Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Now this blog has been sitting out here on the internet for a few weeks, I thought it might be interesting to look at the numbers (paltry though they are).
About 40 people are visiting my little blog each dayThose 40 people are looking at about 100 pages between them.60% of them are arriving here directly(i.e. straight to the site)this was a huge surprise to me12% are coming from Twitter (I post a link to each post), and 12% from Google+ (again, I post a link to each post).1% come from Tumblr, and none at all come from MediumI tried cross-posting excerpts to both of them, but stopped because it's just not worth it. Medium has been shocking in it's instability, to be honest.70% of visitors are on laptop or desktop computers, 30% are on mobile devices.
Approximately 120 calls are made on the RSS feed each dayI imagine a lot of those are robots.15 people are subscribed to the nightly emails so fartypically 60% look at the email, and 40% go on to look at the blog.
Here's the thing. I don't really careabout the numbersit's not why I write a blog. Sure, I might advertise that I've written something in a few places around the net, but only because I know a few people that use those links to go read whatever I've written.I guess there is a nerdy fascination in how much information is available to those that might use it though. I know if you play with Google Analytics you can do all sorts of things, like tracking who went to page A after visiting page B. I'm never going to do that.
I tend to think that as soon as you start chasing the numbers, you may as well burn the whole thing down, because you're no longer being honestthe content is forcedtargetted at traffic. I know lots of people take part in memes, purely to attract an audience. Not me. All you're going to find here is me waxing lyrical about today's lunchtime crusade (or tirade).
Ohwhile picking holes in what other people doI'm never going to understand or take part in “blog awards”. I guess the most famous of them is the “Liebster” awardgiven by anybody at all to anybody at all, with all sorts of conditions that ensure it's continued virulent success. YesI used the word virulentbecause that's what it isa virus. Pyramid schemes were made illegal in the world of commerce many years agobut they are alive among the blogging community right now.
Anyway. Rant over. Enjoy the rest of your day, and of coursecome back later to see if I've complained about anything else.