Obsessed with Stats

[Doralilymama]

When I first started blogging, I had to stop myself compulsively checking my stats to see just how many readers I'd managed to hook in the past millisecond or so.

I've managed to gain a reader or two since the start, and got my compulsion under control, but I wonder what you think is a reasonable hit rate? And a reasonable number of subscribers?

When does a few become a lot?

Hi Doralilymama,
Good question. I don't know, but I will watch the replies with interest.
BW,
Lesley x.

I'm interested in this but I think it varies vastly.

Maybe best to pour all your love into a blog and watch the hits rise and rise. Fun to watch but not necessarily worth obsessing over. It could drive one mad!

It's a bit 'How long is a piece of string' really, isn't it? I don't think that number of subscribers is all that important now, since people seem more likely to click on individual posts they see promoted on Twitter, FB etc rather than subscribe and follow all the posts.

Also depends on your content, ie if you run competitions you'll probably get a lot of hits from those but they're not necessarily readers who'll stick around and engage with the blog, so that might not count as such a success.

I think that for a parenting blog, anything up to 100 hits a day is great, over 100 is fantastic. Things like people coming back, leaving comments, tweeting and FBing your links etc are good indicators of how you're doing.

Thanks Joanne, especially since by that measure my blog is fantastic, but then it's not a straightforward parenting blog either. So how long was that piece of string....

I just can't leave my stats alone! I love to look at them, how pathetic is that. Now just need to hit that 100 target ...

I admit, I am a little bit obsessed, but try not to get too hung up on them. My stats are steadily going up, so I just have to be happy with that!

I measure the success of my blog by the number of comments I get, and especially by the number of people who repeatedly comment. I like those people a lot!

I average out about 200-300 a day. On the days when I remember to promote my posts on twitter or whatever I've had around 500. I ideally would want to be at a steady 1000 a day. My highest ever was for a post that someone had linked to on mumsnet, it was 2000! I can't see that happening every day

I get around 3,000 views a day. My most ever was 12,798 when I appeared in the Wordpress 'Freshly Pressed' thing or something along those lines. I used to get really hung up about stats and stuff but I have been pretty much ignoring them for a while now - if they dropped beneath 1,000 then I'd probably get a bit worried and a rise over 5,000 would make me raise my eyebrows but otherwise it just plods on fine without me making too much effort.

I think that sounds like a serious fan-base there, Mme Guillotine: your blog must be great.

I expect one stope fretting about the stats when they reach a critical mass like yours.

BTW, since posting this question, I have started getting junk referrals! Yet a new variation on spam.

It's really not great, but it's about history and writing, which have, I suppose and I know this sounds a bit wanky, 'global' appeal if that makes sense? Well over half of my readers are based in the US for instance. :)

Our stats on The Camel's Hump are increasing day by day. It's weird, because what I would have been really happy with last month, I now think is a bit rubbish, so I suppose you adjust your expectations.

On my personal blog, which usually gets much less than Camel's Hump, I got nearly 6000 in one day once. It was crazy - that was through a post being mentioned on mumsnet and twitter, then it just went a bit viral. That was fun :)

oh,by those stats I guess that makes my blog a complete failure then.

I had over 300 stats once when Martin Lewis retweeted one of my posts, but other than that I get maybe 20/30 hits a day. Even though I am part of the network/promote my posts on twitter etc.

Maybe it's not worth bothering with any more..

Excuse the non-MN-network-blogger interloper for one moment (I lurk, bad habit, can't be bothered to sign up to the network ... should I admit that?) but I see an excuse to geek out again! :)

Before comparing virtual penis size ;) it's really important to bear in mind lots of things:

• talk about "hits" or "views" is useless unless you know whether or not that's unique hits or just hits / page views or unique views - the disconnect between these two figures can be huuuuuge (if I visit your site for the first time, then read your about page + 1 entry, that's 1 unique hit but 3 page views; old stats software also counts hits to individual items too - so 20 images on a page would be 1 page hit + 20 image hits in one go)

• different stats trackers show different totals... my favourite stats tracker (mint; haveamint.com) tells me I got 1,156 unique hits on Saturday; Google analytics usually sits 100 or so lower than that; awstats (comes with my hosting) tells me 1,741

• some count unique hits in different time scales - if I visit your blog today and tomorrow, some stats will count that as 2 uniques (measured every 24 hours) but some only 1 (measured every week / month / so on)

• some stats trackers rely on JavaScript (google analytics, mint) but not everyone has JavaScript enabled - I disable it using NoScript for Firefox by default (less of an issue if most of your readers are "normal" viewers rather than the nerds I attract)

• some people on dial-up (still exists!) and certain ADSL packages will be assigned a new IP address at frequent intervals (e.g. each time they connect) - this too can appear to be more than 1 unique hit when in fact it's one person

• opposite to above point, when someone is behind a network which routes all external traffic through a proxy (for example) you get multiple potential users appearing as 1 unique hit because they all have the same external facing IP

• if someone subscribes to your blog via an RSS reader, they could be reading every post but not clicking through - which will add a big fat zero to your hits

Now you know that hits are a relatively useless measurement of anything, I will say: I have been blogging for some 10 years & in that time my daily unique hits have fluctuated from circa 100 to 20,000+ / comments from 1 or 2 per entry to over 100. What is popular and interesting one week is not guaranteed to be the same a week later. Some of my 'best' posts have been time sensitive and offer me no long term benefit today. If you blog purely to see that hit counter grow, it will affect your writing and how genuine you sound and IMO make people less likely to come back. The best ways to secure long term traffic are to write well, write consistently (don't update daily and then disappear for months - slow and steady is better), engage your 'community' and comment on other people's blogs.

Thanks jemjabella - lots of useful info here and your last para certainly reflects my experience.

I am a statsaholic. Can't stop looking. I got 149 hits in one night last week and was pratically sick with excitement. It was probably only my mum repeatedly logging on, a bit intoxicated after a pinot or 2 and saying "WELL DONE DARLING!" in her head, but who cares.
Although....thousands and thousands per day....I'll get my coat. or make my mum work harder.
But WOW - would love to get my blog read by more people - I guess it is just learning HOW to do it. Any ideas greatly appreciated

I just started blogging again after taking over a year out - and very quickly, I started getting hung up on stats - as if people have been waiting all this time for me to say something.

I'm trying to focus on what I think is good rather than playing to an audience this time. If that means only a handful of people are into it - so be it.

And now I've got to stop looking!
;-)