The stats thing

I’ve been blogging a little while now and long since gave up the initial obsession with the Stats page. When you first find it, right at the start and people are actually reading your page it is something of a magnet. After a while you realise that numbers aren’t people and it is the interaction, the building of friendships and relationships that really matters.

So these days the only stats I usually look at are the ones on the little graph on the dashboard. Every so often, however, curiosity takes me into the main stats page to cast an eye on the referrers and clicks to see what, if anything, I am getting right… or wrong. And to smile at one number, over 20,000, that means I really have reached real people; the comments. That’s the one that matters.

Out of curiosity I had a look at the most viewed posts over the past month. How to make a living as a writer is twice as popular as anything else, whilst the small dog is, apparently, on a par with New Knickers. This, I can only put down to all the shares and reblogs both those posts had… and Ani seems to manage quite nicely therefore to beat me hands down on my own turf, so to speak. As usual.

The clicks are interesting, showing, as they do, where people have clicked on a link in an article. It is reassuring to know that they do. The search terms are always amusing… or they were till they became limited by Google’s reticence on releasing them. One can see why when the top search terms by a clear margin are still every conceivable variant of ‘dog xxx’ and Ani’s 30th post, with almost 7000 views, is by far the most viewed on the blog. Though perhaps not for any reason either she or I intended.

The referrers section is interesting. It shows how people have found the blog, and though it is far from being an exhaustive list it is useful, showing, as it does, where your presence is most effective. Most of the time there are the same ‘culprits’ listed… social media pages, guest posts and reblogs and the handful of standard referrers that are always present.

Tonight I wandered over while I took a break for coffee. The top referrer was a new one on me; Google News. Since when am I on Google News? A quick search is of no help at all. And more to the point, what have I done to get there? Because, I’d sort of like to know about it. Is this fame or notoriety? Am I about to see headlines like “Writer runs naked through woods” (which would be blatantly untrue. I never run.)

Will I be overrun by  hordes of reporters? Or is it just a glitch in the system somewhere? Because, quite honestly… I’ll put the kettle on and they can all come in. There are all these books to promote…