I've tried to keep from going "meta" in my postings as much as possible, but...
About 24 hours ago I took a recommendation from I Was The State to insert a Sitemeter widget into this blog. Sitemeter claims it is a piece of cake to install, and so it is. It is 100% free, and after filling in 3 fields to set up my account it took approximately 5 clicks for it to be up and running.
I've never had any kind of counter on here before. Mostly I just wanted to assure myself that, you know, someone somewhere actually reads my scribblings on occasion (it wouldn't kill some of y'all, and you know who you are, to throw in an anonymous comment now and then, ya ingrates). I'd probably keep writing this stuff even if no one read it (because, after all, typing up a venomous blog post has some identifiable, real-life benefits over putting my fist through the sheetrock above my desk), but having a few people look at it now and then gives it at least the illusion of purposefulness.
But the Sitemeter counter also has some neat statistics that can be of interest. For instance, it shows the geographic location of each visitor. Through which, I have been able to determine that in the last 24 hours someone (or I guess something) has accessed this blog from Casablanca, Morocco. And from some place called Kalundborg Vestsjalland. Which is apparently in Denmark. Needless to say, these people (again, assuming they are people rather than scripts or spiders or something) are not members of my immediate social set.
I'm not sure how the content of this blog could appeal to, or even come to the attention of, someone in Morocco (I don't think I even realized, up til now, that the Internets (a series of tubes) had extended its reach into northwest Africa). But nevertheless, I'd just like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to my peeps in Kalundborg Vestsjalland, Casablanca, and Winter Park Florida (among other places I barely knew existed). Thanks for reading (and don't be shy about leaving a comment once in a while, if only to tell me that I'm a dumbass who should have my keyboard forcibly shoved into an inappropriate orifice).
/meta-post
5 comments:
Does it track RSS readers too? Cuz that is how I get every new post automatically. And look, a comment from SF, CA, USA.
a good question. i wondered about that too. the sitemeter knowledge base articles don't refer to readers, so the implication is that it isn't tracking this.
There is usually a USER:AGENT variable in web statistics programs that will tell you the browser that the people are using. Many web stat programs list this under Browser Version.
Usually, spiders, search engines, and automatic fetches show up with different user agents than normal users, such as the googlebot.
This isn't really true for all the bad people out there spidering, they fake a User:Agent for IE of FF. But, the legits spiders usually put some identifier in the user agent.
Of course, blogger probably doesn't show you this.
Also, I get read most of your articles in an RSS reader too, just one i made myself.
To belabor the point, here are some entries from my USER:AGENT/Browsers AWstats for a website I have (http://www.blogproper.com).
MSIE 7.0
FIREFOX 2.0.0.7
WGET
SAFARI
LIBWWW
FEEDREADER
LYNX
UNKNOWN
right. i can see the browser and version, and also the referring URLs (this points to RSS readers, I think).
the sitemeter documentation says that spiders and bots typically don't register as "visitors" because they don't run the sitemeter javascript.
funny thing though, when a visitor is referred by a search engine, it shows which search site (e.g., google) and then lists the search terms used.
for example, the person in Morocco searched for the terms "rapping iraqi women". i shit you not. i am curious to know which other pages come up with that search, but not curious enough to actually type it into google.
Google has a program to monitor traffic, Google Analytics. I like site meter better though. It is easier to use.
Feedburner will tell you about your subscribers.
Google is buying up these programs one at a time, blogger, then feedburner, sitemeter should be next.
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