Popular?
I don’t care one jot about blog stats.
Okay, I’m understating that a bit. When I log in I take a brief glance at the day’s total page hits but otherwise I don’t care.
Well, okay, that too is an understatement. I perhaps drill down and see which individual pages are doing business that day. But that’s all.
Hang on.
Yes, okay, okay, I check the page hits. I scan search engine referrals. I note the click-throughs.
I write all the figures down in a notebook I keep in a shoebox tied with old string under my bed, which happens to contain my collection of mummified squirrel parts…
I made that last bit up, but I do still take an interest in the stats my blog gets. I haven’t relapsed into being a slave to them as I once was. If the numbers dip, they dip. If they soar, they soar. More often, they plateau in the way only a plateau can.
Imagine my shock then, dear reader, when I looked at my home page this evening and saw this…
Just in case you’re missing it, here’s some help…
What the bloody hell!! Over 3,000 followers? Yesterday there were around 150! I felt the hard work which goes into my craft had really paid off. This was, for me, the big time. Oh yes…
Ah but no. A shufty under the bonnet reveals a more prosaic reason why my subscriber numbers have rocketed. WordPress has tinkered in the way only it can.
Subscriber numbers, in addition to actual blog followers, now include all TWITTER FOLLOWERS AND FACEBOOK FRIENDS. I wonder how all my Twitter followers and Facebook friends feel about that? Hey you, spammy git who I forgot to unfollow, thanks for following my blog. Hope you like my work. And you, Facebook chummy who I played Fishville with once, and who, I suspect, doesn’t have English as a first language? It’s great to have you along.
What kind of nonsense is this?
If I’m going to obsess take an interest in stats they at least need to be meaningful. It’s like tagging everyone I’ve ever talked to in real life as friends. So, as much as I’d like to crow about this number, it means nothing.
If you are a Facebooker or Tweeter who happens to get caught up in the dragnet, thanks for stopping by. You are a stat on my homepage, but if you want to be more than that, hit the “Sign me up (north)” button and join the few who get my febrile ramblings lobbed into their inbox every so often.
And if you already are a subscriber, I thank you from the heart of my bottom. You’ll be comforted to know I have your details in the notebook in the shoebox under my bed. And no squirrels were harmed.
Ha Ha. I was on your blog last night and saw that figure and thought – HUN has that many followers? Must be a mistake.
I’ve got a blog coming too soon so look out for it. I have one follower already and I haven’t even told anyone about it.
Being a fellow wordpress blogger, I logged on and got the exact same thing and thought ‘what the hell?’ Then ‘whoohoo!’
Seriously though, I do feel it makes the whole follower thing a bit redundant if the world and his dog automatically gets classed as a follower…..
Ha ha – I noticed exactly the same thing had happened to mine too! I admit to being baffled for a while until I realised what had happened. I remain a true follower of this superb blog, so hope that my details are safely stored with those squirrel remains…
I have been dragged here kicking and screaming against my will, but I’ve found I rather like it so will do a proper follow.
I blog with Weebly, but don’t take notice of stats aside from the daily page hits. Generally these numbers are very low unless I’m talking about my son’s biological father and I suddenly get a Jeremey Kyle high (or if I get nekked, everyone loves a bit of boobage, even if they are mine…)
@MotherScuffer x
Love this. Especially the fact that I am in a shoebox under your bed at night.
Three months of blogging has taught me to be cooly insouciant re stats. I now only check them half-hourly! By the way, I dislike squirrels, dead or alive. Could I be re-housed in a different part of the bedchamber please.
I’m new to your blog and thinks it fab.x
I knew I should have set up a wordpress, not blogger blog …….
Well I’m a TRUE follower – signed up to them all! (Does that mean I’m a triple stat?!!
I don’t get it at all, don’t know how to find my stats, let alone total page hits, i didn’t even know you could check out individual page hits… looks like i’m best keeping it that way and with my head in a shoe box under the bed…
Excellent – I bet you do get more subscribers just from writing this post – most of us think we’ve subscribed when we haven’t! *off to check now*
Love this post for so many reasons x
Having binned Klout I now have no ulterior motive for tweeting or posting statuses in fb. However, I do have one brain cell thinking about Tots100 while I’m replying to comments on my blog. Feeling a bit Bloggered after reading this post.
So does that now mean that it counts me three times (as a subscriber, a twitter follower and a facebook friend)?
This is insania! I must admit I just popped over and actually dribbled red wine over my favourite brown furry dressing gown when I saw the number of subscribers. Hardly an attractive mental image of womanly beauty is it.
I got all excited and headed over to see that mine hasn’t done that – otherwise I would have taken a screen shot, printed it out and tucked it under my pillow for some umm special time later on.
I’m a follower and proud to be one. It is a bit mad adding it all together.