Friday, April 04, 2008

Traffic Report - blog stats for March '08

There were 58 posts and nearly 19,000 words on Froogville last month.
(I know, it's hard to keep up, isn't it?)

There were 40 posts and around 9,000 words here on The Barstool.


The number of posts was perhaps slightly inflated by a few 'cross-posts' (mostly about the recent censorship problems I've been having) appearing on both blogs. And there seems to be an emerging tendency for me to throw in more short posts, especially on The Barstool. In general, though, I think I've hit a fairly steady rhythm now. I probably did so almost from the outset, in fact: if I review the month-by-month figures since I started blogging, I find that there were 'exceptional circumstances' at play in every month where the number of posts was much lower (or much higher) than this. Monthly post output on Froogville is typically something in the 50s; on The Barstool, it started off around 30, but with the increase in the number of shorter, more frivolous posts (and regular features), it has nudged up towards 40.

Some predictability in life is reassuring, isn't it?

According to the Sitemeter 'hit counters' in my sidebars, the number of visitors is very stable - at around 160 per week on Froogville and 120 per week on The Barstool. However, the rather more sophisticated tracking service I set up at Statcounter (which I can hardly ever be bothered to go and check) cites figures about 30% or so above that. After a little bit of experimentation this afternoon, I think I have established that Statcounter records visits via the proxy I am currently using, but not those via Anonymouse (and, presumably, not via certain other proxies either); whereas Sitemeter, I think, is unable to log visits via any kind of proxy. And I think neither of them tracks feed subscriptions. So, the total number of my readers might be very mucher higher.

The more detailed data on Statcounter can prove horribly fascinating, potentially addictive. I learn for example that someone in California got a return on The Barstool for his Google search for "supermodel thighs" (although it was way, way down the results, so will never have been seen). I was baffled by this, and had to follow the link back myself to discover that we have Tulsa to thank for this (a comment of hers on my notorious Asexualismo post).

And the most enthralling part of the statistics is the 'visitor map', which shows you where in the world all of your visitors were logging on. Alas, this graphic does not seem to be dowloadable; but here is the breakdown for Froogville for the last couple of days in table form.


12
Unknown

4
London
United Kingdom

3
Franklin
Tennessee
United States

2
Wichita
Kansas
United States

2
Los Angeles
California
United States

2
Boston
Massachusetts
United States

2
Ocala
Florida
United States

2
Brooklyn
New York
United States

1
Littleton
Colorado
United States

1
Seoul
Kyonggi-do
Korea, Republic Of

1
Dallas
Texas
United States

1
Victoria
British Columbia
Canada

1
Beijing
Beijing
China

1
Malacca
Melaka
Malaysia

1
Claremont
California
United States

1
Santa Rosa
California
United States

1
State College
Pennsylvania
United States

1
Pierrefonds
Quebec
Canada

1
Nanaimo
British Columbia
Canada

1
Manila
Manila
Philippines

1
Lenexa
Kansas
United States

1
Salt Lake City
Utah
United States

1
Labelle
Florida
United States

1
Vienna
Wien
Austria

1
Lakeview
Arkansas
United States

1
Bronx
New York
United States

1
Villa Park
Illinois
United States

1
Dorval
Quebec
Canada

1
Dubai
Dubai
United Arab Emirates

1
Syracuse
New York
United States

1
Palo Cedro
California
United States

1
San Francisco
California
United States

1
Brick
New Jersey
United States

1
Henan
Guizhou
China

1
Galway
Galway
Ireland


I know about my clusters of followers - mostly old friends - in the UK (mainly London, Oxford, Edinburgh), and in the north-east United States (worryingly absent so far this week!). But Manila, Malacca, Galway, Oslo, Manila..... and all those other places in unfamiliar parts of North America!! I've got one in Nigeria as well, who drops off this list because his or her location is non-city-specific. Who do I know in any of these places?? Who knows me from there?? Please, stop lurking and say hello!

The list for The Barstool is almost identical (loyal readers following both blogs - I do like to see that!), except for the addition of Mexico City, Riyadh, and St John's (Newfoundland). I never would have guessed I could attract such a diverse and cosmopolitan following.

Please, please, if you are from one of these exotic places, do leave a comment to introduce yourself the next time you drop by.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

err,hi. i'm not from one of the exotic places mentioned in your traffic count but thought i'd say hi anyway. i'm from south of perth, which is southish in western australia - itself very southish of everywhere (and a bit westernish of the rest). i get the rss feed and have become quite addicted to it... unlike my other addictions (sorry, saving it for my own blog should i ever get off my lazy arse, not likely though) this one's quite healthy. if you ever do a poll on how people found your site, here's my answer - i want to go on holiday to beijing but i'd quite like to do it to a tom waits soundtrack. google the two together and we get... you. cheers for that.

Froog said...

Whoah! That's great. Thank you. I haven't tried the Google yet..... but this could just be the finest compliment anyone has ever paid me.

I hope I can retain your interest.

Froog said...

No, that search didn't seem to work for me.

What exactly were the terms you used?

Anonymous said...

not sure now... all i can remember is i was researching beijing, cross referencing tom (i am prone to such juxtapositions, yes i know that's wanky) and here we are... but it works for me, so i am not questioning it.

Caterpillar said...

BTW yes, you have retained my interest :) soi have registered. once again, thanks for the info on beijing, invaluable for my hols.

Froog said...

Good blog-handle, Caterpillar - but I think you can register on Blogspot without actually having to set up a blog. And you don't have to register at all. You can just tick the 'Name/URL' box and type in anything you like - even XYZ is better than 'anonymous'.

I did threaten to block 'anonymous' comments on my other blog, Froogville, a while ago, because it gets just so damned frustrating trying to work out who's who (on the rare occasions when I actually get a significant number of comments, that is).

It's always good to encounter another Tom Waits fan. Let me know when you do head over here for a holiday.