The Thamesmead Grump

LIES, DAMMED LIES, AND STATISTICS

The phrase originally attributed to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, although never found in any of his published works brings me to my subject for today. 

Blogger Statistics.

Writing a blog is rather like whistling to the wind, you can never be sure who is listening, or even, if anyone is listening at all. Here is where statistics should be of some help. Blogger provides a set of statistics for blogger users so authors can monitor the success (or otherwise) of their work. The problem is that the ones provided by Blogger are pretty much useless as they all contradict each other. 

Let me give you an example. According to Blogger stats, so far this week I have received 157 page views. That's a bit on the low side, probably because I haven't publicised any of my recent post much. Most of them are from the UK but with a smattering of hits from around the world. Sometimes these foreign page views overwhelm the figures, providing up to 90% of the total. Russia seems to be the source of many of these but I get them from as far away as Brazil, Australia and the United States.

When I go on to find out where these traffic sources are coming from the figures don't add up. 37 hits from referring URLs yet 43 from referring sites although those two figures should be the same. Then, when I look at the number of hits each post has received, I get a different number again, 49 this time.

All this adds up to the fact that I have no idea how many people are reading my blog and sometimes wonder whether it's worth the while. The last time I asked for feedback to get an idea of numbers only one person responded (thanks Arthur Pewty).

On a lighter note, I do have some fun clicking on some of those referring URLs to see who they are. Most come via Facebook which is no real surprise as that is where I post details of my updates. I also get regular hits via Arthur Pewty's Maggot Sandwich and Bexley is Bonkers which is also no surprise as they both mention my blog from time to time.

Some of them are really strange though. One called http://apocalypse.moy.su  bounces me to a sex contact site called premiumhookupclub.com. Don't click the link unless you are very broad minded. I'm not quite sure how it found it's way to the Thamesmead Grump though, he uses a completely different service.

h.kensakulab.com takes me to another dating site, this time it's all in Japanese but I clicked the translation service just for a laugh. Sub menus offer "category palpation" and "rankings meet the most". Must say, I'm almost tempted.

http://kerongsang2u-rosedelight.blogspot.com/ is another Blogger site but there doesn't seem to be anything on it.

CONGRATULATION

The Thamesmead Grump wishes to complain about the quality of 419 scam emails he has been receiving lately. I can't remember the last time I had the widow of a deposed African dictator asking me to help her out of a refugee camp with her trunk full of jewels and US Dollars. Those born-again widows dying of long time cancer of the (insert organ here) must have all popped their cork by now because I haven't had a peep out of any of them for a while. The Nigerian authorities have finally repaired all those roads that foreigners and their families used to keep getting killed on and, (my favourite), those poor orphans whose Fathers took them so special and are now on the run from homicidal Uncles seem to have completely disappeared. Even the FBI have given up trying to arrest me.

I do get the occasional offer of a loan at competitive rates a tax rebate from HMRC and sometimes a genuine business opportunity will come along, but other than that, pretty much nothing. Boring.