Something happened this month. Whether it’s of any significance I don’t really know.
Most days I glance over the stats Google collects for my blog. Other than a rare comment I don’t get any other feedback. (When I share a post on Facebook I will get a couple comments there.) Blog visits have been poking along fairly consistently for years, about a thousand a month. There will be a weird spike once in a while. Such spikes tend to be some kind of phony stats boosting by other sites that are, I guess, doing the same thing to lots of other blogs in hopes of getting return visits by puzzled blog writers.
There was a big spike in the number of visits this month. 4,000+. Dunno why. Two posts I did this year on suicide seem to have suddenly been noticed by someone: “How does this even work” and ”he can shuffle off his present” … Not that either one is burning up the interwebs. Still, I hardly expected they would outdo my posts on J. Edgar Hoover or octopuses. I can’t figure out from the information Google gives me who is finding their way to those posts and why, as neither seems to be linked to by a prominent source. (Unlike my theft of the passage in William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch that provides the source for “Steely Dan.”) I’m not saying those two posts have spiked my stats. It’s just that seeing unusual visit numbers hit those two posts in particular is a little surprise.
In past stats spikes the spike was sudden and faded fast, spike-like, in other words. This month the numbers have continued at the peak, more or less. Not a one day spike, but numbers that have been going on most of the month. It would be fun to know the story behind them. Has Google changed an algorithm? Has the next generation discovered me?
6 comments:
A similar thing happened to me between October 2013 and May this year-- without any evidence my numbers jumped from 900s to 2,904— the highest rate. Since then, the numbers are back between 900s to 1,500s ... and I have yet t do anthing radically different on my pages. Wayward gnomes perhaps? Bigfoot?
I understand there are many many angels - and reading DIR has got to be a good break from pin-dancing.
I've been reading current and past posts (a few at a time), so that's 1 more visitor accounted for. You always give me something interesting to chew on and digest - nice to have "met" you, cuz!
hi Tracy - Thanks for counting!
Have you ever heard of a commonplace book? It's sort of a scrapbook a reader snips from reading. Used to be the thing. DIR is somewhere between a commonplace book and a journal. (I don't know why I'm feeling the need to define it.)
chew on! G
I'm an article snipper - usually of places to see, things to do, practical reminders. I've never heard of the name commonplace book, but I have a "commonplace folder" with articles, quotes, words that hit a nerve at the time. I'm glad you tried defining DIR. Although related, we're really strangers introducing ourselves to each other!
I just enjoy reading your ponderings. They're interesting. Thank you. a patricia
Post a Comment