What Exactly Were You Looking For?

Blog stats are a funny thing. Some people obsess over them, others avoid them and the clueless (like me) wonder what to do with them. I used to like to highlight the blogs that drove traffic to this site, the top referrers, because they played an essential role in blogreading – back when trackbacks were normal and commenting was popular. But, these days, when most people consume blogs via RSS feeds, site referrals are not all that good an indicator of anything much, other than perhaps new readers.

Looking at the Google searches that bring people to your blog can be far more revealing. Unpopular searches include topics like Hong Kong (my comments on the Hong Kong edition of the Michelin Guide is the most read page on the blog over the last year, according to Google Analytics), Logic Pro (this post on Logic Pro icons is one of the most read, ever, on this blog) and Theology (my post on not attending church, from earlier this year has been read a lot and attracted some great comment and emails). A lot of people searching on racism and multiculturalism have found their way to the blog. Amazingly, the golfer’s blight, the shank, still drives a lot of readers here (note to self, write another piece on that!).

Interestingly, some searches related to prayers, such as It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view and May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, still drive a lot of visitors.

Various searches on re, re- and re-words have landed on my review on Frank Luntz’ book, making that probably the best read review I’ve posted. Also, there are a growing number of searches related to parenting and “stay at home dads,” which is probably why the piece on what people really think of stay at home dads was so heavily trafficked (despite my silly decision to post it three days before Christmas).