One month ago to the day I enabled Google Analytics tracking on this website. I used to pay attention to my stats, back when I ran it on a machine I hosted myself in my apartment, using Webalyzer but stopped doing that when I moved hosting to a 3rd party.
It’s interesting to see what kind of traffic I’m getting here.
According to Google I’ve received 1,288 unique visitors here in one month’s time. That’s a little freaky when you think about it: I certainly don’t know 1200+ people, but apparently that’s how many have stumbled upon this place in just 30 days to read something I’ve written. Yes, I realize that it’s a small number of people in the grand scope of things, but if the trend continues (likely) that means in 12 months time around 14,400 people per year. I remember back when I started out I’d get about 16 visits a month.
At the very end of my graph of visits per day there’s a big uptick at the end, which can be contributed to Say Uncle — personally responsible for about 8% of the traffic here, and that post was just a link to Larry Correia’s blog post on HK.
Google is #1 when it comes to referrals. I’m not surprised by this, but what’s funny is that the #1 search phrased used to find this site is Techmedica. The late Rob Smith (Acidman of gutrumbles.com) once penned something wondering just why it is you can lay down this grand massive essay on something you hold near and dear and it receives zero comments, while a random post about something trivial in your life will generate a slew of comments. I feel a little bit like that on this topic: There’s nearly 1300 posts on this blog, 6 of which deal with Techmedica, but that’s where the majority of my random traffic and comments come from.
I’d feel a bit put off by this, if it weren’t for an encounter I had a couple of weeks ago. It was a Friday and I ventured into the building I used to use as my office under my current employer. The company that owns the building needed some help, I live the closest, so I took the gig. Real short, we’re talking like 8 hours of work. While signing myself out the receptionist asks what my name was again. She had only been there a couple of months and only knew me in passing. I told her “Justin” and she asked what my last name was. Well, ‘Buist” is the obvious answer to that question.
She remarked that she had heard that name before. I’m thinking, “duh, this is West Michigan, we’re all over” and said, “Well, there’s Buist Electric. Folks usually see the name on the side of their vans.” She said that wasn’t it, and started thinking. She then asked where I used to work, and I rattled off the list of companies I’ve been employed under. “No, it wasn’t one of those,” she says, “it had something to do with medicine.” Sirens in my head are going off. I have no idea how bad this could end up. “It was tech… tech… Techmedica! Do you have a blog?” I reply in the affirmative and get a little more uneasy. Turns out about a year ago she was thinking about applying for a job there. She looked up their name on the web, found my post, and decided not to apply there.
Small world.
