I don’t look at my stats anywhere near as often as I should because no matter how many comments there are it always seems to me like I’m talking to just a few people. That means I don’t check referring URLs – the Google searches that lead people to me – and end up missing a whole lot of fun. Yes, I’m geeky enough to think that checking stats is fun.
When I do remember to check stats I begin by seeing what days and hours have the most traffic. I’m guessing that the 6:00 am traffic surge is due to RSS feeds; not because you woke up, threw back the covers and jumped out of bed to see what’s new on the blog. If I’m wrong and you did wake up, throw back the covers and jump out of bed to see what’s new, you’ve won my heart forever. My attempt to jump out of bed at 6:00 would land me in a pile of hurt on the floor. Mornings don’t like me much. The feeling is mutual.
Next I look at what countries visitors to the site are from. Lately it’s been the USA, UK, Canada, Hong Kong, and Thailand, to name a few. I wonder if Jim or some of his friends are checking out family life in the USA. I hope he tells them that not every American family is as crazy as ours.
Finally, I check out what phrases people are looking for when they stumble upon my little piece of the internet. This is where things get interesting.
The list of Google searches can be funny, fascinating, or frightening, but are always entertaining. Most of the time I have no idea why Google sends these poor unsuspecting souls my way. I wonder what they think when the end up here after searching for “pork belly recipes” or some other totally irrelevant phrase.
Here’s a small sampling of honest-to-goodness search phrases, taken at random from MHCL’s stats: No “pork belly recipes” though; I made it up.
“Cat Peeing Near Mouse Droppings”
True search: someone on the internet searched for this phrase and was sent here. I’m dying to know the full story, aren’t you? If this is your search you’ve got to email us the full story immediately; inquiring minds want to know!
“Licking Tongue”
Another one that’s got to have a story behind it. Licking what tongue? Licking whose tongue? Could you lick your own tongue? Someone else’s tongue? That’s disturbing… Some people eat tongue, I suppose you could lick it before digging in. So many questions and no answers.
“Welcome to Happy Crazy Life What is She Worth”
Wait – she who? She me? Am I for sale? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I would’ve sucked in my abs! No one tells me anything.
“Crazy Croutons”
Well, this is embarrassing. I did make some crazy croutons – not on purpose, but crazy nonetheless.
Kids – do not try this at home.
Can you Give Infants Warm Gelatin?
My mom used to feed us warm Jell-O when we had the stomach flu. There’s nothing like throwing up red Jell-O to turn you off gelatin forever. I wouldn’t recommended giving warm gelatin to anyone, much less infants. Now I’m feeling nauseous…
Are Elephant Decorations Demonic
I have no idea. What do y’all think?
My Life is Crazy
Honey, you are so preaching to the choir.
Amy Sue-First of all let me say that you look WAY to young to have a married child. I am not kidding.
Second those are too funny. I too am a nerdy stat checker. Sometimes I think I should stop. I get crazy about looking. Im pretty sure that sometimes 90% of the hits to my blog are from me going to the blog to check how many people have looked at my blog. Ok so really my site only logs me once a day but still I look way too much!
Thanks Anna – I clean up good, LOL!
I totally relate to 90% of the hits being from myself checking out my own blog- usually cuz I’m customizing something. (I code live because that’s the only way I know how) and don’t know php so when I’m working on the blog it’s a lot of trial and error. I make a backup of the file, try something, save, and refresh the blog to see what happened. Sometimes I’m lucky and say “Cool, it worked!” but most of the time it’s “Crap, I broke it again!” so I have to cut/paste the backup, save again, refresh again, etc. I really should find a better way to do it, but it’s easier to stick with what I know.
I’ll bet you’ve got funny searches too – care to share any?
~Amy Sue