Saturday, September 11, 2010

Мое Новое и Захватывающее Открытие

There is a feature of this blog universe that I discovered that I would be thrilled to share with you but I'm sure you already know about it so I feel a little silly proclaiming my discovery. It is as if I made a wondrous announcement that I discovered a brand new exciting thing called a Can Opener only to discover that you had known about it for years. So to call attention to my discovery also calls attention to my knack for not paying attention.

It is called 'Stats' and is the very last tab at the top of my screen as I speak. I noticed it the other day and said "Hmmm" and then my daring sense of exploration kicked in and I boldly clicked on it. It opened up a fascinating series of pages that gave me a renewed sense of silly satisfaction. You see, when I see anywhere from ten to twenty comments on a blog entry I pretty much assumed that ten or twenty people stumbled upon my entry. But the 'Stats' page tells me for my 49 entries, 2,419 people have viewed them which averages out to 49 views per entry. I can take this a lot of ways. In one sense I can surmise that over 29 people view each blog and they didn't think it worthy of comment. That is thinking negatively. Perhaps ten people viewed each blog three times simply because that succumbed to the seductive  and sophisticated layout of my blog. Actually that seems unlikely.

But averages are misleading. If I look to see which blogs got the most views, depression sets in. Some of my entries were a bit haphazard -- you know, 'throw away entries', those things written in fifteen minutes on the spur of the moment with little aforethought. My entry, We'll Leave the Light on For You was one of those -- and it got 249 views. Almost 250 people lined up to read this silly entry which rates about number 30 on my list of meaningful blogs. My most dynamic, innovative, soul stirring entries such as: The Miscreants, The Piccolautist, The Kiss, and Blowing in the Wind didn't even rate. I was terribly disgruntled about this until I figured out that there was no data available for more than a couple of months ago. So it is possible that someone read them after all.

So that means that the 'Stats' tab is a relatively new feature which means I may have discovered it before you which pretty much means that I am a hero.

There is more on that 'Stats' tab. There have been sixteen people in Russia which have viewed my entries....or one person in Russia that has viewed my blogs sixteen times...or two people that have...anyway, I have a  Russian friend...or friends. I think it is important to strengthen the Russian-Texan ties -- so if you are from Russia please leave a comment and tell me "Hey! I know you thought I was from North Carolina but I am really from Russia. Really!" Or -- let me help you out here:  "Я - из России, и я читаю ваш blog."

And then there are those twenty-two Brazilians...or fewer: "Olá os meus amigos brasileiros do seu amigo de Texas."

Now when someone asks me, "Do you blog", I can with modest humility proclaim, "Aw yes. I am an international blogger."

I wish there was some way to search for stuff in this Blogspot thing. It would be neat to plug in 'Lithuanian Wine Connoisseur' and be connected to a Lithuanian wino blog. Or maybe search by genre: 'Bloggers with In-Grown Toenails'. Would someone work on that?

This is my entry on 'Stats'. This is one of those throw-away entries and you don't have to view it.

27 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your International Blogger status!

    I recently noticed that "Stats" tab as well. I clicked on it and my mind immediately went into meltdown mode - as I don't have a head for numbers - so stats just made it explode.

    The fact that you were able to interpret the data does make you a hero in my book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I did notice the stats tab back when it came about, but I also spend a lot more time on blogger than you do. :)

    If you'd like to search for specific blogs (though they aren't all on blogger), go here: http://blogsearch.google.com/

    Ironically, if I search for "Lithuanian wine connoisseur", the first thing that comes up is your blog! :)

    I very much enjoyed the entries you consider your most dynamic. My guess is that those don't have as many hits because they don't have pictures, and your Motel 6 blog had several. Even if it's the same amount of words, people are more likely to read a blog with pictures because it looks a little broken up and less intimidating (or at least that's my theory). Of course, once you hook 'em, they're bound to read everything you write anyway, since you are such a wonderful storyteller, but pictures get butts in the seats.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a cool post.;) And here is my confession, I knew nothing about the stats tab. I will have to do some of my own exploration.;)
    I used to speak, read and write Russian fluently as a child, it is all gone now. Otherwise I could have translated the title of this post.;)
    Thank you for your kind comments today and have a lovely weekend,
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  4. I had to go look. HOng Kong? China? Apparently Germans are particulary fond of my blog. I would say thank you but I don't speak German.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'll have to check out the Stats tab, but I've looked up my metrics in Accounts all along and it's probably the same thing. This is how I discovered that my sister had never read my blog. No one in Colorado had. Now that's a stat I have trouble interpreting.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You really are a hero as you have provided me yet another source of entertainment and interest. I tested it out and wondered why I was of more interest in Malaysia than I am in my own country, Canada. How strange and fascinating. Some of the statistics were a bit puzzling and I am having trouble understanding what a "pageview" is. How can there be more comments on any given post than there are "pageviews"? How does one comment without viewing? Another point worth noting is that you are listed as a "referring URL" which I imagine means you are handing out flyers with my name on them. How kind of you! Thanks for being a hero.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Curiouser and curiouser... I find another section which provides a short list of key phrases that have landed innocent people in my blog. This part must be the most interesting so far. When I picture some hapless guy trying to find information on safety rules for cabinet making he must be terribly disappointed to find that it leads him into my world where somewhere I must have said something once about cabinetry and safety, but which is absolutely *not* the subject of my blog. Hilarious. I love this new tab. Thank you thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Everything about blogging and the internet confuses me. I once wrote a post on how I lost and then found my cuckoo clock, and that it was broken and I needed to search for someone to fix it. Minutes later I had a comment from a cuckoo clock repairman!

    ReplyDelete
  9. my hero! I never noticed it before :) thank you for opening my eyes ... now I am off to check out where my "views" come from so I can stalk them and convince them to leave a comment ;0)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow now you have me going back to my blog to see if I can find a similar area of stats. Come on...we all like our blogs to be read. If we didn't we would keep a personal journal just for ourselves. There is a certain measure of ego gratification in having your blog read and an even bigger one when someone (like you) take the time to leave a thoughtful response. I really like your "throw away post" today. Thanks!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow! What a cool discovery! It's interesting (and maybe a little depressing) to see how many people may be checking out the blog. Also it shows where they were referred from, and even what people were looking for on google when they stumbled on it (I hope none of those people were disappointed in what they actually found.)

    One other thing that I noticed was that there is a link underneath the pageviews that says "Don't track your own pageviews". Clicking it adjusts your settings so that anytime you look at your own blog, that doesn't skew the stats. As an example, I view it everytime I sign in to blogger to check my subscriptions, every time I post, and recently, I looked at every post when I organized all my tags.

    At any rate, Jerry. I'm not from Russia, and while I don't always leave a comment, I do enjoy your blog, and am proud to be included as one of your statistics.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Here's a couple of answers for Mischief...

    Jerry can be a referrer for you because your blog "Dot dot dot" is in his blog list. Referrer is just the interweb's way of saying "this is where a link to this site exists...If you liked this, maybe you'll like that too."

    More comments than pageviews might be because people are viewing the blog as a whole instead of just the single post... I'm not sure, but maybe there's a distinction between the two pages.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I will mention the need to my hubby, he has ingrown toenails, maybe he would like to blog about it! It is interesting that more people read your blog than you realized. Just like in recovery, you don't know what your posts will mean to others, maybe some people have read one of your posts and it struck something in them and was meaningful yet they did not leave a comment. You don't know. Just keep on writing and sharing and put it out there for those who are reading.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Those 250 people who lined up to read "We'll Leave the Light On For You" must really be fans of Motel 6.

    Terrible shame that some of your very best posts (heartwarming, lyrically written, thought-provoking) were seemingly passed over. But no worries, the core group of commenters on this blog all loved 'em.

    I'm glad of the Stats button since Sitemeter no longer seems to work for me. But before it went Tango Uniform, I managed to spot some people reading my blog who were from...ah...some unusual places. I seem to be huge in Lithuania.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I too have discovered the stats bit of my blog and can't decide if I'm depressed by it or not. Are there too few people? Does nobody love me? Why does no-one like my favourite posts? Just reduced me to a mass of insecurities. And I wonder about the two views from someone in Albania. I'm a wreck.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I can't beat Madame DeFarge's comment(which deserves a prize,Jerry) So I'll just smugly note that yep, I know all about the old stat button and that I too wince when a lovely witty educated post (aren't they all *wink,wink*)gets sidelined for(in my case) £%!$% fireflies!?!- 42 times that blooming post has been re-tweeted. xxx

    ReplyDelete
  17. I saw it and explored it and also felt the sting that my most veiwed post was a silly one.."Bird's Nest BBQ" I figure they must be searching for a bird's nest recipe.
    I quit looking at!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Stats you say? wow. I should totally see about that. I don't usually write anything interesting though so maybe I will leave it alone lest I become depressed or at the very least really bummed out. But on the other hand I might get happy...to look or not to look. hmm

    ReplyDelete
  19. I can say I haven't noticed the stats tab before this, I had to jump back over and look to see if I had one and yes it is there, not sure about the numbers but they fall in line like you said, the ones I worked hard on have fewer views than the ones that flowed together quickly, just goes to show that not much thinking goes into a good blog post :)

    Congrats on your international blogging status and if I ever need a Lithuanian wine connoisseur I now know who to come to.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Jerry...long time! I left you an award over on my blog. Go get it, buddy! Hope all is well! :)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Congratulations! I never noticed it. I think I will go check it out...thanks for sharing "Professor". I'm off to check my stats...

    ReplyDelete
  22. To further complicate the picture, if you run any sort of Google Adsense on your page, you have access to the Monetize tab, which leads you to Google Analytics. That provides additional information and graphing, so you can dig deeper into information about your blog audience--more stuff to confuse and boggle the blogger.

    And here's the real kicker; the same sorts of Google bots produce both sets of stats, but the stats don't agree with each other. The Monetize stats do not agree with the Stats stats.

    I'd rather just write a post than figure all that out. The whole thing gives me Bloggers Block.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I do love the stats, but it's so easy to become reliant on them! And then, when you had 170 readers yesterday and only 140 the next, you wonder, What did I do wrong?!

    And then comes the wailing.

    Pearl

    ReplyDelete
  24. My fragile ego won't let me click on my stats... I don't think I could handle the disappointment.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I noticed the tab but hadn't gotten around to clicking on it. Thank you oh intrepid one for doing so first and then explaining it. I'm pretty sure I'll find out I'm famous in Venezuela or Slovakia.

    ♥Spot

    ReplyDelete
  26. Honey, welcome to the world of stats. Your life will never be the same. Those stupid little numbers, feeds and views will slowly consume you...and you'll never understand why one post receives so much more attention than another.

    This is an ongoing discussion I have with a fellow blogger...it seems no-one seems to understand what will make one a hit or a miserable miss.

    Let me know if you figure this out....but know that you're already my hero.

    ReplyDelete