March Musings Among the Madness

Notes on the ninth anniversary of the blog and where I’m at now.

I haven’t trusted Google’s analytics on my blog since I noticed the difference between its numbers and those on the Flag Counter app. For the longest time, I would catch my own views of my blog as counted, despite repeatedly ticking off the “Don’t Count My Own Pageviews” every time I stopped by to see what it all looked like to the world. That appears to have been fixed over the last few months or so. Maybe longer, my sense of time is getting progressively suboptimal with age.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that, every now and then when I haven’t posted in a while, I’ll get a spike in pageviews over 100. I’ll stagger into my pre-dawn office with my pre-dawn coffee and click into Blogger to see 184 or suchlike spiking all at once at a curious hour. That it happens all at once is the biggest red flag. The next biggest is trying to figure out which post got the most attention. These top posts invariably have single-digit page views. It’s as if all 184 visitors picked one page out of the 600 or more here to look at. All at once. The top pages get maybe 4 views each. 

The discrepancy between my Flag Counter pageviews and Google’s is...what’s the word? Vast? Hilarious? Nuts?

Given that this blog turned nine years old on the 11th, some might say “pathetic” for either number, but especially for that lower one. 

Fro my 21 March stats. Trust me; they haven’t changed all that much. According to Flag Counter (if you can’t be bothered to glance to the right) my actual pageviews aren’t even a third of this, so it’s hard to get excited about cracking 100K after nine years.

I’m actually relieved. I’d like to think I’ve got my writing game solidly on point before I get 100,000 viewers per month, let alone nine years. I know people with blogs who already have their million-plus viewers (on Flag Counter, mind you) and they’re not any richer or happier. Maybe a little richer, but certainly less happy. However much most people get, it’s never enough. Thank God I’m not most people.

 The funny thing is, as per custom, I started getting my usual “pity spikes” of 100+ viewers last week. I had not posted in days, so that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual is that these spikes went on for three days straight. I was beginning to wonder if this blog had finally found its “mass” audience, at least as far as “mass” is defined for dark horses like me. Most blogs that are nothing more than “Hey, how about those people? Look at the stupid thing they did now! I’m so gosh-darn mad! Aren’t you?” get 3,000 unique views on a slow day. 

I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was partially about getting me over the 100K pageview mark. Of course, that’s the Google analytics thing and Flag Counter says I’m not even at a third of that.  On the other hand, 300, almost 400 people in France have had a look here. I don’t know why this gives me the warm fuzzies, but it does.

I’m happy with what I have. When I finish this third and last novel in my series, I’ll consider some constructive discontent.

After Sunday’s sudden snow squall, a lovely sunset.