Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Falling Falling Falling

I know I should not care so much, but gosh dang-it, I do.

Back in March 2011, I lamented that I had a sudden drop of 30 readers per day. I even went back to that day in question to see how offensive that post was to make people en masse suddenly move on. I remember it being a fairly innocuous entry. You all said not to worry about it.

Back "then", 30 readers was 20% of my readership. It was a big deal.

By December of last year, I was getting 1200-1300 hits per day. I knew I couldn't sustain that, but I was doing really well for a while.

Times have changed. Oh to have only 30 readers jump ship.

For the last year or so, I've been averaging 700+ hits of the blog per day. When I say 700, it is actually (well, probably) more.

The way the tallies are done via Blogger/Blogspot is: if someone hits on a specific entry, it gets noted as a hit. If someone just goes to the main URL and scrolls through 30 posts at a time and doesn't go into a specific post (as they're all just kind of laid out for you there), then I don't know what that number ever might be.

So conservatively, I'd been doing roughly a 700 daily average. Some days it is above 1100, and some down in the 600s. but rarely is it ever lower than 600. 

Until June 19th.  I saw a precipitous drop in one day (down to 397 from 778 the day before) and there it has stayed.....or gone lower.  One day I went down to 378. Yikes....and ouch.

Again, I didn't post anything offensive. I mean, what the fuck do you people have against Karen Carpenter? I got five glowing comments on the post (hey, for me that is a LOT), but still I started to tank in the overall viewing of the blog.

Granted, someone who once authored Mike's Short Attention Span Theater would have killed  - yes, killed!!! - to just rack up the daily numbers who have abandoned me, but I'm not that guy! He is. Or at least, was. Still I'm kind of taking to heart such a huge loss.

I was chatting with David from Facing Traffic and he said one of the things I was thinking: "people are busy with summer and whatnot".

Perhaps, but it could just be a bot server in Micronesia that has gone down or been redirecting traffic to a site that is more influential or topical. Or maybe my readership is laying in a mass grave due to ISIS, because you just know they were my core demographic. That's right: past tense.....in every way.

Well, there isn't much I can do about it now. I will let things run its course. Maybe blog reading is waning. Maybe that's a sign for me. I'm not looking to quit.....at least yet, but ya just never know. 




Song by: Mandy Barnett

7 comments:

wcs said...

The blogger reading list feature has been on the blink for the last few days. For me, it means my list of blogs is inaccessible and I can't easily click through to read them. I wonder if people aren't visiting because of this. Blogger says they're working on the problem, but I've missed many of my favorite blogs because I have no easy way to access them (they're not bookmarked in my browser). Ugh!

anne marie in philly said...

at least people are still reading. no worries.

Bob said...

I'd go with the "Summer Excuse."

Though when it gets real hot outside, I'd prefer to be inside in front of the computer ...

Fearsome Beard said...

You've gained me as a reader in the past month. Having just started my blog I am happy with 15 a day. Hopefully that will increase over time and as I get added to blog rolls and such. I have to figure out how to put a list of blog links on mine soon.
Fearsomebeard

Harpers Keeper said...

I know little about how Blogger calcs (I'm on Wordpress).

An overnight change like that, outside normal variation, that doesn't rebound doesn't sound like a change in reader behavior.

Have other blogger users seen a similar change? Maybe B implemented a change in how they count hits.

Can you see any significant changes in referral sources? Are more or less coming from search engines rather than other blogs? If search engine traffic is down maybe it's a tagging problem? Again, unlikely that would hit your blog harder than any other B user with similar traffic.

Has the number of 'followers' (or 'subscribers' or whatever Blogger calls them...the people who get email notification when you post)changed? I'm not sure how they are counted but maybe they tweaked it.

Is a puzzlement

Erik Rubright said...

Botnet fail, yes. Malaysia, not so much. But China, on the other hand...

Will J said...

Just keep Peteyporn Saturday.