Saturday, February 14, 2009

Call me Cardinal Sinner.

No the next picture will not be me in a big red hat. I'm about to commit the blogger's cardinal sin. I'm about to blog about blogging. Ok, so it's not a sin and a lot of people do it but I don't really like to unless my brain is just shorting out which I'm pretty sure you all recognize that it is doing so right now. But I digress.

I love all these fun little tracker things you can add to your page - most completely unobtrusively. They tell you where people are coming from, what server or browser they are using, the keywords they used to find you, how many people are stopping by, how long they stay, how often (if at all) they come back and probably a ton of stuff that I don't even understand yet. But this is one of those double edged swords that we all encounter.

Now it becomes a pissing contest to see whose blog draws the most traffic. It turns into that evil demon on your shoulder whispering, "You're a failure. Your numbers are lousy. You're wasting your time." And it slowly drives you insane until you are rambling like an old man in his slippers on the baby food aisle. Or like me right now. In my slippers. At my computer. With ketchup on my shirt.

But see I've given up on the numbers. If you find me and you like me (which of course you will because I'm charming like that), you'll come back. And if you don't as long as I don't dwell on the numbers I really won't know, now will I? So the numbers are out for me.

I love to see where people are coming from and of course the keywords are almost always good for a laugh. Now as for where people are coming from...For The Zoo, I have all but 8 states. That's right! I have managed to draw at least one visitor from 42 of the 50 states. Thank you Sissy and Jen for rocking Arkansas's numbers; B for rocking North Carolina, and Nut for kickin' Florida. Hey! I'd give the rest of you shout outs but you haven't made your personal state dark green yet. Oh yeah! And Tena you get credit for Cali.

So now let's take a peek at this particular site shall we. The Bowl...The Bowl...right! We have 40 out of the 50 states. What blows my mind here is for all the crap I gave New Jersey last week, they have yet to phone in. Just one more reason I think we should just chop them off and let them float. Them and their big rat balloon. The only thing saving them is that they know how to make things smell like maple syrup.

What I really want to know is what Montana has against me! Not a single visitor to either of the sites. I have nothing against Big Sky! I prefer the wide open spaces. Maybe that's why they don't come by - is it too crowded here? Estonia! Latvia! But no Montana.

Anyway, the keywords this week were kind of dull so I won't go into those. But I would like to know who Stefanie Wigen is and why I'm supposed to be celebrating her birthday. Well, I would love to stay and share all of the missing states with you but I have to go see what is holding up the robots on the Webmaster tool. Apparently 7 of them have been jailed and I have to go free them. Just call me Cardinal Big Weld.

4 comments:

Kerrie McLoughlin said...

i love this post! it's fun to check out the stats, see who in my family is coming by, which states. as i get my little articles published in march (hopefully with my blog in my bio) in a few states, i can't wait to see if my numbers go up and if i get lots of visitors from those locations. fun!

Anonymous said...

I have a stat counter and never use it. It bores the hell out of me. I share your mindset on if you like me youll come back if you dont you wont. This was a fun post. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I'm getting better about not checking my numbers but those search terms - I am their bitch.

And why not Montana? I hear you get decent internet service in about 16% of the damn state. I'd never survive there.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Canada!! lol