Stuff...

I'm normally a 'link poster', in that I post about stuff I see on the net. I mainly see this as a blog to point towards interesting things for my family and friends to check out... and as a record of stuff I would like to save, too, I guess.

But today, I thought I'd talk about the blog itself. I've got a counter on the page, mostly to keep track of what's getting attention and where people are coming from. It's always a kick seeing where people are when they read what I say. Also, I can always tell when Mom checks out the site! I'm watching you, Mom!

I get on average 17 hits a day. CNN.com certianly isn't worried about me, that's for sure. But I'm actually surprised at it. I think it has to do with the nature of the web more than my writing skills. It also has to do with coming up in the first few pages of Google and other search engines on some odd searches.

For instance, I got to wondering why I got so many hits on my few firework related postings. Try this... type "firework movie clips" in google. As of today, I'm the number one hit! What does this amazing feat get me? Well... um... 3 hits, it seems. Again, odd searches. If you use the more normal "fireworks movie clips", I come up on the second page, with most of the sites before it being bigger name sites that would be more likely to attrack a click or two. Actually, I'm surprised that I come up even that close.

My site counter has limits, becuase I'm using the free version. I only get the stats off my last 100 visitors. Of my last 100, 80 have been from the good old USA! But I've also got 4 from our neibors of the north in Canada. And 2 from Oman... um, how did that happen?

The most popular page (of the last 100 visits, keep in mind) is the Camp Granada story. In a few different searchs on that, I'm on the first few pages of Google, sometimes even the first page. Seems to be my niche... odd stories that the huge sites don't talk about much, but which someone in Ohio (or Oman) might thing "hmm... what's up with that song? Let's Google it". The zazzle.com story is second, but Zazzle seems to be in the new more with some interesting corporate pairings, and I expect that to be less popular later on.

Seems to be lots of talk about traffic for a site that only gets 15 or so hits a day, but I'm not bragging. I find this stuff very interesting. If there is any bragging involved, it would be about the net. My little nowhere, nothing site has had visitors from Oman, Japan and other places. And the most expensive, most read big sites have to fight for google placement with me... and about a million other small time posters.

The big sites will always be big, but the cool thing about the net is that the small guys still have a chance. I'll never have an ad running in the Super Bowl, but I'll always have google...