Traffic to my blog has spiked recently. This is partly due to the fact that I re-informed many of my colleagues of its existence, and also due to the fact that Mary emailed one of my posts to a bunch of her relatives. But examining my site traffic meter some more, I realized that in fact, most of my recent visitors are drawn to this blog by the siren call of Jake Gyllenhaal. Thanks to the power of search engines like google, a search for the name "Jake Gyllenhaal" will bring up my blog.* Not as the first hit or anything, but still, high enough up at the moment that a small trickle of people come by every day, looking for info about Jake. It makes me wonder how much traffic I would get if, hypothetically speaking, I had a phrase like "naked pictures of Britney Spears" in my blog. Oops! Guess we'll see!
On another note, I have decided that I need a better pseudonym to sign my posts with, as, well, my initials are not exactly the most anonymous things in the world. It's not that this blog is anonymous, as I talk quite freely about who I am and what I do. I do, however, attempt to make it slightly difficult to find this blog through google by not actually referring to my name or to the full names of others. So I'm thinking maybe I should ditch my initials.
Suggestions for a different handle are welcome.
*a technical note: the site meter I use let's me see by what page people link to my blog. Therefore, if somebody comes from a Google search, I can see what the search was. I can also see people's IP addresses, and when they visit. With my limited traffic, that means I can pretty accurately identify almost all of my visitors. The .edu address in Evanston is easily traceable (Hi, Susan!), as is the Durham, NC visitor. (Hi, Grandma!) Knowing all of this makes me feel slightly stalker-ish, but then, it is my blog.
3 comments:
I figure when it comes time to start really worrying about privacy, you can temporarily take your blog down. A good friend of mine turned her blog into a private wordpress blog when she started applying for legal internships. It's worth considering.
I figure your use of the contact meter is like being in the corporate world where ones calendar is on line. I use to have a gal working for me who knew my schedule better than I did. I always found it a little eerie. Kind of like no curtains on the picture window facing the street.
Hi Phil. I was referred by Mary.
-Nick
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