Which makes me wonder: which way does the blog make them decide?
Which makes me further wonder: would I want to take a course with the author of this blog?
Honestly, I couldn't tell you -- though it might account for the slow but steady increase in my readership over the last month or so.
In what has turned out to be yet another way to distract myself from work, I signed up to SiteMeter at the end of last August, which gives me a breakdown of hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly visits; sites linking to my blog from which some visitors came; their locations; and even a world map dotted with my readers. And every week SiteMeter emails me a breakdown of site traffic over the course of the previous seven days.
It is really too cool.
So here's this week's traffic so far:
So we topped out here on Monday with not quite 130 visits*; although the trends are by no means steady, I do seem to get Monday spikes -- everyone slowly getting into the work day, presumably, surfing the net in preparation for settling into whatever the new week brings.
This constitutes a new high, by the bye ... I haven't yet broken 130 visits in a day, but I've been steadily working up to it, as the monthly chart shows:
I like this. It's like my own personal Dow Jones. My yearly numbers haven't had much chance to do anything interesting -- again, I've only been on this since August -- but still! look at that steady increase ... up over 400 since September.**
Even more entertaining than the charts are the breakdowns giving the locations of visitors. While I have a predictably overwhelming Canadian contingent, with a healthy number of American hits ... and then a weird grab-bag that has run from Switzerland, Indonesia, Korea, Brazil, Britain, New Zealand ... It's always interesting to see which far-flung corner of the globe has found its way to my humble little blog.
And even more interesting is the information page for each visitor (don't worry, it's anonymous), which indicates which page they came from to get here, if the referring page is linked. So sometimes I see the URLs of other blogs that link to mine (usually the Newfoundland BlogRoll), but most frequently I see what Google searches turn my site up. Often, it has to do with various searches about Newfoundland generally, though there have been a few "running music" and various "reading" searches.
HOWEVER ... the most common Google search that brings people to my blog? I shit you not: "pickled weiners."
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*Though it should be said that, as I use my own blog as a portal to other sites I visit frequently, a significant number of those visits are probably me.
**Which, again, might simply represent an increase in my own procrastination.
14 comments:
nice. my top keyword is "boob"
Does it count your own visits?
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how that works -- it registers "Page visits" and "page views," the latter of which is always about three times more ... so perhaps if the same ISP visits in quick succession it logs it under "views"? One way or another, I know it registers my visits. Something to research, perhaps, if you ever get around to writing that article on profs' blogs. ;-)
It fell apart when I could find no other such blogs. I think it's impossible you are the only one, so I need to work on my Web-fu.
statcounter.com is free and will let you block your own IP and cookie so it doesn't count your own visits.
You kill me. If only because I thought I was the only geek who liked to read my stats on my blog. It's addictive. And then you start wondering who everyone is. And what they're doing coming to your blog. You'll also have a hearty laugh at the fact that some porn sites have been the previous page to my blog. Which makes no sense to me at all.
As for the question of would someone who reads your blog want to take your class...I would. If only because you take an ordinary topic and make it pretty interesting. While I bet my papers would never pass the C+ level with you (they rarely did in University), I think it might have been fun to write something based on a topic presented in your classes as you discuss them here.
And no that's not sucking up in case I do take a class of yours in the future.
Unless it helps.
In which case...
You're so awesome Mr. Blogmeister!
Sheena: For what it's worth, I don't know of many profs, period, who blog -- it does seem a fairly rare thing, oddly enough. My absolute favourite prof blog, which I link to, is Michael Berube's of Penn State at http://www.michaelberube.com/ ... really worth checking out. One of the smartest people I've ever read.
Lesley: You're sweet. And yet you like Nickelback. This strikes me as paradoxical. I could add: I like your politics. But you like Nickelback. You're very smart. And yet you like Nickelback.
If I were the evil computer on Star Trek, this is conundrum Kirk would give me to occupy all my computing power.
I like the Dow Jones charts that you are using. My own blog has a graphical map of the world with red dots, which show me that some guy in Jakarta is reading my blog (God knows why), but doesn't show much else. If anything, site meters answer that age old question of bloggers, "is anyone reading this stuff aside from me?"
In related news, I've actually got a photo of a pickled wiener advertisement that was in a store at the end of Feild Street (where I was living last year) on my blog.
Hi,
I've been reading you blogg since last year. I came across it through the blog roll. I thought it would be interesting to here your point of view on Newfoundland.
Denise
You know, this could work both ways. I like that you feature interesting books and show movies in your class (breaks the monotony of professors who are narcissistic, pretentious and talk a lot). Yet, you don't like Nickleback. I like to hear you talk about Newfoundland and enjoy your pretty pretty pictures of the east coast. Yet, you don't like Nickleback. You tend to be a bit funny and for the most part, have something interesting to say. Yet, you don't like Nickleback. You've been on television, have held a public lecture and seem to be pretty popular on the rock. Yet, you still dislike Nickleback.
My own self loathing will bring me back to read your posts though. So be prepared for the traffic that creates.
Of course, I'm kidding. I respect other people for their opinions on things like politics, travel, great books, boring books, and musical groups. I'll forgive you for your poor taste in music.
This time.
Heehee. This one was fun.
:-)
PS -- don't forget, my favourite band is U2. If ever there was a mockable rock star, it's Bono the Savior of the World.
Students read your blog for the same reasons they ever read rateyourprofessor in the first place, of course: to gain any availabe inside information about your personality (a key component of any prof) and about your course (not quite as important ;)
for me- I'll echo comments that said we read to get an outsider's perspective on NFLD~ and, it's also interesting to me as an Lit. student.
Yes, and let's not forget his phase with the big fat bug eyed glasses. And the mullet! I almost forgot the mullet!
But alas, I can't get angry about U2.
I will however, bug you about the fact that you recommended A Thousand Years Of Solitude and I am having a great deal of a struggle getting through the FIRST BLOODY CHAPTER.
And clearly I'm an idiot.
I meant One Hundred Years of Solitude. You see, it's so bad I can't remember the title!
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