« Clint Eastwoodness | Main | High Winds »
June 25, 2008
DBBE -- Trashing Sidebars
You're probably aware that I keep track of one or two things in my life. I can't explain why it is I track some of the things I do aside from curiosity. Others, like my blood work, are sort of important and make me feel like a helper when I share that info.
Lately I've wondered how many people are reading the blog. And not necessarily because I need to know but because there are three tools I use to track it and none of them agree with each other.
I guess I'm really more interested in which one is more accurate and how they can differ so much from one another than how many people stop by here. (Which is not to say I don't love each and every one of you. The women just a little more than the men, if you must know.)
One of the tools suggests that X readers come by each day. Once says X plus or minus 20% of X and the other says about 4X.
The tool that provides X also provides some other data and based on the info it provides and things I know for a fact, it is missing several people.
I could get into a whole lot of analysis, some of it brilliant sounding while incredibly flawed, but instead I think we'll move on to what I'm calling Delmer's Big Blog Experiment. (With modest apologies to Sara.)
The experiment will try to make all the tools more closely match each other and provide more accurate data:
In order to know the exact count of readers I'll need each one of you to do something for me. No, not comment; I wouldn't ask you to expose yourself like that. Instead I'd like you to drop a dollar in the mail (or something more colorful if you are from one of the outlying countries) to me c/o Mel's Diner in Hilliard, Ohio. If you're like me, a dad with kids, you may not have a dollar; a ten or a twenty will work just fine — I'll do the conversion.
There's a thought that some of the things that rotate images on the blog skew the stats high on the tool that provides 4X. Okay, this is my thought as I've got 3 things that rotate images: Granny Gallery, My Kids, and Boobiethon, and the weather widget. Theres also that Blogosphere item. I'm going to disable some of those bits to see what happens. The tool that provides the 4X count also provides a far greater number of search-terms-used info than either of the other tools. It also gives me bandwith data. It'll be interesting to see what happens when I make changes. [Update -- I've decided to simply remove the sidebars.]
We'll be photo-free during the experiment.
So there we have it. You'll be sending in a dollar. I'll be changing the blog.
Together we'll get to the bottom of this.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Hilliard, Mel's Diner, Statistics
Posted by delmer at June 25, 2008 11:49 AM
Comments
I just sent you Smarties, you're not getting anything else from me :P
You do realise that the possibility of you breaking something that wasn't previously broken is fairly to moderately high right now, don't you? ;o)
Posted by: Lady P at June 25, 2008 2:37 PM
I'd considered the possibility that I might break something -- despite the fact I had to merely remove two lines of text from a template.
However, this is all being done in the name of SCIENCE!
And I made a backup.
(Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!)
Posted by: delmer at June 25, 2008 2:48 PM
Hmm...I don't know about the 'dollar in the mail' thing, but I have other ways of exposing myself if you're interested.
Posted by: metalmom at June 25, 2008 5:38 PM
You are brave to mess around with this stuff. I once deleted my entire blog and spent at least an hour all freaked out before I remembered I had backed it up ahead of time. I never claimed to be rational.
I don't have any cash. Do you take credit cards?
Posted by: radioactive tori at June 25, 2008 6:51 PM
"One." (Maybe we could all count off or something...?)
Posted by: heather dugan at June 25, 2008 8:51 PM
My $20 is in the mail.
Posted by: The Phoenix at June 25, 2008 9:17 PM
I just checked my wallet and all I have is a Canadian dollar. Will that work?
Posted by: Iron Fist at June 26, 2008 2:58 AM
I have $107 yen, so to the mailbox I go....It's really weighing me down and I'll be glad to see it go.
Posted by: mikeo at June 26, 2008 4:22 AM
The smallest UK paper denomination is £5, which is, like, $27.83 in play money.
Posted by: Cheryl at June 26, 2008 4:50 AM
MetalMom: If you've been keeping up with the current state of my hormones you'll know I'm most certainly interested.
RadioactiveTori: I'll go so far as to take IOUs.
HeatherD: I like that idea. Sometimes the simple plans are the best.
Phoenix: Sweet. I'll start the conversion process.
IronFist: I'm a big fan of Canadian money ... send it in!
MikeO: I love Japanese money as well. Oh, and for 107 yen you get the pleasure of my children for a weekend.
Cheryl: I'd suggest you drop a £1 coin (well, I guess 50p might be a more-correct amount) in the mail but it might cost you more than £5 to mail it.
Posted by: delmer at June 26, 2008 12:18 PM