Tuesday 17 January 2012

A day in the life of a Statsaholic (a bit of a rant)

"My name is Caro and I'm a statsaholic."

Look I'm not really, but I blame Blogger. OH YES I DO! They change everything, so you don't know where you are and you have to do random clicks in order to find anything and before you know it, you've deleted an absolutely brilliant post; the best you've ever written (just take my word for it, ok!). 

The fact that I am forever ending up on the stats page is neither here nor there. BUT, as I've just come from there, I do have one question:

HOW COME THERE ARE MORE COMMENTS THAN PAGEVIEWS ON SOME OF MY POSTS? 

Perhaps people are commenting without looking? That might be it. However, it'a more likely there are nefarious forces at work. Just letting you know, so you can keep a look out! I don't track my own pageviews, but it still doesn't account for the difference!


Then the page that gives your audience by country shows that in a week you've had a total of 151 visits from 23 different countries, but you've still only had 23 pageviews with 35 comments!!!!???? (don't you just hate people that use punctuation marks indiscriminately?)  !!


It starts so innocently. One is lured by pretty colours and charts and wavy lines and before you know it you're on the road that leads to total addiction. You're a no hoper, completely in the grip of a vice that rules your whole life. You can't think of anything except where the next stats fix comes from. Will it be via traffic sources or that squashy map on the audience page? And oh, the sweet seduction of the competing allurements of "pageviews today, pageviews yesterday …. pageviews all time history." I can't deal with it anymore. I need to go cold turkey and shut down for a day … or hour ….  well maybe a minute. 


First I'll just check out this Referring URL …….. ?

Austin, what are you doing?
Oh dear!

40 comments:

  1. Our mama loves stats too, but she usually ignores the one on our blogger because she doesn't agree with it :)

    Emma and Buster

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  2. MOL....too funny. Mom looks sometimes but gets lost pretty quick and says - ech.....

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  3. Now I think I need to check stats, counts comments, page views and visitors! Austin? Austin, do you here me? Please take me with you. Out of here NOW!

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  4. BACK AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!!!!!!!

    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ::deep breath::

    Now. We can do this the hard way or we can do this the easy way. (What those ways are I haven't a clue, it just sounded right.)

    I think the stats are compiled by a vaguely crazed computer that is bio-fueled with peyote. Like most of the internet, actually.

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  5. Mom has had such bad luck with our blog. When she first began blogging Blogger did not support comments. You had to have a third party application. Well that application changed hands and the new hand wanted money for using their service. Well Blogger had comments so Mom just wanted to go to that, well the problem was no importing comments. So Mom lost over 17,000 comments over the first 4 1/2 years of our existence. The same thing happened with the counter we used to have but don't anymore, so Mom keeps doesn't bother anymore.
    purrs
    >^,,^<
    ♥Abby♥Boo♥Ping♥Jinx♥Grace♥

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  6. Aunty Caro,
    You need help, woman! Go cuddle Austin or do something meaningful like sew a new quilt for him. purrr...meow!

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  7. whack teh door Austin!!
    whack whack whack

    BoBo Salem
    Meow Meow Family

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  8. I never switched to the updated Blogger interface, I still use the ye olde one. I don't like change, haha! The stats thing I have no clue about. Those numbers do seem very weird indeed but I think I'd break my mind trying to get to the bottom of it...

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  9. Mr. poo , I hope your mom is not like my mom ! when I do that, she just laugh instead open the door !!!

    About the stats, my mom got no clue how it works ! but we do love the comments : )
    xoxo

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  10. Our mom gave up on the stats...just too confusing!

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  11. Oh theese one is a good one! Commenting without looking, why didn't we think of that! (It would speed up the process.) You made our night with this post, you got it goin' on! (PS: We are rather fond of punctuation.)

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  12. If you love stats you'll love Hans Rosling!
    http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

    (and I'm sure someone else has already pointed out that it's a good idea to write blog posts off-line first!)

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  13. Hi Caro. Maybe it's because your entire posts are already shown in your main Blogspot page.

    So it means that people can comment multiple times on different posts and not need to go to the page of that single post.

    Anyway. I just wanted to visit and say,fear not the stats and comments ration. What matters is your blog is awesome.

    Huggies and Cheese,

    Haopee

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  14. We cannot top Cloon's comment. Yup commenting without looking would speed things up. COD, I love coming here. It is so healthy to laugh. Austin you have the right idea. Just a side note, you really are believing Blogger Stats???? We can come and look 20 times a day if that will help. Take care.

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  15. *MOL*
    Me and mom think´s this post was GREAT !
    The only statistic that my mom trusts are the one we have from a swedish site called susnet. That counter , counts 1 IP-number once a day and it doesn´t count our own at all.
    My mom think´s just like you that about Bloggers statistics !

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  16. I'm totally cracked up as I can so relate to this. For the longest time, I avoided looking at my stats. Then last year I decided to play around with them, and quickly became obsessed. I constantly kept checking page views and referring URLs, and could barely focus on the blog itself. I started comparing my views to the numbers others had and I knew I came up short. I was ready to quit the whole business and sit in the corner and sulk.

    I still do that on nearly a daily basis. ;) But I have forced myself to stop looking at stats as they just end up driving me mad.

    Love Austin's bottle brush! :)

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  17. MOL!!!!
    We needz to add to your stats-a -holic and confeess our Mommy's an ellipses-a-holic an' an exclamation-a-holic.
    (It's a good thing to get out in the open, Mommy, RILLY.)

    ANd no, we don't have any answers either....

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  18. LOLOL I know no one comes back to read comments, but these have been great. Made me laugh, made my day. Thank you everyone :)))) x0x !!!!!

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  19. Austin, who did you spy with that big tail? I love my stats with Wordpress: clean and simple which I check once a day. It's useful to know where traffic comes from and what blog subjects are more popular. They help me track my progress month by month and keep me honest so I can provide good content. I don't focus on comments since the amount never reflects the individual visitors. I get on average 400+ visitors a day and over 1000 visitors a day at my Boomer Muse blog where I rarely get more than a comment or two! I usually only have time to comment on blogs that are on my blogroll(like yours)or those who have left me a comment. Cheers and don't fret!!!

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  20. WOW! Layla! I get about 1000 visits a month (well if you can trust Blogger)! Just shows you are doing a good job. I'll try not to fret lol

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  21. Poor Austin!!

    Ohhhh how this made me laugh!! Loved it!

    I am thinking that maybe when you comment back to someone that it isn't recorded as a "page view" because it is you??? Who knows!?

    And YES I am one of those people who use question marks and exclamation points at whim! WHY?????????????? Cause that is how I roll!

    FYI I am obsessed with stats too! I get approx 17,000 page views per month but trust me, most of those are SPAM...you forgot to account for THAT! Now get busy looking that up!

    BWWWWAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  22. Dang!! You lost your most brilliant post ever! That happens to me alot too!!

    As far as stats, I gave that up a long time ago and feel all the better for it! You either read my blog or you don't, it's as simple as that! I am still obsessive compulsive with the refresh button, but a girl can only tackle her addictions one step at a time!

    Keep up the brilliant posts - you have come a long way in the short time I have gotten to know you and your blog remains one of my all time favorites. You can log that as a permanent stat!!

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  23. Glogirly thinks something is fishy with Google Analytics too. After all, why would my two most popular posts of all time have "Terror" in the title?

    I don't care. I still have more FB friends than she does.

    xo
    Katie

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  24. @Carolyn: You'd be surprised. I do come back to read comments... Just not so often. LOL

    Huggies and Cheese,

    Haopee

    By the way, I've never asked, what in the world is Austin doing?

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  25. Who knows, Haopee? It was probably because it was dark and he could see his reflection, or it could be because he really wanted to go out? It's all just a game lol

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  26. Thank you for bringing this out into the open. We've been confused by statistics that don't match our blog too.

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  27. I've had that too with the visits number smaller than the views... Can't figure that one out.

    pawhugs, Max

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  28. Mom LOVED every WORD and she says she too has noticed that with her human blog and with the Admiral's and will again with mine this weekend when it gets started.

    I love how you worded this..and I know mom felt every ounce of the same frustration as she was almost shouting "YES!" the entire time. Oh! And she loves indoscriminate punctuation. She does it comstantly! She especially loves exclamation points..all the better in three's!!!

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  29. Austin darling, come over here. I will show you how good it is to be snuggly with your mom. You get anything your wee kitty heart desires!

    xoxoxo Katie

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  30. I seldom look at the stats or pageviews, but one thing is for sure in my case, I get far more page views than comments, lol !
    Anyway I don't care, I just write for fun.

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  31. Austinnnnnn...........come hereeeeeeee........

    xoxoxo

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  32. LOL. Carolyn, you make Austin sound like a manipulative kitty... EVIL CAT.

    Maybe he's experiencing menopause... since he's 7 years now...

    Well, have a wonderful Saturday.

    Huggies and Cheese,

    Haopee

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  33. Ooooh! Haopee, he's not seven yet. He's just under five. The senior food was a bit of a mistake!! But you are right. He is manipulative, like all cats lol

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  34. Who knows how they figure stats! I think it is all automated and definately fallible! Everyone is right-your blog is awesome! Don't let the numbers drive you crazy!

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  35. I have a complaint about Blogger and I don't blog here. But for the past two Saturdays its not allowed me to post comments using my Open ID. So some blogs I can use the name/url choice and leave a comment but some blogs don't allow that option so I can't comment at all. Which really sucks, because if I cared enough to read the blog post, you should know that i stopped by and that I enjoyed it.

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  36. Oh my...we who hve mysterious pasts...we could be mati hari's or who KNOWS who!

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  37. Blogger makes stats too complicated for this dog. They don't always make sense. The other thing we don't like is Google Friend Connect. Why can't we the emails downloaded of the ppl who connect? Gotta go one by one to get them.

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  38. lol, I've glanced at the stats on occasion, but I'm sure not a statsaholic!
    Austin looks like he really really needs to run from the stats!

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  39. Oh, he isn't? Lol, he sure acts like it. Don't menopause people act grouchy and don't want to get cuddles?

    Anyway, Carol, I know you're busy with Austin but you are definitely due for a new post.

    I hope you don't mind me giving you the Versatile Blogger Award.

    Kindly check out the post here. http://www.mydogslove.me/2012/01/two-awards.html

    Huggies and Cheese,

    Haopee

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