Weekly Rundown: Stats & Stuff

Considering how action-packed my last few weeks have been, this week has been surprisingly quiet. It’s made for quite a nice change.

My participation in the A to Z Challenge has been somewhat lax owing to the fact that I’ve not had an internet connection for much of the week. The two days when I was able to get online on my laptop for a couple of hours in the evening were mostly spent catching up on comments here, replying to them and returning visits to their blogs. And I did all that on my Kindle (which isn’t the best way of doing things).

Today I’m splitting my time between replying to and returning visits to people who have commented on my blog, catching up on the blogs I read regularly and trying to get through forty or so blogs from the challenge list. If you’re visiting because of a comment I left on your blog today then you know that’s going quite well. ;-)

Despite my tardiness in visiting the blogs of other challenge participants, I’m still getting a vast number of hits. I’ve actually broken my total number of pageviews for last month and I’ve just managed to break my highest number of pageviews in a month ever! When I checked this morning I was at 5,064, more in a month than ever before. I'm quite pleased.

I’m thrilled because I’ve noticed my posts getting retweeted on Twitter as well. Considering I picked my A to Z theme of IVF/ICSI in the hopes of raising awareness for people on both sides of the treatment process, I’d say that I’m achieving my target. So yay!

Other than failing to visit other blogs and celebrating my rising pageview counter, I’ve been reading a lot.

It took me an age to get through The Pickwick Papers (read: one week). That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, it just felt like I was running on the spot a lot of the time. You’d sit and read and read and read for an hour or so, check your progress and find you were only a tiny bit further on in the book. I suspect that some of this was because I was reading it on my Kindle so didn’t have that physical representation of how much I’d read (at least when you’re reading a book-book you can feel how far through a book you are).

Now I’ve moved on to Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales. Like The Pickwick Papers this is another book for the Reading Challenge (Pickwick was for a popular author’s first book, this is for a book by an author you love that you’ve not read yet). Despite weighing in at about as many pages as the Dickens book, I feel like I’m getting through it a lot quicker.

This week looks set to be a little bit busier as we’re gearing up for my birthday. We’ve got a trip to Oban coming up which I’m planning on using to buy even more reading material and having the day off for my birthday should give me a little more time to get caught up online while I’m somewhere with an internet connection.

See you there!

Stat Happy!

I got a pleasant surprise when I logged onto my Blogger Dashboard on Sunday. Click's Clan hit 40,000 pageviews! In fact, I was well over 40,000 posts but not having been online sooner I hadn't noticed.

Blog Overview 20/04/14

I had kind of suspected that this was coming, having been somewhere in the region of 39,000-something the previous week, but I wasn't sure whether I would make it to the big four-oh-oh-oh-oh before Sunday. It's always a nice surprise when you hit a big milestone. In fact, it's nice to see those milestones at all because it shows people are actually visiting your little home on the Internetz and that you're not just shouting into the ether.

Would you believe that the last time I did one of these posts was way back in September last year, then it was to celebrate 20,000 pageviews. I don't think 30,000 pageviews went entirely unmentioned but it was buried amongst a bigger post and didn't have the individual stats on it.

Here's the shape of things this time around:

As of 20/04/14

Pageviews for today and yesterday are a little higher at the moment because of the A to Z Challenge. I noticed this last year, I got a nice big boost during the month which tapered off towards the end of April/beginning of May when things went back to more normal figures.

Still the month pageviews show that I'm seeing a wee bit more traffic compared to last year, 3,329 last month compared to 1,865 when I screencapped it last year.

My all time most popular blog post still remains my book review of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. As I type this it's sitting at approximately, 1850 pageviews (1300 more than the next most popular, three blog posts about various Christmas films). All of my all time most popular blog posts date from 2012 or 2013 and I suspect that it is largely Google Image Searches that are bringing people to them as my top search terms are mostly combinations of 'Game of Thrones book cover' and 'der Grinch'.

I've had a few really weird search terms bringing people to my blog in the past few months. No screencaps of those because several of them involve the word 'porn'. I'm not entirely sure why they're bringing people to my blog, but I'm sure the people who find me through that search are very disappointed. Oh, and I've had a fair few looking for 'Knitted Chickens' as well, hopefully their needs are being satisfied by this post.

Other milestones that I've passed recently include writing my 666th blog post, and later the 700th as well. I'm not sure exactly which posts these are as it happened while I was scheduling my A to Z Challenge posts last week and since then I'd added my regular posts in between them. Suffice to say I've written them and they're here on my blog. I'll try and keep an eye out for my 800th when that comes up.

I wonder which blog achievement will be my next to celebrate. It won't be long before I hit 50,000 pageviews so maybe I'll skip that one in favour of posting a Stats post about my 60,000th pageview. All being well I'll be getting there somewhere around November!

20,000 Pageviews!

About a week ago I noticed that I was rapidly approaching the 20,000 pageviews mark. I thought to myself, 'ooh, I'll have to keep an eye on that' and then promptly forgot about it until yesterday when I realised that I'd hit the 20,300 (and climbing) mark.

Pageviews as of 08/09/13

As you can imagine, I'm pretty chuffed about that. I'm also fast approaching my 500th blog post as well. I'm pretty impressed that I've managed to keep this up for as long as I have (and I don't have any plans to slow down right now).

Unfortunately I've not got any really crazy new search terms to find my blog. People are finding me through googling things like 'clicks-clan.blogspot.com' which is pretty much guaranteed to bring them here but provides less entertainment for me when I check the search terms thing.

Overview as of 08/09/13

I like how my monthly pageviews keeps growing as well. It's nice to know that people are actually stopping by my blog and that I'm not just shouting into the ether.

Another Blog Stats Post

I've been meaning to do another blog stats post ever since I completed the A to Z Challenge because it definitely helped to boost my page views and I thought it would be interesting to have another post to make that milestone.

And then I forgot about that. Then I hit 15,000 page views and it seemed like that should be occasion enough to make a post showing my current blog stats. But once again it got overlooked until now.

Pageviews for the week, from 23/06/13

I'm now fast approaching 16,000 pageviews so now seems like a good time to share some of these stats. The picture above was captured on Sunday so things will definitely have changed since then. The little spike you see on the 18th is because I posted a review of a Terry Pratchett book that day. Any post that mentions Terry Pratchett or Game of Thrones is guaranteed to get twice as many pageviews as any other post that week!

Most popular posts to day (23/06/13)

As you can see, the top spots for most popular posts are still dominated by my very first Game of Thrones book review and those ever popular film reviews. I have no idea what it is about them, except that the Christmas film posts seem to largely attract Russian and German viewers. I'm pleased to see that a couple of posts from this year are sneaking up the list in terms of popularity. Hopefully by this time next year there'll be a few more 2013 posts on that list (and a few less 2011 ones)!

Traffic since the blog started (23/06/13)

And that's how things are looking on my blog for number of visitors since I started. I love how much it's grown since my first post way back when! I like how whenever I have a little dip it's followed by a spike. I think some of that increase in traffic is due to the fact that I post every day now (and that back in April I was posting twice a day on most days). It's fun to see how it just keeps growing and growing!

Search Keywords (23/06/13)

And finally, my personal favourite page to check in my stats, the keywords. I'm yet to find something as interesting as 'men having a wee', which is probably a good thing. My favourite from this one is the one third from the bottom. I'm guessing it led to the post about my haircut. This also probably demonstrates just why my Game of Thrones post remains at the top of the list for popularity.

Do you check your blog stats regularly? Have you found any interesting keywords which have led people to your blog?

A Quick Statistical Interlude

I'd planned a post about War Horse today, but I couldn't let a little milestone like 10,000 pageviews pass without comment. From Sunday I knew it was coming, and I knew it was going to happen this week, but I couldn't be entirely sure exactly when it would happen, which led to a little bit of obsessive compulsive checking of my blog stats at the beginning part of the week.

Just over 10,000 pageviews

I've mentioned before how much I enjoy checking my blog stats, it's interesting to see what people have been looking at (and what search terms have been bringing people to my little blog).

It's also interesting to see how my pageviews change over time:

Pageviews to date (as of 26/02/13)

December always seems to see a bit of a spike in page views due to my Christmas film review posts I did a couple of years ago. My most view post to date is my book review for A Game of Thrones which has had over 1,500 views, the next most popular posts are both Christmas film reviews (with 500 and 425 pageviews respectively). Most of my popular posts are from 2011 but there's a couple from last year and one from this year which are sneaking up the listings which I'm pleased about.

From what I can tell, most people find my blog via various combinations of 'the/der Grinch' or 'game of thrones'. I've had some pretty interesting search terms in the past though, my favourite being 'men having a wee'. I'm not sure which disturbs me most; the fact that someone actually wanted to search for that, or the fact that my blog was one of the pages listed as the result for that term!

I'm curious to see how my blog statistics change over time, it's always interesting to watch the little spikes and see what's causing them. I'm fairly certain that the recent increase in traffic is largely due to my signing up for the A to Z Challenge because it's exposed me to a bunch of new blogs, several of which have followed me back in return. I'm wondering if my A to Z Challenge posts will help to change the search terms that are bringing people here.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and checking out the place, hopefully you've seen something you like and will be coming back in the future. Here's to the next 10,000 pageviews. ;-)

A Statistical Interlude

I do enjoy checking the stats on my blog, it's really quite enlightening and amusing to see just what it is that gets people clicking over here.

Certainly some posts get a lot more traffic than others. It always used to be the Home Alone, The Grinch and Mr Bean film reviews that got the heaviest traffic (and by mentioning those here I've probably guaranteed that this post will get a sudden spike in search results). But some of the book reviews have given them a run for their money. Generally anything about a book by Terry Pratchett will guarantee a lot of hits, but I've discovered a new leader for most popular book review.

Pageviews per post as of 28/10/12

This is the page views for this week (though it's pretty much looked like this since I posted the book review for A Game of Thrones back in September). As you can see, the next highest post is around 70 pageviews less popular (and it's the Home Alone film review post, in case you were wondering).

It can also be a little alarming discovering what search terms are bringing people to your blog. Allow me to demonstrate:

Search keywords as of 28/10/12

The top ones as you can see are all about A Game of Thrones, so far, so good. Then we've got some random searches, but the one that really worries me is the second from the bottom 'men having a wee'.

I'm a little worried about this for two reasons: one, why has that search term brought someone to my blog (I'm guessing it's because of The Wee Free Men review, at least, I hope that's what it is), but two, why would you want to search for that?

On second thoughts, maybe I'd rather not know!

Interesting Stats

Took a peek at my stats today for the first time in a while, with some interesting results:

Search keywords 11/09/12

The bottom one is, I think, a search leading to my post on my hydrotubation and laparoscopy. I'm really pleased about that one because it gets lots of hits. When I was getting ready to have the op I struggled to find information about what it actually involved so I'm glad that people are finding it and I hope it's useful for them.

The second from the bottom is obviously linking to my review of Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men. The Terry Pratchett review posts tend to get a lot of views as well, I can understand why.

'Christmas bean' is probably linking my my review post on Mr Bean's Christmas that we watched last December, hehe. Those posts still get dozens of pageviews each week. Bizarrely I get a lot of views on The Grinch and Home Alone films from Russia and Germany, I wish I knew the reason for this.

The second from top is probably people who know me googling the blog. Might actually be me when I've accidentally hit the search bar on my iPhone rather than the address bar, hehe.

But it's the top on that gets me.

I have no idea why 'diddly bears in Scotland' is linking to my site, or even why three people have searched for that! It appears to be connected to a YouTube video which is spamming lots of blogs, which is a little bit boring really. But if you have visited today (and aren't a spambot) feel free to leave me a comment explaining exactly what it was you were looking for. ;-)

And Now For Some Stats

I've been meaning to make a post about this for some time, purely because it's something that amuses me. Having managed to get more or less caught up on my book reviews, I decided that now was a good time to do this.

One of my favourite things about Blogger is that you can check your stats to see which of your posts are most popular, what search terms are bringing people to your blog, where in the world your visitors are coming from and even what operating systems they're using. Yeah, I know, other blog providers let you do this as well, but I'm familiar with Blogger having spent most of my earlier years playing with LiveJournal, which doesn't have that feature.

Now it's fun to see where your visitors are coming from, but honestly my favourite thing is seeing which search terms are bringing people to the blog. Checking mine regularly has shown me that most of my visitors come from Google, which doesn't mean that it's showing up on the main Google search site. Most of mine actually come through the Google Image search.

I think it's hilarious to see which of my posts are most popular. I imagine my posts about the rats, certain book reviews, perhaps my Project 365+1 photos which I'm particularly proud of. But that's not the case. Last December I was watching and reviewing Christmas films, unfortunately I ran out of time to review every film that I watched (it was very time consuming tracking down pictures, writing out all my thoughts and getting it posted when I had access to internet). Despite this, these Christmas posts are still among my most popular:


Cap of my stats on the 25th of March

As you can seen, in a single week The Grinch and Home Alone 3 posts are my most popular. They get a fantastic number of page views per week. It's bizarre considering the fact that we're heading towards the end of March now, yet people are still searching for those films, or more specifically, pictures from those films!

As an aside, I'm quite pleased that my Post Op post is getting a good number of page views, I hope that continues. In the run up to having my own done I was desperately searching for blog posts and forum threads about the procedure I was having done, wanting to hear first hand from people who had it done. Hopefully my lengthy post could give a bit more information to someone in the same situation as I was.

My other favourite thing to do is to check out the search terms that have brought people to the blog as well. It's quite enlightening.

Cap of my stats on 25th of March

As you can see, a lot of people from Russia have been looking for pictures from The Grinch this week. It's quite funny really, I was expecting the random searches for Christmas film pictures would tail off as the year moved on, but it hasn't. I'm feeling rather curious to see whether this trend continues in the next three months.

Also, my favourite image search term is "cute rat pile" which brings up this image:

The definition of "cute rat pile"

I'm fairly certain the post it's bringing up is the one which I recently posted introducing all the girls. I mention them making a pile of shredded paper. But this combination of words has let to Bell's little mugshot appearing on page 6 of the Google image search.

I'm looking forward to seeing how my stats change in the coming months, the geek in me loves looking at statistics. I've noticed that the Terry Pratchett reviews get little spikes, I'm curious to see what future posts will do to my stats.