Blogging about Blogs
How People Found Me – January Edition
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008The Categories
| Category | January Count | November Count |
| Technology | 221 | 191 |
| Billy Joel | 110 | 237 |
| DSL | 52 | 29 |
| Celebrity Look Alikes | 38 | 49 |
| Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree | 21 | 97 |
| Adult/Porn-Related | 19 | 149 |
| Cal/Stanford | 19 | 25 |
| Politics | 16 | 8 |
| Penn | 15 | 6 |
| Hava Nagila | 12 | 0 |
| Overrated Films | 10 | 18 |
| The Simpsons | 11 | 0 |
| TicTacs | 0 | 14 |
Queries were down slightly this month (662 vs. 783). Billy Joel, who had taken the lead in November (the last time I compiled these stats), has fallen back to a comfortable #2 slot, behind the almighty Technology related queries (why don’t I write about technology more?), and queries about DSL modems in particular surged almost 80% to 52. Queries about the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree seem to have abated (as expected), and Adult/Porn related queries have also dropped off dramatically (almost 90% to a mere 19). The big winners this month were politics (duh…), Hava Nagila (a top ten pop hit in Britain now) and The Simpsons (two posts in a row!).
The Referring Sites
This month’s referring site of the month award goes to CNN.com, who linked to one of my political blog entries via their “Sphere” service.
My only attempt at self-promotion this month was to send my Penn-related Simpsons post to IvygateBlog, who summarily ignored it, choosing instead to show pictures of Kevin Bacon playing ping pong in the frat house he helped immortalize via Animal House. So a big “What am I, chopped liver?” to the folks at IvyGateBlog.
The Keywords
All told, 662 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in January (121 less than were used in Novemberr). Here are some of the more entertaining samples:
We start with Technology, this month’s leader in ISBS queries:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| boot camp how to switch back to osx, how to switch back from windows on bootcamp |
>500 / 310,000, >500 / 458,000 |
A perfectionally reasonable thing to Google, but the image of a Mac owner stuck in Windows with no idea how to get back to the Mac OS just makes me laugh |
| excel makro create table | 3 / 990,000 | I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “I Should Be Sleeping: catering to bad spellers since 2005” |
| numerical format not acknowledged in lotus 123 | 28 / 10,900 | It is well known that the eventual downfall of Lotus 123 was it’s inability to handle numbers. |
| usb wine | >500 / 703,000 | Ah yes, wine. A lovely complement to a fine meal and a kick-ass USB peripheral. Just try to get the keyboard wet… |
| ie smooth scrolling not smooth enough | 25 / 516,000 | What you need is the ironing add-on. Works wonders for smoothing out the scrolling… |
And here are some of the just plain weird ones:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| “beatles” “calculator icon” | 9 / 34 | I honestly have no idea what this guy was even looking for. |
| yakov smirnoff intel | 18 / 1,620 | Same thing here – what could he possibly have been looking for… |
| dealornodeal | >500 / 86,500 | An interesting approach to playing the game. I know people used to use Google for Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but I don’t know if it’s as helpful for this one. |
| flamingos threatened | >500 / 230,000 | OK, you dirty birds, put your legs where I can see ’em. Both of ’em! Do as I say or I’ll turn that pink into a darker shade of red. Catch my drift? |
| graphs and chart on family planning in pakistan 2007 | 46 / 167,000 | It’s good to see responsible Pakistanis doing such careful planning before starting a family. |
| hanson update | 15 / 481,000 | Evidence that the Hanson brothers’ mom uses Google. After all, who else… |
| irish marching bands, levittown,pa. | 19 / 772 | Yes, that’s right. 772 results. You should see Levittown’s St. Patrick’s Day parade… |
| is brian greenberg nice? | 23 / 382,000 | As Dave Barry would say, “I am not making this up.” If you’re still out there, please allow me to say I certainly hope I am! |
| saint valentines day sexist nonsense | 29 / 16,600 | Ironic. This guy (and yes, it has to be a guy) googled in January, and I posted this in February. |
| “self destructing scaffold” | 2 / 2 | Well, that sounds like quite the design flaw, no? |
And finally, the Adult/Porn-Related queries. As I said above, pickings were slim this month, so I had to expand my definition of “Adult” to include alcohol as well as sex. Here you go:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| anheuser busch powerpoint templates | 6 / 1,770 | The technical approach to getting wasted. |
| drunks | >500 / 4,870,000 | The simpler approach (although, I’ll note, he’s still using Google…) |
| brothel + poland | >500 / 128,000 | Hey, cool – the hotel has free Wifi. We’ll use the internet to find things to do here in Warsaw… |
| does ashley tisdale sleep naked | >500 / 173,000 | Oh, come on people – she’s in Disney movies, for pete’s sake… |
| pitchers of nude people | >500 / 150,000 | Three possibilities here: 1) another bad speller, 2) someone’s got an awfully huge pitcher lying around, or 3) Jeffrey Dahmer’s been Googling again… |
| selma hayek + porn look alike | >500 / 73,700 | Your favorite celebrity doesn’t take her clothes off often enough for you? Go find someone who looks like her and does. Ya gotta admit, there’s an element of sheer genius here… |
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on How People Found Me – January Edition
Familygreenberg.com Health Check – January Edition
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008| Metric | December | January | % Change |
| Visits | 1,452 | 1,245 | -14.26% |
| Pageviews | 2,317 | 1,803 | -22.18% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.6 | 1.45 | -9.25% |
| Avg Time on Site | 0:47 | 0:49 | 4.69% |
| Bounce Rate | 79.68% | 81.77% | -2.62% |
| % New Visitors | 88.29% | 86.99% | -1.48% |
Two down months in a row. Clearly, I need to step up my game. In the “Behind Every Bad Report is a Good Excuse” category, I will note that I basically took the first two weeks of January off, as I was out of town with the family during that time. In fact, if you look at the daily graph (below) of visits per day, you’ll see that December (in green) had January (in blue) beat consistently for the first two weeks, then it became a horserace, and then January took over the lead.
Lesson learned: To paraphrase Dory the Fish: Just keep blogging, just keep blogging…
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on Familygreenberg.com Health Check – January Edition
My first blog widget
Monday, January 21st, 2008Hey…check out the cool web gadget just below the Previous Posts section in the left nav bar. It displays the last five blog posts that link to familygreenberg.com, including screen shots of the posts themselves. Kind of a trackback system for the entire site, but with pictures!
If you want to add it to your blog, click on the Add This to Your Blog link on the top of the widget, or just click here.
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 1 Comment »
Familygreenberg.com – 2007 Statistics
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008In lieu of a “How People Found Me” post in December, I thought I’d tip my hat to the New Year by summarizing my site stats for all of 2007. I know, I know – it’s too much excitement to bear all at once. Go ahead, take a minute. I’ll wait…
Better? OK, on to the fun:
Summary Stats
| Visits: | 18,322 |
| Pageviews: | 28,486 |
| Pages/Visit: | 1.55 |
| Bounce Rate: | 79.30% |
| Avg. Time on Site: | 0:47 |
| % New Visits: | 88.65% |
Well, it’s not quite USA Today. But on an average day, fifty people around the world click over to my website and look at an average of 78 web pages. Frankly, that’s a larger readership than I ever thought I’d have in any medium, let alone one that costs me nothing and offers me completely creative control. Thanks to all who stopped by last year – I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing.
The Top 10 Pages
| Page Name | Pageviews | % of Total | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Concert Review: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden | 4,020 | 14.11% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I Should Be Sleeping (main page) | 2,824 | 9.91% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Celebrity Look-Alike | 1,706 | 5.98% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Taxi! | 1,333 | 4.67% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Billy Joel plays the oldies
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 1 Comment » Familygreenberg.com Health Check – December EditionTuesday, January 8th, 2008
Well, you can’t win ’em all. After two excellent months, December fell off the cliff in a big way. I’m tempted to blame it on two things. First, I went away the last week of the month, so there was no blogging. Second, everyone else went away the last week of the month and didn’t do much browsing. So maybe this is just seasonal? After all, it’s the first December I’m tracking stats this way. Hopefully, I see a rebound in January to confirm my theory. That, or I’ll have to pray for another burning taxi or giant Christmas Tree outside of my office window… Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on Familygreenberg.com Health Check – December Edition How People Found Me – November EditionSunday, December 2nd, 2007The Categories
Queries were up dramatically again this month (943 vs. 736), thanks to an explosion of Billy Joel queries, an even bigger explosion (you should pardon the expression) of Adult/Porn-related queries, my Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree photoblog, and a couple of posts I did on TicTacs. And you thought these How People Found Me posts were self-indulgent and boring… After months of lagging slightly behind Technology, Billy Joel has surged past it with 237 unique queries in the month of November (up almost 30% from October). Back in October, I was shocked to see I had 23 unique Adult/Porn-Related queries that brought people to my site. Well, in November, it was 149. That’s me – the Larry Flynt of the microblogosphere. Hah! Meanwhile, keep reading and check out some of the things people Google for (and then click through to my site for!) Words fail. In other news, fourteen separate TicTac related queries brought people to my site. Read about those below as well – it’s hard not to laugh at just about any Google query about TicTacs, but these are especially rich. Also interesting this month are the types of queries that dropped in popularity. Politics is down 47%, which probably has more to do with me not blogging about it than people not caring about it. Baseball is down 73%, which also makes sense given that October contained the post-season and November contains contract negotiations. Also, that country song with “I Should Be Sleeping” in the title seems to have run it’s course – queries are down a whopping 95%. And in news that is sure to bother the Jersey crowd, queries about Bruce Springsteen dropped off a whopping 85%. Like baseball, though, Bruce wrapped up his big season in October. The Referring Sites This month’s referring site of the month award goes to buzz.mn, James Lileks, proprietor. James posted something about Christmas lights this month, and I replied in the comments with a link to my Rockefeller Center exploits (hey – a little self-promotion never hurt anyone). My comment generated 130 pageviews from 36 unique visitors. Those Minnesotans are so nice, aren’t they? I also tried my hand at self-promotion on a New York Times blog called Dot Earth, which had talked about New York’s efforts to make the tree more enviro-friendly. Again, my efforts yielded results – 61 pageviews from 17 unique visitors. The Keywords All told, a whopping 943 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in November (207 more than were used in October). Here are some of the more entertaining samples: We start with Billy Joel, in honor of his recent Google surge. There were bound to be some winners in a field of 237:
Next, we move on to the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Again, with that many queries, there are bound to be one or two gems:
Next, we move on to TicTacs. I remind you, these aren’t all the TicTac related queries from which I received hits, these are just the funniest five:
Now it’s time for our two monthly features. First, the generally wild and wacky:
And finally, the Adult/Porn-Related queries. I’m starting to think that maybe posting the strangest ones in these monthly updates is what’s driving the traffic. I can only hope that some of these folks stick around and find something more, er….wholesome to read than what they were looking for:
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on How People Found Me – November Edition Familygreenberg.com Health Check – November EditionSunday, December 2nd, 2007
Well, any way you look at it, November was a good month for FamilyGreenberg.com. As best as I can surmise, it stems from two reasons. First, Billy Joel is preparing to tour again, and the number of people looking for him on Google has skyrocketed. And since my site is such a Billy Joel Google magnet (still not complaining, but still don’t understand why/how), I reap the benefits. Second, I decided to Photoblog the arrival, setup, decoration and lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in November, since I was walking by it every morning anyway. This little experiment turned out to be a huge success, and not only drove traffic to the site, but also increased traffic to non-tree related pages. In December, we’ll see if people stick around… Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on Familygreenberg.com Health Check – November Edition Manual Google MarketingFriday, November 30th, 2007Yesterday afternoon, I tried something I hadn’t tried before. I went to Technorati, searched for “Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree” and then posted a comment on the Top 5 resulting blogs that basically said, “Hey, I have a photoblog – come take a look!” (Actually, I posted to the Top 6, since one of the Top 5 was Simple Tricks and Nonsense, where my online friend Jason Bennion did a post specifically about my page). As of last night, the results were poor. Three of the five blogs had removed my comment altogether, probably mistaking it for comment spam (or, maybe it is comment spam? That’s a philisophical discussion, I guess, although I’d argue that while self-promoting, at least the link was to a relevant topic. Plus, I’m not collecting IP addresses or selling anyone anything). But, I digress… Anyway, this morning I checked my Google Analytics stats and found that the volume to my site had increased 100% over the average volume for the month (201 pageviews, as opposed to an average of just over 100). Seventeen of those hits came from Simple Tricks, and thirty-eight came from one of the two blogs I posted to. The other blog generated no hits at all. Two interesting thoughts: 1) The blog that generated traffic is run by the New York Times. So while blogging is all about the little guy having a voice to compete with big media, we once again see that big media is correctly named – even a very small percentage of their much larger audience can move the needle on a small site like mine. 2) Self-promotion works. The photoblog page had been averaging around 11 pageviews per day since I started it, so only ~25 of the extra 100 views came directly from the link. Pages/Visit yesterday was 1.97, as compared to 1.60 the rest of the month – a 23% increase. This further exemplifies Scalzi’s Bacon Cat Incident Effect which recognizes that when you get someone to your site for a particular reason, they often look around a while before they leave. Hopefully, a few of them come back from time to time and an audience builds. This concludes today’s random observations about the Googleverse. You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives. Oh, and P.S.: If you’re here because you viewed the photoblog yesterday and came back to check out the blog, welcome! Please come back often and tell your friends! Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on Manual Google Marketing How to make a Photoblog – Lesson OneMonday, November 12th, 2007So I just realized how annoying it would be to look at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Photoblog (hereafter referred to as the RCCTP) each and every day, and have to click through a bunch of pictures you’ve already seen just to see the one or two new ones I posted that day. So, I’ve reversed the order. The most recent picture will now be first, so you can click “Next” until they look familiar, and then you’re done. Those who would like to see the entire album in sequence, can click the double right arrow (end of album), and then use the left arrow to page through the set backwards. Next week: Getting over myself & just using Flickr for cryin’ out loud… (Oh, and P.S. – the November 12th pictures are up…) Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 4 Comments » How People Found Me – October EditionFriday, November 2nd, 2007The Categories
Queries were up dramatically again this month (736 vs. 626), thanks primarily to increased Technology queries, and queries about Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen. Technology still leads the pack, but rumors of Billy Joel touring again seem to have fueled a resurgence in Billy Joel related queries, to the point where he almost caught the technology queries this month. The other categories were pretty much the standard group, although I’m pleased to see that the Adult/Porn-Related queries have died down a bit. The one that continues to surprise me the most is the Cal/Stanford queries – how so many people wind up on my site as opposed to YouTube for that clip is beyond me. It kind of makes me wish I had something meaningful to add on the subject, so that all the visitors to that post have something interesting to read. I don’t, though – I just like watching the video… The Referring Sites Each month seems to have a new favorite referrer. Last month, it was The Gothamist, who linked to my taxi burning post and generated hundreds of visitors and thousands of pageviews. This month, the honor goes to Backstreets, the site dedicated to all things Springsteen. I posted a link to my review there, and 51 visitors looked at 86 pages because of it. A comment on John Scalzi’s blog, ironically about the practice of commenting on blogs to drive traffic to your own blog, yielded 16 visitors and 36 pageviews. My friend Ilya’s blog generated a consistent 14 visitors and 41 pageviews, although for some rather shady content (you’ll have to click over to find out what). Also, the Penn Band’s baton related shenanigans drove some traffic my way from IvyGate, digg, Facebook, and del.icio.us. Ah, college… The Keywords All told, 736 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in October (about 110 more than were used in September). Here are some samples: In honor of the baseball post-season, we begin this month with baseball:
Moving on to some interesting Billy Joel-related queries:
And onward to the just plain wild and whacky:
And finally, back by popular demand, it’s the Adult/Porn-related queries (WARNING: You have been warned):
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 2 Comments »
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