I’ve just installed – well my brother did it actually – a blog stats thingummy onto my site, and it’s weird what you can find out from it.
I’m probably talking to people who’ve been doing this from Day One, but it’s all new and shiny to me, and it’s opened up a whole new obsession…
How many people have looked at my site today?
How did they find me?
Where did they come from?
What colour is their hair?
I’ve discovered that people have ended up at my blog when what they really wanted was, and I’m quoting here from blog stats central…
- beta mating season (what does that mean anyway?)
- alan keir salary (they must have been mighty disappointed not to find out how much Mr Keir is banking every month, and instead to discover the minor concerns of a South West maid)
- royale windbreaks (what are they? And what did this poor seeker after strange windbreaks think when s/he turned up here?)
- dulwich mum (sorry DM – I’m sure they found you through me, if you see what I mean)
One of the sites I’ve visited recently uses something called Extreme Tracking, and it’s scary.
It lets you find out loads about your visitors, like –
- geo tracking (eh?)
- system tracking (why would you want to know what systems people are using?)
- referrer tracking
- last 20 referrers
- last 20 search engine queries
- last 20 hard drive referrers
My god, it must be a full time job keeping track of extreme tracking.
Do you do it? And if you do, are you willing to admit to such heavy duty online stalking of your blog visitors?
Or is all this blogging about the mechanics of blogging too metafictional to contemplate?
Darling Keir Royale,
The data you are describing can sometimes be a source of genuine entertainment. I find it endlessly entertaining to observe from mine, that the person who consistantly puts nasty comments on my blog regarding my bad spelling and poor diction, has in fact been spending three hours a week reading my blog since last November!
You see, if I don’t think a blog is up to much, I don’t bother to go back, why waste my time? I would never purposefully leave a comment that would offend – do you see what I mean? Treasure your data, you can use it in a pitch to a publisher … “even the people who hate me will buy my book!” I love your blog.
Beta,
I so feel you on this tracking thing being a full-time job. I’ve added a site stats thing to my blog and it’s nothing like what you’ve shared. I understand the need since I am adding advertisers, but I’m wondering do the ads come with a statistic person and a marketing team? Thanks for stopping by my blog. Hope to see you soon.
I check how many visitors, how many page views and any incoming and outgoing links, I hope I’m not too fanatical.
Jon Ronson was talking about the perils of tracking this week on R4. He said that he once went to visit some of the people chatting about him on the net, for information purposes. When he returned later he found they were excitedly discussing how Jon Ronson had visited their blogs…
I’m always quite glad when it’s a sunny Sunday and my figures dip because I reckon people must be out having fun, as opposed to staring at my rants about errant seagulls. I’ve found I get spikes on bad weather days, dips when it’s sunny.
New all-time highs put me in a good mood for ages, unfortunately the reverse is also true. It can’t be healthy to be mood-dependent on a site meter, but there you go.
I look at the percentage of returning vs new visitors, too, and referring sites.
Agree with DM – valuable data for you to have.
It’s true, you soon get to recognise trends, There are definite dips during the weekend and Christmas is very quiet. Sometimes it’s a bit scary when you see somone at your site constantly, however, its often because they are using you as a convenient spring board to other sites via your blogroll.
It can be potentially depressing as well, when you see a weekly, steady drop in visits, makes you paranoid that people are going off you, or uplifing. I had a huge spike recently when I met up with a very popular blogger and she posted the event on her site.
I think the best thing is to sit back and enjoy all those quirky searches.
Gosh – this sounds a bit compulsive i have two counters on my bog (sorry typo meant blog) one in is visitors and the other is visits (or maybe it hits in techno web language). I have had realtively few comments so far – just Beta Mum, Dulwich Mum and East of Dulwich but a respectable number of visitors. I do wonder who the silent majority are sometimes.
Sorry but just looked at extreme tracking website. I’m such a computing virgin I haven’t got a blooming chance of using one. when it says you need to know how to use HTLM i’m lost. Never mind. Perhaps I need a copy of Blogging for Idiots. I just made that up but I bet there is one.
But where do you stop. Plan more interesting content for bad weather days when you know visitor numbers will increase. Start flagging your next blog scoop. I just haven’t got room for another all-consuming interest. PS How much time have I spent looking at your blog, anyway?
DM – I like that, even the people who hate me will buy it, just to confirm that they’ve jumped to the right conclusion! Unfortunately my stats aren’t sophisticated enough to tell me that information. I will have to search for another service to feed my new obsession.
Dahgirl – welcome. I think adverts would add another layer of obsessing that I couldn’t quite face.
Erica – that’s pretty much all I can do, it’s the frequency of my checking that I’m worried about.
SAHD – Jon Ronson wrote about something similar in his column recently. He’ll have to get himself an anonymous surfing ID.
MatL – I’ve only had them for a week, but I’ve noticed the weekend dip. I guess work can be boring.
Brom – yes, the searches are great fun, although I’ve tried duplicating them and they sometimes don’t get to me, or at least not before I give up looking.
Clara – there’s always a silent majority. I liken it to radio phone-ins. Most listeners listen and don’t call.
OM – I like the idea of trailing an exclusive… “coming up this Sunday, a beta scoop. Don’t miss it. Log on and learn. That’s this Sunday, as soon as I can sneak away from the family and onto the computer.”
My stats don’t tell me lengths of visits. I feel a free upgrade coming on.
HELP! I am a newish blogger. I thought it involved writing a bit every now and then, and browsing other people’s blogs, and making the odd comment if I felt brave. Now I realise it is (a)already an addiction, (b)taking over my life, and (c) I’ve just scratched the surface – it can only gobble up more of me.
I’m going to have to join Bloggers Anonymous, or set it up if it doesn’t exist.
And Clara from West Dulwich, yes, there is a book “Blogging for Dummies”.
It can indeed be quite addictive.
I tend to link to pictures quite a bit and use pics from the web and I get soooooo many people searching on Google images that end up with me – and probably very disappointed!
I just saw yesterday that someone who was searching for “big clitoris” found my site.
Oh Dear.
If they looked hard enough they’d have found this – http://www.cathykeir.co.uk/blog/front-bottoms-and-wee-wees/
Not what they were probably looking for.