Thanks for the quick replies, and yes Saretta, I'll be around whenever you get a chance! I appreciate it!
I found my host has a one-click anti-linking button for directories on our server. I set that in motion and within about an hour traffic started to slow. It's a mystery to me really...All of our reference pages were coming from either our own site, or this partiular AVS....well, that and 'bookmark'...which I found out can mean any number of things. And our click thru affiliates saw an increase in traffice (and even a few purchases!). We were thinking a few hundred clicks a day would set us on cloud nine....were we underestimating? We've clocked 2500 unique hits in the last 48 hours...just seems like a LOT! But, as you said, traffic will slow...and it already has started. BACK to the drawing boards.
I'm more worried about the htaccess part now...if I have to separate out each AVS into it's own area areas and ask the AVS's to adjust their listings it'd bum me out. As well as multiply my storage usage since I'd be ceated the site six times over...with six different (but equal sized) content folders (one for each AVS we have). Did I follow that right? Ick...I'll keep you all posted. Thanks again for your help!
~Kyle