I know I don't regularly post on this blog, but I have found it to be quite entertaining. In the beginning of December I added Google Analytics to our site and have become obsessed with the data it pours back. Maybe it is the scientist in me, but I've enjoyed finding out the number of visits, page views, the average time spent on our site (57 seconds in case you were wondering), and other revealing statistics. Analytics lets me compare the data over different time ranges and make fascinating graphs. I've found that the data says a lot about us, the writers of the blog, and about you our faithful readers (all 2 of you--Thanks, Mom!). For example, our visitors use a variety of browsers, with 53% using Internet Explorer, 33% using Firefox, and 14% using Safari.
One of the figures Analytics makes is called the Map Overlay. It puts a dot on the map of the world (or the U.S.) for every location that accesses our blog. The data also reveals the source of hits. If someone clicked on a link on another blog or typed in the URL directly, Analytics will tell us. (Our thanks goes out to one particular blog that accounts for 1/2 of our referrals.) If you're interested, I'd highly recommend using Analytics for your blog. But beware; it can become addictive.
2 comments:
Since you have a real blog, I've started using Google Reader again to look at posts from various blogs (including yours) that I put into it. Now you've got me curious how feed readers like Google Reader impact the analytics you're talking about. Do you know?
David,
I really like Google Reader, too. It saves me a lot of time by not going to individual blogs just to find out there is nothing new. Feed readers like Google Reader are not counted by Google Analytics. I'm not really sure why, since there are other utilities to keep track of RSS/feed readers out there. One is called FeedBurner, and happens to be owned by Google. It is nowhere near as good as Google Analytics in depth of information, but does keep track of the basic number of feed subscribers.
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