Blogging about Blogs
Familygreenberg.com Health Check – October Edition
Friday, November 2nd, 2007| Metric | September | October | % Change |
| Visits | 2,203 | 1,519 | -31.05% |
| Pageviews | 3,573 | 2,380 | -33.39% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.62 | 1.57 | -3.39% |
| Avg Time on Site | 0:38 | 0:43 | +14.45% |
| Bounce Rate | 80.44% | 79.46% | -1.21% |
| % New Visitors | 91.47% | 86.18% | -5.78% |
OK, I was prepared for this. Last month, my post about a taxi cab that burned up in front of my office generated an incredible 870 visits and 1,300 pageviews. While it felt good at the time, I was mentally prepared for the stats to drop back down to earth this month. The fall was cushioned a little bit by the Penn Band’s Guinness World Record Setting Conductor’s Baton, which generated around 180 visits. Also, Billy Joel going back on tour, which has regenerated interested in my most popular post ever, my concert review of his Madison Square Garden show. That post received 352 visits in October, up from just 139 in September (+153.24%).
For a better comparison, I ran the stats last month without September 18-20, the three days that generated the bulk of taxi-related visits/pageviews. Here’s how October stacked up against those numbers:
| Metric | September’ | October | % Change |
| Visits | 1,080 | 1,519 | +40.65% |
| Pageviews | 1,570 | 2,380 | +51.59% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.44 | 1.57 | +9.02% |
| Avg Time on Site | 0:48 | 0:43 | -10.42% |
| Bounce Rate | 83.43% | 79.46% | -4.76% |
| % New Visitors | 86.56% | 86.18% | -0.44% |
Looking at it this way, October was a great month indeed. Traffic was up 40-50%, and my visitors looked at more pages and left after one entry less often. The only site that was down was Avg. Time on Site, which dropped 10.42% (or five seconds). I can definitely live with those numbers.
Here’s hoping something cool happens in November to keep the momentum going…
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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.
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How People Found Me – August Edition
Saturday, September 1st, 2007The Categories
| Category | August Count | July Count |
| Technology | 128 | 184 |
| Billy Joel | 60 | |
| Celebrity Look Alikes | 38 | 50 |
| DSL | 30 | 30 |
| ISBS Song/Lyrics | 28 | 14 |
| Overrated Films | 24 | 19 |
| Cal/Stanford | 17 | 16 |
| Family | 12 | 16 |
| Politics | 8 | 23 |
Queries were down as a whole, proportionate to the traffic (see this month’s healthcheck post), but technology related queries still ruled the roost, and Billy Joel still held on to the number two spot. The other categories also remained relatively stable, with the exception of “I Should Be Sleeping Instead of Thinking About You,” that country song that I still haven’t heard yet.
The Referring Sites
The list of referring sites remained relatively stable this month, with two notable exceptions. CNN.com and Sphere.com (the service CNN uses to link blog posts to their stories) went from nine referrals in July to fifty six in August. Note to self: when blogging about the news, link to CNN’s story. Also of note, images.google.com went from their typical 73 referrals in July to just 5 in August. Weird…
The Keywords
All told, 453 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in August (about 110 fewer than were used in July). Here are some samples:
Once again, we begin with the odd and interesting:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| change dsl filter every six months? | 1 / 445,000 | Well, ya know, as those DSL filters filter out line noise, they can get full. Then you need to change them before all the noise spills out all over the room… |
| song lyrics how i’ve been waiting for you ba dum ba dum oldies | 2 / 11,600 | Gee, I hope he spelled “ba dum ba dum” correctly… |
| isquint crippleware | 5 / 14 | I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds nasty… |
| lions tigers and bears blazing saddles | 6 / 47,000 | No. Lions tigers and bears Wizard of Oz. Some folks will never learn… |
| most rented movies all-time | 7 / 389,000 | Not a bad query to run before renting a movie. Note that Netflix was #14 and Blockbuster.com was #92. |
| joyce deschamps | 7 / 118,000 | This is interesting for a pretty geeky reason: Joyce is one of the commenters in my Billy Joel Concert Review post – that post is so popular that a query on her name now returns my post… |
| how long should a 13 year old sleep for? | 9 / 2,700,000 | Approximately one year. Then they’re 14 year olds… |
| what’s wrong with lacrosse players | 13 / 252,000 | I’m wondering exactly what this person was actually searching for… |
| “high resolution pictures” +”fenway park” | 5 / 48 | Hey – I take offense to that query… |
| new yankee stadium | >500 / 2,130,000 | Now that’s more like it… |
| why is j.p. morgan so important? | >500 / 1,980,000 | I guess you should ask the thousands of people who work there and the millions who bank there… |
| 360 rockingham, simpson oj simpsons north rockingham avenue house |
>500 / 70,800 >500 / 13,600 |
ISBS readers – never giving up the search for the real killer… |
| bar mitzvah disney world | >500 / 175,000 | My oldest is only seven, but hey – that’s a pretty cool idea… |
| how much to bar mitzvah cost today | >500 / 223,000 | ya think this is the same person as the query above? ;-) |
| kristy brinkley | >500 / 213,000 | As per usual: ISBS – friend to those who can’t spell… |
| york peppermint patties | >500 / 229,000 | I get the sensation that I’ve received a pageview… |
| supreme court fonts | na / 491 | Nothing says justice like a good sans serif… |
And, back by popular demand (OK, Lisa told me she found it funny), the “adult” queries (STANDARD WARNING: you have been warned):
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| you’re my instant pleasure dome | 74 / 264,000 | This one sounds dirty, but it’s actually a Billy Joel lyric |
| katie couric look alike porn | >500 / 44,600 | Ick. Ick, ick, ick… |
| sexmovie sleeping | n/a / 427 | I’m no expert, but I’m guessing there isn’t a lot of sleeping going on in those movies… |
| sleeping sex movie sleeping sex boys sleeping sex game sleeping sex movie sleeping sex pictures |
>500 / <various> | I’m guessing there’s a new movie out called “Sleeping Sex?” And who says perusing your website’s logs can’t be educational! |
| winnie-cooper daily updated pictures | >500 / 15,000 | Really? Daily updated pictures? Does she change that much day-to-day? |
| yung sodomy photos | 26 / 17,300 | There’s one in every crowd. My question: Do you think they meant “Jung,” as in sodomy photos of famous philosphers? Or did they mean “young,” as in “Sir, you’re under arrest…” |
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 1 Comment »
Familygreenberg.com Health Check – August Edition
Saturday, September 1st, 2007| Metric | July | August | % Change |
| Visits | 1,041 | 838 | -19.50% |
| Pageviews | 1,574 | 1,253 | -20.39% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.51 | 1.50 | -1.11% |
| Avg Time on Site | 4:40 | 4:45 | +1.76% |
| Bounce Rate | 81.17% | 83.29% | -2.61% |
| % New Visitors | 86.55% | 84.25% | -2.66% |
Oof. No good news here. Obviously, I’ve become inordinately boring over the last month. Perusing the data, the main culprits are Harry Potter (45 views in July vs. 1 in August), my family’s personal pages (all down roughly 50% from last month), and various archives (some down 50 pageviews or more), so maybe it’s more about Google searches than the quality of my writing. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Sure…
I’ll also point out that it wasn’t such a bad month, as much as it was a bad couple of weeks in the beginning of the month. If I re-run the stats starting on July/August 13th instead of July/August 1st, the numbers come out like this:
| Metric | July 13-31 | August 13-31 | % Change |
| Visits | 521 | 588 | +12.86% |
| Pageviews | 768 | 926 | +20.57% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.47 | 1.57 | +6.83% |
| Avg Time on Site | 3:56 | 4:51 | +23.01% |
| Bounce Rate | 82.34% | 82.82% | +0.58% |
| % New Visitors | 87.14% | 81.29% | -6.71% |
So maybe things are looking up. See you in September…
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In Minnesota, Your 15 Minutes Is Easier to Come By…
Monday, August 27th, 2007Just got back from a wonderful four-day weekend visiting family in Maple Grove, Minnesota (just outside of Minneapolis). We did the standard things, I suppose – marvelled at the Mall of America (including the theme park formerly known as Camp Snoopy), sampled some local restaurants, and cooked S’mores in a bonfire on the driveway while neighborhood kids came by to play and dance to various Hannah Montana & High School Musical tunes.
As a daily Bleat reader, I made one additional suggestion. Isn’t the Minnesota State Fair going on? Wouldn’t the kids enjoy spending a day there? Also, I know someone who’s working there (well, “know” in the web-sense of the word – read what he writes every day & send him an occasional e-mail, which he reads and occasionally responds to as one of a sea of e-mails he receives from loyal readers).
Anyway, off to the fair we went:
A few rides, a TON of food (including several things “on a stick” that you wouldn’t expect to find on a stick – including a Snickers Bar), and then the long walk back to the car (we had a pretty good parking spot. I believe they call the lot “Wisconsin.”) Anyway, on the way back we passed the Star Tribune booth and I dragged the family off the beaten path for a second. “Excuse me, is James Lileks here?” “Why sure – he’s on the back porch.”
Perfect.
And so it was that I got to meet the man who writes the words I read every morning on my way to work. I told him so, and he said it made his day. Then he gave us some sage advice about holding our breath during the tour of the animal exhibits, and we were off – him to his Buzz.mn writing, us to our car. The next morning, this time at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport waiting for our flight, I pull up the today’s Daily Bleat. Lo & behold, look what I see:
It’s wonderfully gratifying to meet people at the Fair who read the stuff and enjoy it. (One fellow came up to the Official Buzz.mn Porch today, and told me he reads the Bleat on his Blackberry while taking the train into NYC. To Rockefeller Center! Made my day.)
Now how friggin’ cool is that? James, if you’re reading this (and there’s a chance you are, since I’m going to e-mail it to you as soon as I’m done posting it), please know that reading the reference to us the next morning made my day as well (and my wife’s day & my kids’ day…)
One more picture from the fair. It strikes me as something the Bleat-master himself might have posted if he had taken it (and, of course, he’s free to pilfer it as his discretion if he so chooses). Some contextual irony that can only be understood after passing the “Gator on a Stick” and “Teriyaki Ostrich on a Stick” booths:
Like I said – Perfect.
Categories: Blogging about Blogs, Family Matters, Travel Talk | 1 Comment »
How People Found Me – July Edition
Monday, August 6th, 2007The Categories
| Category | July Count | June Count |
| Technology | 184 | 151 |
| Billy Joel | 76 | |
| Celebrity Look Alikes | 50 | 70 |
| DSL | 30 | 22 |
| Politics | 23 | 12 |
| Overrated Films | 19 | 19 |
| Family | 16 | 8 |
| Cal/Stanford | 16 | 10 |
| ISBS Song/Lyrics | 14 | 10 |
For the second month in a row, technology related queries lead the list, surpassing the once dominant Billy Joel entries. In fact, Billy Joel is in serious danger of dropping to #3, behind the inexplicably popular Celebrity Look-a-Like searches. New to the list this month are searches involving politics, searches directly involving me or my family, and a small uptick in searches for the Cal/Stanford “big game” and searches for the lyrics to a country song called “I Should be Sleeping Instead of Dreaming About You,” which I’ve never heard.
The Referring Sites
New to the referral section this month are burlaki.com, a blog belonging to a friend and colleague who is currently residing in London and keeping his American (and Russian) friends & family up to date on his travels, CNN.com who was nice enough to link to one of my posts (for more on that phenomenon, click here), and imdb.com, where a commenter on one of their forums (which I didn’t know existed until now), quoted one of my posts. All told, the above links resulted in roughly 25 visits & roughly 30 pageviews (or about 2% of the total).
The Keywords
All told, 563 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in July (about 120 fewer than were used in June). Here are some samples:
We begin with the odd and interesting:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| its a groovy time for a movie time | 4 / 1,490,000 | I didn’t realize I was the purveyor of Austin Powers-inspired cinematic marketing slogans |
| feel something wrong with the world | 7 / 50,800,000 | Gotta love this logic: 1) feel something wrong with the world, 2) Google it, 3) Click on a familygreenberg.com link to find out what it is. Sorry to disappoint… |
| do you want to display the nonsecure items? explorer boring | 31 / 309 | Boring? I’ve heard it called lots of things, but never boring… |
| who sang dum de da | 34 / 279,000 | Er….I’m guessing just about everyone at one time or another, no? |
| examples of teenage cellphone voicemails | 148 / 271,000 | Are there really such things on the internet? And who’s searching for them? |
| what are stem cells good for | 270 / 2,150,000 | It’s actually quite an impressive list, and I’m proud to be on it… |
| ratings graph chart evening news katie couric -debut | >500 / 17,700 | I think someone finally figured out that her debut was the exception, huh? |
| who needs a babysitter in lakewood,oh | >500 / 21,900 | Quite a specific request for Google. Serves ’em right for clicking through to my site… |
| chez greenberg | >500 / 270,000 | Oui, Oui, Bonjour Madame e Monsieur. Ca va? |
| how to sneak things onto a cruise | >500 / 295,000 | We at ISBS do not condone such behavior… |
| wind blew my car into my own home will insurance pay for the damage to the home | >500 / 310,000 | OK, this guy either lives in a tornado zone, or he has the worst excuse for driving his care into his house I’ve ever heard… |
| what do i do when my bank account balance vanished? | >500 / 556,000 | World’s most desparate Google Query? |
| rationale of gambling | >500 / 698,000 | Gee, I hope it’s not the same guy as the one above… |
| i’ve been working on the railroad | >500 / 1,640,000 | Seriously? Someone should write a song about you… |
| sleeping the laptop good? | >500 / 1,900,000 | Ladies & Gentlemen, the winner of this month’s foreign language query! |
| most interesting google searches | >500 / 65,000,000 | A query for interesting Google searches turns up a page with a list of interesting Google searches. Ugh…my head hurts. |
| one of these please | >500 / 528,000,000 | Er…sure – help yourself. (What could he/she possibly have been Googling for?) |
| fighter jets over leominster ma | n/a / 432 | Again, the logic astounds: hear fighter jets, Google, click on Familygreenberg.com for answers… |
| guess the dictator sitcom star | >500 / 45,500 | Sounds hysterical… |
And now, for the first time since I’ve been doing this, we come upon some queries that are, shall we say, “adult” in nature (WARNING: you have been warned):
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| advancements about cervical incompetence (2005-2007) | n/a / 107 | OK, it’s a little explicit, but it’s medical, so we’ll give it a pass… |
| did harry potter sleep with emma | 365 / 491,000 | Now, now – that’s just wrong… |
| naked pictures of kristy brinkley | >500 / 167,000 | OK, we’ve achieved the common every porn search… |
| sleeping sex movie | >500 / 3,300,000 | More creative, and more relevant to this site, but still rather common… |
| mother inlaw in lingerie | >500 / 348,000 | Bingo – now we’re into the bizarre. Forgive me while I go wash a mental image out of my head… |
| he gets it up the ass by a heshe | 1 / 713,000 | Well, that’ll do it. Thanks. The bad news is, this is the only #1 on the list this month. The good news is this query somehow made it’s way to my post on Michael Moore… |
| videos of any president peeing | >500 / 921,000 | Oh, man – seriously? |
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 2 Comments »
Familygreenberg.com Health Check – July Edition
Monday, August 6th, 2007A week late, but better late than never:
| Metric | June | July | % Change |
| Visits | 945 | 1,041 | +10.16% |
| Pageviews | 1,416 | 1,574 | +11.16% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.50 | 1.51 | +0.91% |
| Avg Time on Site | 4:13 | 4:40 | +10.38% |
| Bounce Rate | 78.94% | 81.17 | +2.83% |
| % New Visitors | 84.87% | 86.55% | +1.98% |
Well, that’s much better. Last month, all the major statistics were down. This month, they’ve rebounded a bit (although not to May levels). The increase of roughly 100 pageviews is explained by topical posts (Harry Potter and the Apple iPhone), as well as a marked increase in hits to my archive files and my family’s personal pages. The former doesn’t seem sustainable, while the latter does, so we’ll have to see how August treats me.
Also, a note to those who are curious abuot such things: Google Analytics has changed the way it calculates Average Time on Site. A big ol’ hat tip goes to Yohay, who found out that they now exclude bounce visits from both the numerator (total time on site) and the demoninator (total number of visits). So, while in June, I reported 53 seconds (up from 46 in May), I’m now showing 4:40 in July (up from 4:13 in May). Still positive news, but not as positive as it might appear at first.
Altogether, a pretty good month…
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This is CNN…
Monday, August 6th, 2007So check it out: CNN’s story on Danica McKellar’s book links back to my post on the subject.
It’s in the “From the Blogs” section (you have to expand it to see). So far, eight people have clicked through.
Next thing you know, I’ll be interrupting posts on important topics to talk about what Paris Hilton had for breakfast this morning…
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How People Found Me – June Edition
Monday, July 2nd, 2007My monthly effort to stay on top of Jeff Porten on the Google rankings. ;-)
The Categories
| Category | June Count | May Count |
| Technology | 151 | 140 |
| Billy Joel | 163 | |
| Celebrity Look Alikes | 70 | 80 |
| DSL | 22 | 20 |
| Overrated Films | 19 | 21 |
| Al Gore | 8 | 18 |
| Steven Wright | 6 | 17 |
Consistent with my Billy Joel-induced dropoff (and despite my persistent lack of ISBS Tech Guide entries), you can see that Technology related searches eclipsed Billy Joel as the most popular reason people come here to visit. Billy Joel related queries, while still holding on to second place, dropped by more than 50%. The other big winners, Celebrity Look Alikes, DSL and Overrated Films all held an almost remarkable consistency. And, as mentioned below, the more topical discussions (Gore & Wright) dropped off precipitously as well.
The Referring Sites
A quick shout out to jeffporten.com for sending 28 visitors my way last month, the largest of the non-search sites. Also of note were jasonbennion.com with five, and scalzi.com with four (two more than last month).
Other interesting entries included linkedin.com, which I use, but have never seen generate any traffic/benefit for me until now and, a site called mp3raid.com, which seems to scour the web and link to mp3 files from other websites (which I’m not linking back to on the off-chance that they shouldn’t be doing that), and the ever popular fatman-radio-search-engine-swicki.eurekster.com.
The Keywords
All told, 684 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in June (around the same number as were used in May). Here are some that I found the most interesting:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| celebrity bed look alike | 1 / 1,040,000 | Want a bed that looks just like the one your favorite celebrity sleeps in? Come on down to I Should Be Sleeping! Best prices this side of Hollywood! |
| olympic”” “”seizure”” “”2007″” “”mpeg”” | 1 / 45,600 | What exactly is an olympic seizure? Do judges give scores at the end? |
| what’s wrong with moveon.org | 6 / 294,000 | Oh man…they only give me 2GB of space on my web server… |
| put the ethernet cable in the computer, but the light did not come on | 8 / 471,000 | Try the light switch, my friend… |
| short term effects of the jfk assassination | 10 / 625,000 | Short term? I know Google didn’t exist in 1963, but this query’s a little late, no? |
| mlb standings google gadget | 10 / 129,000 | Not on my blog, but hey – that’s a great idea! (be right back…) |
| wesley autrey on let’s make a deal game | 10 / 22,900 | That’d be Deal or No Deal, folks… |
| what kind of figure do you have quiz | 22 / 1,890,000 | Who, exactly, goes in search of an internet quiz to find out this information? For future reference, I suggest www.lookinthemirror.com |
| innocent high | 104 / 5,640,000 | And here I thought they went looking for a drug reference. But #1 on the search results is something entirely different (NSFW) |
| macintosh consultants | 129 / 1,290,000 | The second month in a row this happened. (Since I know Jeff is curious – his site came up #441. Some things are just not fair…) |
| fun facts about sleeping | 201 / 2,200,000 | Man, someone needs to get out more… |
| guys videoing girls sleeping | >500 / 3,730,000 | You attract all kinds, I guess. Sorry to disappoint ya, fellas… |
| pictures of cartoons sleeping in bed | >500 / 2,070,000 | Not much to add – this just struck me as funny… |
| i recently upgraded to ie 7. i miss my old command bar; file,view,etc. how can i get my old command bar back? | >500 / 271,000 | Ladies and gentlemen, this month’s winner of the ‘I talk to Google like it’s a person’ contest… |
| glenn beck blows a blood vessel | >500 / 72,500 | Hmm…someone have anger issues??? |
| recharging pacemakers | >500 / 44,900 | Can you picture the one guy passed out on the ground, and the other guy sitting next to him, frantically Googling ‘recharging pacemakers?’ This kind of thing makes me wish I could draw cartoons… |
| pronouncing a in rhode island accent | >500 / 36,600 | Note that last month, someone hit my site looking for ways to pronounce “water” in Philadelphia. Obviously, this guy is migrating north… |
| gesundtheit | 0 / 692 | Thank you. |
| wedding taking place at clemson university jay leno | 0 / 464 | That’s how rumors get started… |
| microsoft sufrace | 0 / 93 | That’s me, best friend of the folks who can’t spell! |
And, just for good measure, a couple of interesting pairs of queries:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| things you can do in 3 hours and what can you do in 6 hours |
>500 / 148,000,000 and >500 / 184,000,000 |
I love a good Google competition. Next month, 9 hours! |
| what is a good question for bill clinton and who did bill clinton sleep with |
1 / 2,820,000 and 7 / 1,830,000 |
Seems the second query answered the first, no? And oh, by the way, check out those search rankings! Imagine if I actually wrote about Clinton’s sex life? |
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on How People Found Me – June Edition