Dim Summary Statistics

I've recently noticed a stats feature in Blogger. It's pretty cool, and being a closet nerd/scientist, i think statistics are interesting. Here are some things i learned. As always, you can click on the images for a larger view.

MOST VIEWED POSTS OF ALL TIME

This was quite a surprise. A few of those in the top ten are expected, namely, the Komodo Liveaboard, Cleatus and Trixie, and the Philippines stuff. But out of no where, we've got the Fraggle Rock/Doozers Costume post from the Shanghai 2009 Tournament taking a commanding first place finish over Five Boracay Sunsets.

PEOPLE OF THE INTERNETS: Why is that post so interesting? Oddly enough, if i sort by most popular post of the past month, it's still the Doozers, with Cleatus and my Five Year Plan finishing 2nd and 3rd. Curious! Why The Face!

AUDIENCE BY COUNTRY

This one isn't so surprising. Obviously USA will be #1, but i wasn't expecting it to be so lopsided. The other 9 countries listed combined make up about half of my USA readership. A shout out to my Filipino friends for edging out Germany for the #2 spot!

Actually, those numbers aren't completely true, as China's numbers are in reality much higher. My blog is blocked by the Great Firewall, as are Facebook, Youtube, and any other blog hosted by Blogspot. Therefore, they need to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to see it. VPN's create a fake location for you, so the government censorship system thinks your computer is located in the USA. Thus, you can view blocked sites, and Blogger records these visitors as coming from the USA.

The truth is, there hasn't been a visitor "from China" since before the Olympics.

TRAFFIC SOURCES

The last intriguing one is the source page information. This one tells me how people found my blog, whether they googled the words kevin reitz beijing, kevin's dim summary, or doozer costume, it tells me how people are arriving here.

It also tells me the actual URL people came from. Some of these were obvious, such as google, chinabloglist.com, and Tao's blogs found here and here. However, the #1 spot was a revelation.

Here is that first link, an unedited reprinting of my comparison between the Philippines and Indonesia, complete with my ~Kev tagline. They added some stock photos as well, because my original post was text only. After searching a while, it turns out this website probably doesn't produce any original material; they just steal whatever they can find on the internets.

Tao said i should demand money from them, but at least they linked to my blog, and i got a few dozen hits from there.

I decided instead to send some samples of my work to www.CNNgo.com and asked for a job as a freelance travel writer. Still no response from them, but hey, it never hurts to try.

~Kev