Visitors who do not publish blogs of their own may not be aware that in the background "Blogger" provides bloggers with surprisingly comprehensive and up-to-date stats about how their blogs are doing. For example, you can find out your league table of visits by country. You can also find out the number of "hits" your top twenty blogposts had in the last twenty four hours. In addition, you can see tracking graphs and suchlike.
By the way, most of my visitors during the past six months reside in the USA, far outnumbering both Hong Kong and Great Britain who are second and third respectively on my list. For several years, Great Britain and the USA were running neck and neck but not any more. In the last thirty days, "Yorkshire Pudding" has attracted 107,000 visits from America alone.
It sometimes bemuses me which blogposts appear in my 24 hour list and after twenty years of regular blogging I find I had totally forgotten many of those posts. It can almost be like reading the ramblings of a complete stranger. For example this old post received fifty four readers yesterday. I wrote it on March 10th 2020 just before Great Britain went into its first COVID-19 lockdown. I guess it is a little piece of history now.
Every blogpost I have published in the past year has received over two hundred visits. However, some posts have attracted considerably more people. My "Quiztime" posts have been particularly fruitful with some of these receiving four or five hundred visitors. Posts that have been titled "Poem" are much less popular which is somewhat discouraging I must say even though I am well aware that poetry is not everybody's cup of tea.
In the past few days, I have noticed something weird happening with my visitor stats. My "Malton" post of August 20th has received 1098 visits, my "Slaithwaite" post from Monday night has attracted over seven hundred visits and yesterday's Beatles "Quiztime" has achieved a massive 1418 visitors already.
I am very suspicious of these recent figures. They are way out of sync with my usual visitor pattern. However, it is pretty much impossible to report such an issue to "Blogger" which seems to have been designed with a well-constructed invisible barrier in place to deter questions, suggestions and complaints from users.
Please don't imagine that I am in any way obsessed with the stats that "Blogger" provides because I am not. It is just that occasionally I like to have a look at them to see what is going on behind the scenes.
I have had over 5331 visits to my black bucket post so far today. I don't take the stats seriously.
ReplyDeleteSomething is amiss right now. Previously, the number of "hits" you got was very plausible.
DeleteIt seems there are bots, or AI, out and about, leaving pretend comments for websites. Perhaps that is the increase in visits. Not sure.
ReplyDeleteYou are probably right Pixie.
DeleteSurprising that visitors from the USA outnumber the UK.
ReplyDeleteWell the USA contains a lot more people and they speak in a language that resembles English too.
DeleteThat is interesting. It surprised me that your second highest was Hong Kong which has approximately one tenth the population of the UK.
ReplyDeleteIn the past number two has sometimes been Singapore. All pretty strange.
DeleteI have noticed my post views have rocketed going from about 200 views to averaging 600 views, could it be blogger playing up again.
ReplyDeleteCould be. Something is not right at this point in time.
DeleteI'm like you. I'm not obsessed by the numbers, I just find them interesting.
ReplyDeleteDo we really need so many stats? Seems like a waste of time really.
DeleteIt's probably just that Vlad fellow manipulating stats again.
ReplyDeleteI blame Boris Johnson.
DeleteI read on another blog recently that those jumps are caused by AI searching through posts for certain topics. Not sure if that is true, though.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly has the whiff of truth Ellen.
DeleteOne word -- BOTS.
ReplyDeleteAnother word - RUMPELSTILTSKIN!
DeleteBrazil in 4th place, Hong Kong 6th and Vietnam 9th have been responsible for a significant volume of the traffic to my blog over the last few months. Like you, I struggle to take the stats seriously .
ReplyDeleteIf Google Blogger is going to keep churning the stats out, they ought to make them valid.
DeleteMine usually seem to increase at the end of each month.
ReplyDeleteI have not noticed that trend Tasker.
DeleteI am like you too. I don't really look at numbers, but it is in fact interesting to see where some of the views were from.
ReplyDeleteWell - when one is retired one has to find things to do.
DeleteI used to look at stats. Not any more. Whatever my posts get is what they get.
ReplyDeleteIt's best not to obsess about those stats.
DeleteI'm not sure the stats really mean anything, or that comparing them across time matters. If Google tweaks the way it measures hits, for example, that could throw the numbers off. Like you I look at them very rarely out of curiosity but I don't set much store by them.
ReplyDeleteI've also heard what others have said above, that some higher recent hit counts might be bots or AI scrapers. (I think I saw that on someone else's blog, so maybe you saw it too!)
An "AI scraper" sounds like something you might find in a lavatory.
DeleteDo you suppose that it is AI language learning model mining your posts? Blueberry yogurt!
ReplyDeleteWill Jay
Well I do not know why you wrote "Blueberry yoghurt" Will. Is that your nickname?
DeleteWordpress has a stats feature, too, and I do look at it, but take the results with a grain of salt. I don't get a lot of hits and I think that's partly because I have my blog set where it doesn't automatically figure into Google searches. I know when I'm Googling something I usually want facts rather than someone's blog entry about that topic. (which might be factual, but still...) Or maybe I'm just not a popular person.
ReplyDeleteHave you considered changing your perfume Kelly?
DeleteHey! When I look at my stats, it shows the numbers but I dont see the countries. How am I missing this? The numbers I got just week can't be correct. Then again, I'm great so maybe they are. Haha! Please, tell me how to see the countries. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHey! When I look at my stats, it shows the numbers but I dont see the countries. How am I missing this? The numbers I got just week can't be correct. Then again, I'm great so maybe they are. Haha! Please, tell me how to see the countries. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting as I have noticed a few post that have an out of the ordinary number of hits. The rabbit posts have gone nuts. I've posted about rabbits before and didn't get that number of hits.
ReplyDeleteI have an independent stat counter and I believe it to be accurate. Blogger stats dont reflect anything even remotely similar.
ReplyDeleteThe only times I have been looking at my blog's stats were when you have been posting about yours - usually, I can't be bothered. I already know that there are a few readers out there who never, ever comment, but will speak to me personally and say things such as "I really liked following your Yorkshire holiday". I also know that my blog will never generate the number of readers and commenters that others do, because I do not post frequently and interestingly enough. But that's fine.
ReplyDeleteAs for the bots/AI scrapes, yes, that has been happening all over the internet, not just on blogger.
I read "this old post" and it was completely new to me! I guess I wasn't following your blog back then but it's only five years ago. I remember the toilet paper fiasco well, but being one who always had a large supply (four kids plus friends) I knew I had enough and didn't join the panic buying. I also got vaccinated as soon as a vaccine was available and have had a booster every year since.
ReplyDeleteI never bother looking at my stats.
This is news to me. Who knew that blogging has so much intrigue going on behind the scenes! Do serious bloggers lie awake at night worrying about their stats?
ReplyDeleteI've occasionally looked at stats. They do inform you of push button subjects, but I tend to know what they will be anyway. At times there are surprises.
ReplyDeleteBah! Australia didn't get a look in for your readers. River, Kylie and myself represent our country. I've come across posts of my own that I really have little memory about.
I rarely remember to check my stats. When I do, it always makes me wonder who all those people in Hongkong and Singapore are. (Or maybe they're not all that many, but just a few people reading every post...?!)
ReplyDeleteI need to find these stats again on my own blog. I used to spend ages checking them.
ReplyDelete