analytic musings

Ah, Google. The longer I play with Analytics, the easier it is to get a fix on who reads the blogs, and how often. Al has been helping me experiment a bit by telling me when he's been on and attempting multiple comment posts (thanks Al.) And it's not that I'm trying to pinpoint the presence of particular individuals -- there's no reason to do so -- but it is interesting to note the network locations of visitors and speculate just how some of the more unusual sources are picking up certain blogs. For example, Alan travels quite a bit, and explained that sometimes he visits LC using a hotel ISP -- which explains a few oddball addresses from places like Montana, where I know no one. I get a sense of geography within this exercise -- not only am I becoming familiar with the common Midwestern ISPs, but search engines have brought me some out-of-the-country visitors as well (though sadly I'm not what they had in mind, and they don't tend to stay.) Checking keywords from referrals lets me know what people are searching for when they find me; and Google pretty much guarantees that if I mention Phelps the Olympic swimmer in a post, someone is sure to hit my post in a search within the next few days. Internet marketers are bored by this kind of data, but my small-time operation makes this a fascinating subject for me. And as someone quoted to me recently, "I'm not much, but I'm all I think about."