Archive for October, 2007
How People Found Me – September Edition
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007The Categories
| Category | September Count | August Count |
| Technology | 146 | 128 |
| Billy Joel | 63 | |
| DSL | 44 | 30 |
| Adult/Porn-Related | 33 | 9 |
| Celebrity Look Alikes | 30 | 38 |
| Baseball | 23 | 4 |
| Cal/Stanford | 22 | 17 |
| Jimmy Buffett | 21 | 0 |
| Burning Taxi | 18 | 0 |
| Politics | 17 | 8 |
| University of Pennsylvania | 16 | 2 |
| concerts/Madison Square Garden | 14 | 2 |
| ISBS Song/Lyrics | 14 | 28 |
| Family | 12 | 12 |
| Overrated Films | 10 | 24 |
| Bob Dylan | 9 | 0 |
| Caitlin Upton | 7 | 0 |
| September 11th | 6 | 0 |
| iPod/iPhone | 5 | 0 |
| OJ Simpson | 5 | 0 |
Queries were up dramatically this month (626 vs. 453), owing to several factors: the burning taxicab outside my office window (18 queries), the dramatic end of the 2007 baseball season (23 queries), a review I wrote of a Jimmy Buffett concert at Madison Square Garden (21 queries), the gathering momentum of the presidential race (17 queries), the start of the collegiate fall semester (16 queries), and various other topical items like September 11th, Caitlin Upton, and OJ Simpson.
Technology still leads the pack, followed by Billy Joel (who has regained his firm hold on second place). There was dramatic growth in the porn-related queries (no pun intended), and a dramatic drop-off in queries about that country song, “I Should Be Sleeping Instead of Thinking About You” (which I still have not heard).
The lesson, as always: blog about the topical stuff, let your archives take care of themselves, and you’ll be Google’s best friend…
The Referring Sites
If CNN was the darling of the referral section last month, this month it’s my new favorite blog, The Gothamist. These guys seem to post running commentary on the goings on in New York City, and they seem to have quite an active following. As I mentioned in the Healthcheck post, one link in the comments on that site brought 870 visitors and more than 1,300 page views. It also, according to these stats, brought a high enough Pagerank to draw almost twenty separate Google queries to the site. So go, Gothamist, go!
The Keywords
All told, 626 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in September (about 175 more than were used in August). Here are some samples:
We begin this month with Madison Square Garden:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| billy joel concert review msg | 1 / 83,300 | My review of a January, 2006 Billy Joel Concert in Madison Square Garden still remains #1 in the Google ranks, and the most widely read thing I’ve ever written |
| jimmy buffett madison square garden review | 12 / 206,000 | OK, now how weird is this? My review of a recent Jimmy Buffett concert at Madison Square Garden is also near the top of the Google ranks! |
| jimmy buffett madison square garden september 2007 greenberg | 1 / 14,900 | OK, this guy (gal?) seems to be looking specifically for my review. It seems I’ve become a well known concert critic without even realizing it… |
Then, there are those folks who want some more specific information about Madison Square Garden:
| liberty devitto job | 10 / 69,900 | I know he’s not touring with Billy Joel anymore, but do you think that means the job’s available? And if so, was this person looking for an online job application? |
| madison square garden singing national anthem | 15 / 240,000 | Well, I guess if you can’t have Liberty’s job, but you’re in the Garden anyway, you might as well apply to sing the Star Spangled Banner. |
Moving to politics, we in New York had the (ahem…) pleasure of hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This drove several folks to my site as well:
| ahmadinejad pictures sleeping | >500 / 1,290,000 | Put the term “sleeping” in your blog name, and you’ll learn that people are interested in pictures of just about anyone while they’re asleep. So weird… |
| glad ahmedinajad | >500 / 1,040,000 | And if he’s awake, we’d like to see him happy, please… |
| iran president wearing red sox cap | >500 / 131,000 | And you thought the whole holocaust thing was insulting?!? Actually, this comes from a Jon Stewart bit, where they photoshopped a Red Sox cap on Ahmadinejad’s head. I guess since I’ve blogged about both Stewart and Ahmadinejad, this query led folks here. In Googleland, every road intersects every other, I guess… |
Speaking of politics, I Should Be Sleeping is apparently an online political tutorial for at least two people:
| what will hillary clinton do for people? | >500 / 4,580,000 | Wait, let me get my crystal ball… |
| how does the supreme court work? | >500 / 6,910,000 | Oh come on, ask me a tough question… |
This year, September also contained Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I didn’t blog about it much, but apparently what I did say was helpful to some folks:
| rosh hashanah ipod | >500 / 152,000 | New from Apple: contains pretty impressive playlists, but shuts down on Saturdays… |
| rosh hashanah song lyrics | >500 / 58,800 | This has got to be the same guy. Note: they’re not called song lyrics, they’re called “prayers.” |
| thoughts on rosh hashanah iraq | >500 / 110,000 | I guess even Iraqi rabbis need a sermon… |
| what religious ritual involves sleeping on a bed of nails | >500 / 323,000 | OK, I’m guessing this one wasn’t about Rosh Hashanah… |
Moving on once again, we have the monthly dose of the purely wild & wacky:
| lacrosse -duke | >500 / 3,870,000 | Sign of the times: if you want lacrosse news, you have to filter out stories about Duke University |
| caitlin upton dumb bitch | n/a / 355 | Here’s what bugs me about this: the guy that ran this query probably found a bunch of sites to validate his implicit assumption (not my site, mind you…). A great example of how doing research doesn’t always mean you have all the facts… |
| do you need a search warrant for pay as you go cell phones | >500 / 874,000 | Gosh, I hope not – I so rarely get a search warrant before calling someone… |
| drove my chevy to the levee but crossed it this way | 13 / 16,300 | No matter how many times I read this, I can’t help but draw the conclusion that this isn’t about American Pie, and that this guy actually did drive his Chevy to a levee… |
| my blood pressure is 86.55 | n/a / 236 | Doctor’s orders: 1) Take your blood pressure. 2) Type the result into Google. 3) Click on a random result in the search. 4) Follow all instructions on that site to the letter… |
| time magazine most overrated thing 2006 | 5 / 670,000 | So you think they meant that the magazine was the most overrated thing in 2006, or are they looking for what the magazine thought was the most overrated thing? Maybe a little of both, huh? |
| virtual surgery the game | >500 / 2,040,000 | Fun for the whole family! Rated BG for excessive Blood & Guts |
And finally, the ahem…adult queries. As I mentioned above, there were more of them this month than ever before. On the one hand, traffic is good. On the other hand, exactly what kind of audience am I attracting here?
| naked guys washing cars | r / r | I have no idea… |
| moa and son sex pics | r / r | I have the sinking feeling that “moa” was a typo for “mom.” <shiver> |
| my wife sleeping sex pics | r / r | An interesting way to check up on your spouse… |
| sodomy pictures | r / r | Seriously? Who types that in & then clicks over to my site? Sheesh… |
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Familygreenberg.com Health Check – September Edition
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007| Metric | August | September | % Change |
| Visits | 838 | 2,203 | +162.89% |
| Pageviews | 1,253 | 3,573 | +185.16% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.50 | 1.62 | +8.47% |
| Avg Time on Site | 0:48 | 0:38 | -20.12% |
| Bounce Rate | 83.29% | 80.44% | -3.43% |
| % New Visitors | 84.25% | 91.47% | +8.57% |
Well, well, well – a New York taxi driver’s misfortune was my windfall this month. A did a post about a cab that caught fire in front of my office and linked to it in the comments on a site called The Gothamist. That post, on its own, generated more than 870 visits and 1,300 pageviews (or, more than my entire site generated in the month of August). I’m reveling in the glory now, but dreading the October stats, when everything comes back down to earth. To prepare for that eventuality, here are the same stats, excluding September 18-20, when the bulk of those hits occurred:
| Metric | August | September’ | % Change |
| Visits | 838 | 1,080 | +28.88% |
| Pageviews | 1,253 | 1,570 | +25.30% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.50 | 1.44 | -4.32% |
| Avg Time on Site | 0:48 | 0:48 | 0% |
| Bounce Rate | 83.29% | 83.43% | +0.16% |
| % New Visitors | 84.25% | 86.56% | +2.74% |
Still a pretty good month. In fact, this (momentary) flash of (relative) noteriety has shown me something similar to what John Scalzi noted just after his (slightly more, but only to geeks like me) famous Bacon Cat Incident. When a single post generates a lot of traffic, there is a residual effect. Apparently, people come for the burning taxi, but they stay for the family homepages, concert reviews, and photographs. Here’s a list of pages that showed a 100% or greater increase in traffic (minimum August pageviews = 10):
| Page | % Increase |
| brian.htm | 500.00% |
| brandon.htm | 457.14% |
| avery.htm | 450.00% |
| sherry.htm | 324.00% |
| photos_sol.htm | 172.73% |
| index.htm | 169.23% |
| 2007_02_01_archive.html | 160.00% |
| blog.htm | 114.36% |
| friends.htm | 107.14% |
| billy-joel-all-my-life-lyrics.html | 104.76% |
| concert-review-billy-joel-at-madison.html | 101.45% |
Unlike Scalzi, though, the upsurge seems to have quelled. If anyone came here because of the burning taxi and is still reading the blog semi-regularly, could you drop me a comment and let me know? Thanks! You’ll have gone a long way to fuel the ego of a dedicated micro-blogger.
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on Familygreenberg.com Health Check – September Edition
Baseball Follow-Up
Monday, October 1st, 2007Well, as promised, it was an exciting weekend. Here’s the recap for those who missed some or all of it:
AL East
The Yankees and the Red Sox both won two games, so the Red Sox took the AL East (sniff…), while the Yankees took the Wildcard. The Red Sox will play the Angels in Boston, the Yankees will open with Cleveland in Cleveland.
AL Central
The Indians kept pace with the Red Sox as well, tying them for the best record in the American League. But the Red Sox won the season series between the two teams (5 games to 2), so if they wind up facing each other, Boston would have home field advantage. Basically, Boston has the home field advantage all the way through (including the World Series, because the American League won the All-Star game…again!)
AL West
The Angels also kept pace with the Yankees, but seeing as how the Red Sox and the Indians didn’t accommodate by falling apart this weekend, it doesn’t matter. They play the Red Sox in Boston first, and if they win, they’ll either face the Indians in Cleveland or the Yankees in Anaheim.
NL East
The picture says it all. The Mets completed their meteoric fall from grace, losing the division to the Phillies (and the Wildcard as well). The Phillies will play the Wildcard team (see below) in Philadelphia. The Mets will play golf, and talk about who’s getting fired for all of this…
NL CENTRAL
The Cubs held off the Brewers, so they won the Central. They’ll open against the Diamondbacks in Arizona.
NL WEST
OK, you didn’t think we’d make it through all of that without at least one tie, did you? Well, we came close. The Padres were ahead most of the way through their game, but then fell apart and lost their chance to end it all on time. The Rockies also had an exciting game (took a 3-run lead in the eighth, and then gave up two runs in the ninth to win by one run), but heck – it all counts. So, the Rockies and the Padres are tied for the Wildcard. The (one and only) playoff game is tonight in Colorado, with the winner earning a trip to Philadelphia to take on the Phillies. The losers may want to contact the Mets about tee times.
So, there you have it. One more game to decide everything, and then it’s playoff season! May the best team (from the Bronx) win…
(What??? Did I SAY I was impartial here???)
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