The inner editor’s monologue
July 17th, 2003
Like many bloggers, I find lots of interesting things in my referer stats. I am often surprised by what brings people to my blog. While I can only guess at the motives behind these individual search requests, I do learn a lot about the kinds of information people need. For example, many people are searching (fruitlessly, it seems) for online typing and keyboarding instruction. Would-be typographers rarely stumble across my blog, as far as I can tell, but desperate typists end up here often, only to have their information-seeking hopes dashed.
What really surprises me about my referer log, however, is how many posts and stories I have forgotten. Sometimes I will see a string of search terms and think, “Hey! I have never used that word” or “I never wrote about that person or topic.” But when I search my blog I discover that, in fact, I write about a lot more than I remember.
Today I was very happy to see that someone found my blog by searching for “belly dance blog”. For various reasons, I have not posted about dancing in some time (although I was really, really tempted earlier this week). But when I followed the search, I realized it linked, not to the posts I remember writing, but to a story I wrote in May, a simple list of Middle Eastern dance resources that I have not updated since then. How disappointing!
It was a good reminder to update and/or clear out some of those old stories. I know some blogging purists would recoil at the idea, but I have no qualms about editing and deleting when needed. It seems that, when it comes to blogging, my inner editor is much stronger than my inner archivist.
Entry Filed under: Administrative Matters, Personal Miscellany
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1. Dr. Klaus Graf | July 17th, 2003 at 5:07 pm
It was nice to see that Netbib has a good place in the referrers :-)
Best wishes
Klaus
2. Ben | July 18th, 2003 at 10:09 am
I get very strange searches hitting my site. One that I enjoy is people searching for rangoli patterns. I went back and added some links to the page that mentions rangoli to help people find more of what they want. I also get a lot of searches for “pee poop” which is gross. Finally a growing number of cloth diaper and baby sling enthusiasts are hitting the site because of Lisa’s entries on those topics. Lisa is embarassed about that though, afraid that the posts weren’t good enough for strangers to see. To me that’s just part of the beauty of blogs. OK, I’m stating to run on. Maybe I should do my own blog entry on this topic instead of filling up your comments page!
3. Vernica | July 19th, 2003 at 2:02 pm
Hi, Klaus, it is good to see all of the traffic from Netbib. It is a good reminder (encouragement?) to continue to post about rare book and archives-related topics. Thanks.
4. Vernica | July 19th, 2003 at 2:10 pm
Ben, I think I am one of those rangoli people. I remember finding your site completely by accident and then I kept checking in. Your blog was the first blog I ever read.
Fortunately, I am not getting creepy search request hits…yet. Yesterday, I got one of my favorite ones: “harvard girl friday”. Do “girl fridays” even exist anymore? Amazing…
Oh, and while I am not a baby product expert, I like Lisa’s entries. I have found them very informative and well written. She should not feel embarrassed at all.
5. Dr. Klaus Graf | July 27th, 2003 at 10:12 pm
I really appreciate rare book topics in blogs – I hope other blogs will follow …