My Stats

I saw that Iain Dale has published what he is referring to as his StatPorn on his site. Congratulations to Iain for having a fantastic month.

I thought I might show myself up a little and publish my stats as well. First though, a short history of my short history.

My inaugural post was published on 29 Nov 2008, it was a simple welcome and statement of a few aims. My next post was not until 2nd December when I posted a few thoughts on Independent Candidates. Blogging was a little light in December as I attempted to find my blog voice. December also saw a busy month at work and at home and as I still work full time it a was a month for finding balance.

It was not until the 16th December that I discovered and installed Google Analytics, thus the following data is for information captured since then.

December 2008 Stats

Not terribly impressive compared to other blogs I am sure, but I was not disheartened. The spike was when Iain Dale included me in his regular list of Ten New Blogs announcements and I got so traffic as Iain's readers popped over to see my site during the Christmas Break. Thank you Iain for the link.

So, for December I had 256 Visitors, of which 199 were Absolute Unique Visitors and 331 Page Views.

The linking sites though were made up as follows.

1. Iain Dale's Diary 164 Hits

2. Total Politics 2 Hits

3. SNP Tactical Voting 1 Hit

I also had 11 hits via Google searches, all via keywords in articles that are on the blog.

The most read posting in December was my reaction to a BBC news report is saw on TV, and is here.

January 2009 Stats

January has seen an increase in general traffic and a much bigger increase in traffic from varying sources as other blogs have started to link to this blog.

In January the links on my page have increased in number as I have found more and more blogs that I have found interesting. There has also been an increase in the number of posts I have put up and an increase in reader interaction through comments, the reactions boxes and the poll.

I have also been reading up on a few things that I hope have made the blog more enjoyable and/or interesting. For instance I am now able to embed images from Internet video sites so I have posted a few videos that I have found or been pointed to on You Tube. I have also joined Twitter, and have been updating there mostly when I am posting an article to the blog.

January has again been a month of balance between work, blog and home life. However I managed to post 54 times, (compared to 13 in Dec, and 1 in Nov).

In January I have had 807 Visits, of which 447 are Absolute Unique Visitors and 1,371 Page Views.

The linking sites though were made up as follows.

1. (+2) SNP Tactical Voting 43 Hits (Up 42 Hits)

2. (New) Tractor Stats 38 Hits

3. (-2) Iain Dale's Diary 27 Hits (Down 137 Hits)

4. (New) Politigg.co.uk 22 Hits

5. (New) Unenlightened Commentary 16 Hits

6. (New) My Telegraph.co.uk 14 hits

7. (New) Letters from a Tory 11 Hits

8. (New) Biased BBC (via links on cover it live sessions) 10 Hits

9. (New) Bloggers4UKIP 6 Hits

=10. (New) 10 Downing Steet by Lord Elvis 5 Hits

=10. (New) Timrollpickering Blog 5 Hits

Total Politics drops out of the list with 0 hits for January.

I also had 114 Hits via Google. By far the highest return was from the search term "wiki leaks" with 72 hits, here is a selection of a few of the more bizarre, and frankly in some cases I am not sure how my blog was linked

Alex Massie

Janet Hartley + Resign

"Peter Mandleson" cumbria January 2009

gay chicken 4

lembit opik

pic of egon quigg from x factor

tbw sarkosy

I would like to thank all of the other Bloggers who have linked to this site, and also say that I have seen that a few other blogs have linked to me late in January and I would imagine they will get a mention in the February Stats.

A couple of highlights in January have been for me where my blog has been referred or given mention via a link. So thanks to Letters From a Tory for including me as a link on your First Class Posts on Friday (30th January) and also to fellow newbie blogger Oliver @ Olivers Blog for his article here, which picked up on my post asking Where Is The Public Outrage & Protest?

I also had my busiest day on 17th January when I had 115 page views.

My ongoing hope, I guess the same as all bloggers, is to get some increases in traffic as the year goes on; and for me personally I would like to see more comments & reactions being left as that was why I started the blog initially. The pipe-dream is that blogging could one day replace my current full time work. This will be a very long way off based on current readership levels, but an ambition none the less.