Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Statistics

Today is another 'blogging anniversary' - it is exactly one year since I placed a statistics counter on my blog.

This tracker has been the source of some interesting information regarding the reading habits of my 'readers'. I can see how people reached my blog - sometimes through rather amusing combinations of search words on google - and how long they spent reading the site. I have seen my average daily readers creep up and have noticed that that figure has hugely increased since I wrote something about the McCann issue.

It comes as no surprise to me that just over half the readers of this blog this year have been from the UK (55.6%) and that 15.2% are unknown. I was surprised to find however that people have read my writing from as far away as the USA, Canada, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Australia, Norway, Italy, Israel, Finland, and Germany. In fact, this blog has been read 7,638 times this year at an average of 62 times per day. I am quite amazed at that figure. I know it is not anywhere near the level of readership of some blogs, but for a personal blog which has no real continuity or theme, I find it pleasing.

The other thing which I was able to glean from the blog tracker was which pages are the most popular. Obviously rachel-catherine.blogspot.com tops the list, as anyone searching for it by name or following a link will come straight to that page. The rest of the top ten are as follows:

McCann facts?, McCann Questions, RMT & The Nigella Express, Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Out of the Tunnel, Carol Caplin & the WI, Sainsbury's Magazine & the WI, Book Review: The Time Traveler's Wife and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Again, a list which I do not find terribly surprising.

7 comments:

S said...

Keep up the good work.

Just out of interest, I would be interested to know why you blog?

I know it's one of those questions, but I would be intrigued to hear your response.

Pedro Baena Luna said...

oohh Ilike Sofia Coppola as you¡¡ greetings

Rachel said...

Thanks James

I blog for a number of reasons I suppose - a creative outlet, a way to express my opinions (and even induldge in a spot of ranting now and then) and a diary to myself.

I suspect these reasons are fairly common to most bloggers.

This was an issue I thought about when I first started blogging:

http://rachel-catherine.blogspot.com/2006/07/writing-for-unknown-audience.html

Anonymous said...

But of course you should allow people to express their opinions of your blog. After all, cyberspace is free.

Rachel said...

I have absolutely no problem with people expressing their opinions in relation to what I have written on my blog.

However, if those 'opinions' are rude, offensive, contain swear words or are defamatory, I won't publish them.

S said...

Thanks for the response Rachel.

The link you posted was interesting reading it reminds me of my first post when I assumed no one was reading and wondered how anybody ever would. Then you learn about things such as Technorati and blogrolls and such like.

Bea said...

Okay, now I'm distracted and can't remember what I was going to comment - it was going to be something about search engines and song titles - I got a ton of traffic for awhile when I titled a post "What Is Love? (Baby, Don't Hurt Me)." Not sure any of those visits turned into regular readers.

But I have to say I'm kind of flabbergasted by the idea that you are obligated to publish someone's comment in the interests of free speech. Sure, cyberspace is free - and if you want a place to express your opinion, get your own blog.