para-site

A para-site is a website that lives off the popularity of another (usually very popular) web site. Para-sites do this by spamming links pointing to their own site on another more popular website to gain traffic. Because the web sites these para-sites spam on have so much traffic it means that even if they manage to siphon off only a small percentage of visitors they still get a lot more hits than they would have usually. (mainly because para-sites alone are of little interest to the average Internet user and of low quality) Most para-sites will also have a lot of advertising on their websites. This is so they can gain revenue and the main reason para-sites exists. To make money without any effort and by the popularity of others. The name originates from the real term "parasite" which means: "A plant or animal that for all or part of its life obtains food and physical protection from a living organism of another species which is usually damaged by and never benefits from its presence. A person who lives at the expense of others, contributing nothing in return." Para-sites would not exists without the large and popular sites they "feed" off. For example on the known video site 'youtube.com' which allows comments, para-site owners or their bots will try and spam comments containing links to their own site, that lead to their site to gain more visitors and hits.