Alexa

I really do not understand this traffic counting stuff. I am not a techno wizard and any explanation is likely to go way over my head. Particularly, if it is any more detailed than the question I pose at the end.

I do not really know why I linked it to my blog. I guess it seemed like a good thing at the time. And when the numbers were coming down pretty consistently it probably seemed like fun. I have been down to 914,000 plus a few and I have now blown back out to 1,028,396.

I am not sure how this works as the other stat and traffic counter seems to suggest that I have statistically grown and grown somewhat significantly, like double over the last 30 days. I am guessing the Alexa number is my rank and that must mean that there are others out there who are growing much faster than me. Is that how the figures should be read?

Football -- The English Premier League

My ode to the English Premier League or the EPL. This is a post for the boys (sorry girls) and also my ode to smutty posting and the complete lack of it in my blog :D

If I was not the Managing Editor of a legal / law website then my next choice of profession would have been body painter extraordinaire!

I guess today is just one of those days where I have had too much time on my hands. I should also add that I am feeling a little stoked as today is the first day I have managed to attract more than 200 site views and almost 100 visitors, of which about 60 are new. Nah, for all you blogging legends out there, these numbers might not be much but they are good for me and I am happy for myself...I am also a realist with numbers like these I am not going to be making any money on this venture!

Happy viewing with the picture though! I stole it from here.

I am Back!

Dear Loyal Readers...

It seems that each day I check my stats there are fewer and fewer of you!

I am back though and will start posting again with a vengeance, so to speak!

Photos are to follow. I am still to format them into a more manageable size for posting.

A special mention to my mate Tree who lost his dog, Mowgli, to old age and other ailments. My condolences on your loss!

Cheers

Blogging Statistics...

This might be called a recurring theme for me but it remains one of interest! I would guess that based on my stats sex or sex-related material gets the visitors in but it does not get them back over and over again. So, then the real question is how to increase visitors, particularly repeat visitors, without resorting to time tested tactics relating to sex!

Controversy always works and my posts on the last supper still draw a good number of hits. The posting of the accompanying pictures to those posts was a worthwhile deal because some were hard to track down at first (although they are not so hard to track down anymore).

Yet, the killer here I think is that if what you are posting is readable and interesting then people will keep coming back. I also think that if you write it as you see it, the idea of calling things based on your personal experience, then you make a personal connection with the reader without ever having to meet them in person! So, in that sense it does not matter whether you are anonymous or you reveal your true identity. Two examples of this are my blogging colleagues Jakartass and Rima Fauzi.

I return to both their blogs because I enjoy reading what they write as much as I enjoy how it is written. I should also give a shout out to the other blogs I read, all of which are in my blog roll. But, a special mention to the ones I read most often such as Treespotter, GJ, Greenstump, Dilligaf, and Finally Woken (all linked in my blog roll -- check them out!).

However, as I have already written many times, I blog to amuse and humor myself! If I do happen to amuse and humor others along the way then so be it! I never really started doing this blogging thing for recognition, personal or otherwise, so stat numbers are not so crucial to me or my existence. The idea that someone is reading what I write is intriguing to me but that is about as far as it goes. Nah, I am competitive and I like to win and I like to be the best, but I am also a realist and this reminds me of an analogy involving bodybuilding and working out!

"There is always going to be someone bigger than you out there!" So, don't get too caught up in the ego of this. Simply, there is always some one out there prepared to work harder, do more, or take more steroids to be the best! I am struggling to be just happy being me right at this moment in time without putting on any added pressure on myself of having to be the absolute number one blogger in Indonesia and the world!

By the way...the other thing that seems to drive visitors is posting good pieces and posting often. If I can visit and see something new each time I visit I tend to keep visiting other blogs. So, I reckon it would be the same for others who visit me...

Thoughts about Pistachios and Taxis

It is 23.30 and I am sitting in the office for no other reason than I cannot get a frackin' taxi! That is the way it goes in Jakarta when it rains (or in this case it is pissing down like cats & dogs)! So, what is a fella to do than read the blogs and munch away on the pistachios?

So, I have been catching up with my fellow bloggers by reading and commenting on their blogs...These are just a few of the blogs you should visit:

Treespotter
Green Stump
GJJakarta
Jakartass
Rima Fauzi
Carl Parkes
Dilligaf
Ecky
Finally Woken
Indonesia Matters

Interesting one and all!

While I have been taking care of blog business. I have been munching away on the pistachios and wondering why they are so damn expensive. I could probably do the research myself but for the fact I am to frackin' lazy! By the way frackin' is my new word (too much Battlestar Galactica)...

On an aside...my blog ranking seems to be moving north and I am not sure why? It is strange because the hit counter statistics thing that I am using suggests that my visitor numbers a plummeting and I should by all reckoning be becoming less popular (if there is such a thing when you are already unpopular)...Argh, the crazy world of cyber space math!

More Sex = More Visitors in a Statistical Sense

Sorry readers...

But in an effort to boost visitors to my blog I have decided to increase the frequency of "naughty" posts. You know the ones, the ones about sex, any and all kinds of sex, perhaps even pictures and film, maybe even a snuff movie! (Oops, I think I am letting on that I know too much about this subject matter!)...

Just kidding! Yet, as sad as it is for me, my statistics are showing a definite trend towards south, they are hardly in free-fall (probably because they are not high enough to free-fall anyway) but there is no upwards trending going on here. So, back to the point! A few posts about a teenager proposing provocatively in a swimsuit and a child genius morphing into an escort were good statistically in terms of attracting visitors. Unfortunately, my other offerings have proven to be far less attractive!

However, I am not in this game to become the most popular blogger in the universe but rather I am in it to humor myself! And humor myself I do!

Good weekend to all!

Site Traffic Too - Russia, Middle East, China, and Africa

I have only recently started tracking my site traffic (and my blog is not very popular at all) mainly to see where readers are coming from. As I have posted regularly before, I write this blog to humour myself as much as anything else. Although, to be honest it would be nice to know that someone found reading these little musing interesting.

Nah, in that vein, and similar to the rationale of posting provocative words to stimulate the masses and attract traffic, I am going to post some regional specific entries in a blatant attempt to attract visitors from the four locations noted in the title.

Once again, I will let you know how that goes in terms of numbers of visitors....

Good weekend to all!

Site Traffic

The idea that using provocative titles and keywords will increase traffic to your site is not being borne out by the statistics!

I guess I will need to ramp-up the frequency and the risque-ness of the words in order to try and attract more visitors :)

Sex, Religion, & Power -- Weird, Crazy, Bizarre, & Stupid

Being new to the blogging game and I am not even sure that this is true or more to the point even works, but apparently the choice use of keywords in the title of posts and labels may increase traffic to your blog. Hence, the title of this post.


It seems some of my blogging colleagues have cottoned on to this and may be using it to great effect. But as I said, I am no techno wizard or genius and know as much about this kind of stuff as I do about walking on the moon!


So, a shout out to my colleagues who have on occasion opined about one of these topics:


GJ, Tree, Simon, Patung, Jakartass, Stumpy, and Dilli...


I will let ya know if I get a spike in traffic :)

To Blog or Not To Blog for a Blog Ranking

I am not so technologically savvy and it took me forever how to work out how I might increase traffic to my blog and I do not think I have been so successful at that in any event. I was going to whack a widget into my blog that lets me track my ranking and lets other people see it. Yet, when I thought about this a little bit, two things came to mind; I did not start blogging to make money (hence no thoughts of commercializing my blog) and I did start blogging to amuse myself.

It would be nice to be popular and have people drop by just because I write good stuff and people want to see what I am ranting and raving about now. But, the fact they are not dropping by means that the stuff I am writing is probably crap and not so interesting. This perhaps should be motivation to write better crap (although so far it has not been any motivation at all!).

The other way to go to make my blog ranking climb is to adopt a contentious position or to be racist, or bigoted, of just write plain unsustainable arguments into my postings. This seems to bring people out in droves. I am guilty of this slowing down at a car crash mentality as I am a regular poster at Indonesia Matters. Some, nah most, of the stuff posted there is outrageous in the most outrageous of senses but it can sometimes be a little addictive because you just do not know what kind of far right or far left extremist views will be posted. But, I guess that is what keeps everyone coming back for more. It must be said that there are some attempts to post rational and reasoned responses but they tend to be a minority rather than a majority...

Back on point though (and enough of a plug for Patung -- do not even know the bloke!). The question is should I be too worried about a dropping blog ranking to the point where I do something about increasing that ranking from the 400's to the 10 -99 range? Simple answer - Nah!

As I said if people want to read they will eventually find me and if they like what they read they will be back. Some of my kind readers have linked me to their sites and maybe it is time I tried to work out a more effective way of using RSS, technocrati, de-lici-ous (or whatever it is),and some of these other blog assistance tools! Yet, I am humoring myself and I am currently humored, so maybe later!

The inspiration, well not really inspiration, or at least what got me thinking about blog rankings was a post on Unspun's blog about a proposed meeting between the Indonesian Minister for Communication and Information with the top bloggers in Indonesia which got me to thinking about what makes a top blogger a top blogger!

Enjoy the weekend!