30 December (Part 1) - Bragging again…
I
suspect that bloggers look at web statistics in much the same way politicians
read opinion polls. Regarding poor results as unrepresentative,
wallowing in the warm glow of a good score and bashing the opposition with
them. I know I should take the stats with a pinch of salt but they nevertheless
remain fascinating to me.
The Christmas period on Bonkers has been disappointing with the numbers falling
off the edge of a cliff which is why I have not blogged anything to be taken too
seriously. Christmas Day only just surpassed the 100 unique visitors mark and
most of the big company names and all the universities that are regular visitors
have been missing all week. The Greater London Authority and the House of Commons
looked in but the net result is that December’s figures are down on November’s by
12%. The first monthly drop seen all year.
If you have ever used a PC clean-up utility you may have
seen it removing tracking cookies. Tiny computer programs that get on to your hard
drive and monitor your browsing habits and send data to their parent companies so
that they can sell it to advertisers and the like. Some of them make the collected
information available on line. One such company claims that Bexley council’s
website attracts about 335,000 visitors a month which is a lot less than
councillor Campbell was claiming at a council meeting two or three months ago.
It doesn’t make councillor Campbell a liar, it merely demonstrates that there
are various ways of measuring site hits and some are grossly optimistic and the
whole subject should be treated with caution. What may be more interesting is
comparing how such companies rate sites which are in some way similar.
Looking at Bexley council’s site, Bonkers, the three local newspapers and blogs
in and around Bexley only the council, the News Shopper and Bonkers make it into
the top million most popular sites world-wide. The News
Shopper lags behind the council by a small margin and Bonkers by a much bigger one
for world-wide hits. However UK hits tell a different story as shown by the
figures in the graphic. The News Shopper has an unfair advantage over the others, it
covers six local authority areas. Bonkers being ranked 51,670 may sound like a rubbish
position but with other local news outlets being in seven figure territory (eight figures
on a world-wide basis) perhaps it’s not so bad after all.
While writing the above I received two emails about
yesterday’s blog. One from
an anonymous friend to say it was a rather weak dig at Bexley council and
another to say it was a good one. I’m inclined to agree with the former, but it
was never meant to be anything other than mildly amusing. Don’t worry Mr. Anon.
I’m sure something juicier can be found with which to start the new year.