Need help? Check out our Support site, then


WordPress.com Forums » Support

Stats question for the gurus here

  1. fracas
    Member

    I'm stumped regarding my stats.. if anyone knows the answer I'll be thrilled but I don't want to actually send feedback because it's not really a problem that interferes with normal use of my blog... rather a curiosity I'd like solved.

    I have a post about how women are getting cosmetic surgery on their *ahem* bits and pieces that aren't above the waist. Okay.. so this would be the only post on my blog that contains the term genitoplasty, because before that I didn't even know the term. When I first posted it, I had a lot of views on it and didn't really pay attention to the stats. I'm just checking my stats in general today, and it shows for yesterday, that 26 people arrived at my blog searching the term "genitoplasty" yet when I view the hit counts for the same day, for the post itself, it shows only 10 views of that post (it's called Designer Vaginas).

    How does that make sense? I'm sure there's an explanation and while it's not a problem in the sense that I need help or I can't go on.. it will drive me batty until I know the answer. I'm posting it to the support forum in case others also are wondering about similar counts in their stats, but if others feel this should be moved to the off-topic forum, I don't mind that either... I just need to pick the brains of those of you who've been around longer than me.

    So thanks in advance, because I'm sure someone out there is going to know.

  2. dirkgently
    Member

    I'm guessing the searched term brought them to your blog itself, not necessarily to the Designer Vaginas blog entry itself. The front page is going to start with your latest blog entry. I could be wrong but to class as a hit on a particular blog entry the surfer would need to click on the title to effectively "read more" or "read the whole article in isolation from the front page".

    A way to help isolate your stats would be to make sure to always use the "more" function...as it forces people to click to read the rest of the entry and therefor triggering an accurate hit in your stats. It also lets the surfer skim a few paragraphs and decide for themselves if they want to read the rest...than having to scroll through the whole entry just to see the next one.

  3. timethief
    Member

    This may be of some help http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/02/09/questions-about-stats/

    P.S. I do not mind clicking through the occasional "read more" tag on lengthy posts. But when I note any blogger is compelling double clicks producing double stats to read all or most of their posts - I refuse to play the game - I do not return.

  4. judyb12
    Member

    i'm with dirk on this. You actually have genitoplasty on your main blog page in the category widget. People may be hitting your main page but not hitting the post itself.

  5. drmike
    Member

    Judy's right as this has come up in the past a few times here in teh forums. Search engines usually find your tag and home pages of more importance that your individual posts and pages as you tag and home pages is what folks link to more then the individual pages.

    Here's a google search that may make sense to you. The tag page and your home page is probably where folks are dropping into your blog. It's one of the reasons why I don't think putting a list of categories on your front page or side bar is a good idea.

    Wanna cheat a bit? Do a text widget and label it your favorite posts. Go back through and find this post and others like it that you want to highlight and copy and paste links into that text widget. Use keywords within those links like "genitoplasty" to help the search engines find where you want folks to be heading. You can also go back through if you've talked about "genitoplasty" in the past and make links within your other posts to that specific one. Actually encouraged with blogs.

    Now excuse me as I do find a dictionary. :)

    Hope this helps,
    -drmike

  6. fracas
    Member

    lol, and were you shaking your head when you looked up genitoplasty?

    Thanks to all of you, I didn't think of my category list (which I've been meaning to remove from my sidebar) and that does explain it. I agree with timethief about clicking the "read more" button. I also don't mind if it's a long post but find that I don't return as often to blogs that do that. Since the object is to keep people returning, I don't think I'll go that route. Sometimes a photo or illustration in the post is what keeps people reading and to always use the "read more" tag would spoil that as well.

    I mostly write whatever takes up my interest that day, so am not too worried about being exact on knowing the stats for each post. I was just curious when I noticed the searches and the hits not matching up.

    Thanks for clearing it up for me, you guys are always right on the ball.

  7. ozrisk
    Member

    I normally try to keep the opening bit to one paragraph; not to try to get additional hits but I know that some of my readers are only interested in some topics and keeping the content on the home page short allows them to get through it quickly to any content they may actually want to read.
    What is the general feeling on this?

  8. raincoaster
    Member

    Seriously, some of my good friends structure their blogs that way.

    And I never read them.

  9. fracas
    Member

    I have to agree with raincoaster.

  10. marcys
    Member

    I think if you use a good title, one that gives some hint of the post's content, plus good tags, that should be enough to let readers know if they want to read it.

    I have a similar issue with search terms: I notice people put in words that might have something related to something I've posted, but not exactly. For instance: search term "Heidi Fleiss laundry." I have a post about Heidi Fleiss, and my blog's name is Dirty Laundry. But Fleiss and laundry have nothing to do with one another. Then there's "hi ho dirty song." I posted a song about ball player Miguel Cairo to the tune of "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go." Not dirty. I can understand those, somewhat, since they mix up words on my blog. But: "child shakes hands when excited." Nothing like that anywhere on my blog. How does that happen?

  11. raincoaster
    Member

    You'd have to ask Google. It's probably some weird combination of words or letters. I don't think I've ever used the words "Somali" and "porno" on my blog, but I get hits all the time for "Somali porno".

  12. drmike
    Member

    For rain

    It's a combo of your tag porn and the couple of times you've mentioned Somali in your posts.

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.

About this Topic

Tags