TERRIBLY TWO TODAY

I winced when I went back to retrieve my first post.  It’s pathetic, but here it is, warts and all.

So what is the state of the state for me?  I gave myself a year to make a success out of this blog.  I think I’m doing it.  I am not displeased at all, or wasn’t until I realized I feel like this thing is all of a sudden tanking and I don’t know why.  

HIT COUNTS
About a month ago I announced that The Pink Flamingo had received it’s 2,000,000 visitor.  One comment completely made fun of me, and was quite vile.  Since my announcement I’ve noticed I've become some sort of idiot.  If I’d not seen the article on Outside the Beltway  and on Ruffini I’d still be clueless.  

Ruffini wrote
“…So I started to do some digging around his SiteMeter stats and those of other big bloggers.
My source was right. The SiteMeter numbers are indeed fishy. But the reason is far from nefarious: a design flaw in how SiteMeter counts visits that systemically overcounts unique visitors on extremely high traffic blogs like Daily Kos… by a lot. First of all, I looked at the Detail view showing the last 100 visitors. Overwhelmingly it showed visitors hitting the site only once, with a visit time of zero (you need to hit a second page for it to register any time spent). Contrasted with my traffic, with an average visit length of three minutes, this seemed highly improbable.

Then it hit me: SiteMeter only accounts for the last 100 visitors individually. On a site like Daily Kos, the 100th most recent visitor could have been 15 seconds ago. If you are the 101st most recent visitor and you click on a new page, you are counted as a new unique visitor in SiteMeter’s all important count. On a normal site, this wouldn’t matter, since it’s highly unlikely you’ll stick around long enough to have 100 others show up after you. On a site with hundreds of thousands of page views a day, it’s extremely likely you will….”

The other day I wrote a post about the problems I was experiencing with Technorati.  I never even thought to examine the various and sundry site meters I was using.

Mercy!

I am using Site Meter.  I’m using Amazing Counters.  Then there’s some meter I have hidden that sends me a report every week or so.  I also use the built in Blog Harbor counter. I don’t get the same count for any of them. I just upgraded to the “Pro” version, so we shall see if there is  difference.  I have a feeling there is.

I use Amazing Counters simply to keep a total count on the page.  It can be easily changed.  My average day on Amazing Counters comes out to about 10 hits!  I get more activity from spammers than that.  I don’t even know how it is registering.

If you want to link into anything, you are required to use Site Meter.  After reading the accounts about The Daily Kos on Ruffini and on Outside the Beltway, I logged onto my account and experienced a shocker.  Their listing for me for the year is less than last month’s total from Blog Harbor!  

That invisible counter that sends me a report every once in awhile is also interesting.  I don’t even bother with it.  Today my TLB ranking is 68.  According to their site meter I’m averaging 24 visits per day. (I know that’s off by several thousand) Evidently that’s counting the times I go to the main page of The Pink Flamingo to check things.

The problem is this is NOT what my stats from Blog Harbor show.  I use their stats, which are completely different.  If I thought Blog Harbor’s stats were wrong, I’d probably quit.  The thing is, I hear from enough people to know that more than 24 people, or 240, or 75 (pick a number, any number, just juggle them up and down) the other counters are using is wrong. Blog Harbor tells me that so far, for October, something like 3,373 distinct hosts have been served.  Just that number alone negates those other counters.

Then there is the “Hit” thingie.  How long must someone linger on a page for it to count as a hit.  That’s one of the places Site Meter really gets you.  I go through a good 200 blogs a day.  There is no way I can spend even 30 seconds on each one of the.  Does that mean I’m not “reading” the blog?  I don’t know.  But – I think those “totals” need to be given more credence.  

If you want a revealing discussion about all of this, check out the comments on Ruffini.  Something is rotten in the state of counting and I don’t think it is me.  

I read an interesting stat the other day.  Something like only 20% of people who read a blog actually have one of their own.  Now what all of this means, I have no idea. If we’re playing the Technorati game, it makes a huge difference.  I know that most of my regular (as in daily – and there are more than 24 that’s for sure) readers don’t blog.  

You will eventually be seeing some changes.  I will probably be forced to switch to a word press format and change the address.  I am avoiding this as long as possible.  

I don’t know if I will keep this specific logo.  I like it.  I also like the colors in it.  When I do finally switch to word press I’ll do something along that line.  I’m a color person.  Why should a blog be boring just to be “serious”.  I’m also a very cluttered person.  The blog reflects that.    

The main thing – Thank You for reading The Pink Flamingo.

This post was composed with the annoying assistance of Doc Holiday.  Her new hobby is to sit on the right side (good sign if you're running for POTUS like she is) of the MacBook with her two front paws right on the speaker.  She sits there, nodding off, half asleep. Things go well for maybe 5 minutes then she starts licking my hands.  I protest she smacks me.  I protest more she bites me.  I put her on the floor and she's back in about 10 minutes to start the whole process all over again.


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