Monday 13 May 2013

Blog stats - a vicious cycle?

Have you guys ever checked out your blog stats and gone, "Why the heck is THAT my most-visited post?" I've been doing that for many months now, and wondering if my most visited posts are only that because they've been the "most visited" in my list for a long time now, so they are naturally the ones that new visitors are going to check out when they first pop over to my blog. To get further into what I mean, these are my top 6 posts:


  • The ay to zee challenge (2011) wrap up post! (4553 visits)
  • Every time I think I don't have to post for at least one day... (3240 visits)
  • Travel Series: NEW ZEALAND (650 visits)
  • A-Z blogging challenge "V" - Voltron (and...) (539 visits)
  • Did I Notice Your Book? - blogfest (473 visits)

Some of those I can understand being popular on their own merit, i.e. the one about my 1998 travels in New Zealand (NZ is so in right now, thanks to LotR and so on), and maybe the Voltron post - I mean, Voltron is legendary! Seriously, though, I really do think that these posts get so many visits only because they're listed as most popular and already have heaps of visits. For e.g., the "Every time I think..." post consists of very little of great value, and yet it's my 2nd most popular post by far.

What do you think?

25 comments:

  1. I always get a kick out of the google search stats. My top three are dragon fire (which does relate to my most popular post, Can a dragon roast a knight in armor) fulfilling dreams (which is my blog title) and surprisingly zumba. Don't know where that one came from.

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  2. Hi Trisha .. I've never looked as I'd no idea what I'd do if I did! But when someone posts about their stats, they always seem to say they don't understand the human rationale behind the popularity aspect!

    Humans be strange!! Cheers Hilary

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  3. My most popular posts are ones with good titles and things that people search for in google.

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  4. I've done that a few times. Weird things is my Got Green post got over 800 hits in 2 days. I was like WTH? But to date, my most viewed is one I wrote about fireflies. *shrugs shoulders* (:

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  5. Yeah one of mine is of a Tarsier and people always search for animal with bug eyes lol

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  6. This is terrible to say, but I never look at my stats. I did keep track on my old Blogger blog, and like Lynda mentioned, it was always the title which drew in visitors. I just checked my current blog, and my biggest post to date was, ISWG: “Behind Closed Doors, We’re All the Fat Uncool Kid.” I'm going to guess ISWG plus a provocative title were the reasons.

    VR Barkowski

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  7. I know what you mean. At the moment, my most popular post is a knitting pattern. I've gotten great feedback about that pattern, but I was shocked when it went so big.

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  8. My '80s crush post is by far my most visited post and I know exactly why - it includes a fantastic photo of supermodel Kathy Ireland. #3 has Jim Palmer (hunky baseball player from the '70s) in one of his Jockey ads. I didn't plan it that way for either, but live and learn.

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    1. Maybe I should include more pictures of hunks and babes to get my stats up! hehe

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  9. i didnt look at my views stats for a to z, will have to check!
    but i know book promos tend to not get as much views & comments as personal or informative posts... guess people like to skip the "commercials" =)

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  10. I haven't looked at mine is an age, but I am now curious to check the most visited and the searches that lead to them. Interesting!

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  11. It can be odd to see what's a popular post, although sometimes the titles can generate SEO quicker than other titles. I think one of my most visited posts was talking about Magic Eye. LOL!

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  12. Hard to say what the draw is. One thing I've noticed. We are a large community and posts that draw us together seem to have more merit. Plus...and this is a big plus... you are the only singer-songwriter I know :)

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  13. Sometimes the posts that I think aren't a draw are the ones that people like the most. Who knows! I have my favorites. These wouldn't be it either so I get what you are saying.

    My most popular posts were! 1. My Rolling Stones Poster (this had 4x more views than the other two. 2. Post hurricane sandy, 3. Just Jen (last A-Z's J)

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  14. I'm not totally sure how to read my stats. People are always bragging about the hundreds of page views they get; but I see mine today at 39, and 10 of those me cuz I was looking for a specific person to have sent a comment. So, either VERY FEW people visit my blog, or I don't read the stats correctly.

    Oh well; people either read my posts or not.

    ....dhole

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    1. Donna, the stats I shared above are for "all time", not daily or weekly or anything. So in that way they're less impressive. ;) I also disabled my own visit stats, so my stats are less in that way, and yet are a bit skewed because I used to not have my own visits disabled. So a lot of my early stats would have come from myself. ;)

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  15. Afraid my whole blog has only had just over 5000 hits let alone on post.
    Passing through on my roadtrip

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  16. Funny you mentioned it but yes, I have noticed that as well. Posts that I wonder why the heck people would read them so many times. Then I kind of reached the same conclusion you did. I've changed them to weekly and that made a bit of a difference. :)

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    1. Ohhh, why didn't I think of that? I know why - I didn't know it was possible. hehe. I've just changed it now.

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  17. My most visited post is one entitled "Wanna Guest post?" and I'm pretty sure it's because a lot of robots visit that one. Doesn't men you don't have anything more amazing out there, just that there are internet stuffs that make some posts more popular. It's silly really.

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  18. I'm not convinced those blogspot people aren't just playing with me. My most frequently searched TERM is 'how to cause a heart attack'. It was a blog title at one point, but it's shocking how many people come to MY BLOG for that. My most visited posts, I believe, are often highly visiting because I have an IMAGE people look for on google and they click on the image.

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  19. I think that, for proper blog stats, you need to use Google analytics, 'cause the numbers Blogger throws at me aren't legit.

    Also; OMG, VOLTRON!!!!! I vaguely remember this; mainly, I remember my sis crushing on one of the male characters...was it Sven? (OK, she wasn't the only one crushing on him.) ;-)
    Some Dark Romantic

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  20. Good question! I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, or less, than I could be - I look at the first page of the Google stats, and they sort of give an overview, and then I look at the posts list and can see at a glance which ones had more comments. Severus Snape got a lot of views :-)
    But then I get wordmeter stats that come into my email and they seem to be calculated differently. Hmm...

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  21. My most popular posts are about Mr. Incredible and the Officious Intermeddler doctrine in Contract Law, and a Catrina story involving the Tickle Monster. I have no idea why either of those get so many visits. Very peculiar.

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  22. This interesting post prompted me to go and check out my own stats, and ... the all time most popular post appears to be The New Age of Breeding: Guest Post by M. Pax, followed by Self-Publishing: Amazon KDP vs Smashwords
    I suppose I can see why those posts have a lot of visits. The titles are quite interesting. Your one about Every time I think I don't have to post for at least one day... is kinda less expected in terms of large number of page views!

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Thanks for your words, me hearties! and don't forget to leave a link to your blog somewhere I can find it!