A term for creating Internet traffic

Click-bait refers to internet content whose only merit is to generate traffic. If I wanted to say a site has modified their content to degrade from it's quality for the sake of increasing traffic, I might say the site click-baited their content.

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the practice of making your site more likely to be returned by search engines.

Astro-turfing is used to describe a company or political group pretending to be a bottom up movement. A typical tactic is create false internet profiles and creating comments or reviews using an alias.

Perhaps one of these terms suits your purpose.