of all the recent searches that brought more than one visitor to my blog:

2,721 mccain obama vogue photos 68.0%
1,099 Not referred from a search engine 27.5%
18 althouse 0.5%
4 ann althouse 0.1%
2 tim russert's last interview

(I know. Who the hell is Clint Wolbert? Please don't get distracted!)

This traffic was coming from many different locations, including foreign countries. Look at the Site Meter world map and you'll see these visitors appear to be coming from all over.

Here is Site Meter's chart showing what search engines people are supposedly coming from. 67.5% of current traffic comes from Yahoo. Since 28.2% of the traffic is not coming from search engines, it looks fishy. Does this merely demonstrate the sheer power of being #1 on a particular search? I only come up 6th in a Google search for those words.

Is something funny going on at Yahoo? Is this real traffic that I can feel good about or phony traffic?

ADDED: The question is whether I've stumbled upon evidence of some sort of scheme to create the appearance of traffic on various websites. I don't suspect that this has anything to do with my blog in particular.

PROBABLE SOLUTION: First, I'm sure I know why I had some visitors looking for Clint Wolbert. My blog comes up second in a search for his name (because he wrote in my comments a couple times), and he was quoted in a NYT article today, which would have set off a few searches:

Gay Couples Find Marriage Is a Mixed Bag

... To Clint Wolbert, 28, marriage is too “assimilative.” Being gay is like belonging to an “exclusive club,” Mr. Wolbert said. “I just worry that the drive to marry will end up kind of chipping away at the culture.”

Second, all that "mccain obama vogue photos" traffic most likely occurred because some high-traffic website included a link to that Yahoo search. People clicked on that link and then were motivated to click again to my post, which was the first link on that search. I haven't located that other post, but it must exist. I sometimes link to a search page to prove a point, such as the fact that there's a lot of talk about something. It seems so obvious now. Now, you've seen my little tendency to think bad people are up to no good.

IN THE COMMENT: Clint stops by and expands on the quote!