They don't want thousands or millions of visits to their site. The Proposal Group is successfully using the web as a method of delivering precisely targeted information to specific clients. A web page begins at the inbound link on another site. Reader expectations are set and managed there. In addition to monitoring your competition's technical changes, pay close attention to their inbound link structure.
Inbound links are the best kind of marketing success.
While non-web media publicity and marketing can yield significant traffic spikes, inbound links provide a steady source of visitors. Use this same formula to see your competition's inbound link structure. AltaVista's Advanced Query gives some very interesting additional possibilities. Imagine that we saw Yahoo as a major competitor. That hot list is the solid material for a short term very targeted marketing campaign.