Monday Metadata

I am going to keep with my practice of reporting metadata on this blog whenever I reach interesting milestones (after 100 posts, after 2,500 page views)or experience interesting changes in volume (see the last bullet point for metadata after the Blogging Archaeology article went up).  Over the weekend, I received my 10,000th page view.

I am not sure exactly how to explain this notable increase in volume, but clearly some of the volume comes from my "Blogging Archaeology/Archaeology of Blogging" article on Archaeological.org.  Links from that page provide about 6% of my volume since October.  Some of the volume also must come from the number of words and phrases in the blog that search engines like Google will find.  Visitors from Google search pages are around 30% of my volume.  Links from other blogs, particular Troels Myrup Kristensen's Iconoclasm (2.5%), the Ancient World Bloggers Group (2%), Shawn Graham's Electric Archaeologist (1.5%) and occasional notice on group blogs like HNN (3%) account for sizeable number of visits (and page views).  Grand Forks Life, a blog on life and times in my home town of Grand Forks, North Dakota does its part, drive about 2.5% of my traffic; the University of North Dakota's various pages provide another 3.3% of my visits.  About 50% of my visitors are new visitors.  The average time on site has held fairly steady (although the length of my posts have increased!) at about 1:40 per visit.  My buddy Sam Fee over at Arranged Delirium will be pleased to know that the majority of my hits come from browsers other than Internet Explorer (45%): 41% from Firefox, 9% from Safari, 2.7% from Opera, and the rest from more obscure or unrecognized sources including Camino, Konqueror, and Blazer. 

Most of my hits come from the U.S. with hits from every state in the U.S. except Alaska and Wyoming; the latter suggests that UND's new president was not an avid reader of this blog (that will have to change)!  The top 10 states are: Pennsylvania, California, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, North Dakota, Michigan, Illinois, Florida, and Virginia.

The top 10 countries are Greece, UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, Denmark, Germany, France, and Cyprus.  I've had hits from every inhabited continent now. 

It is genuinely gratifying to see that people are interested in what I write here.  Thanks for reading!

Comments

[Pamela Russell McClellan]

Hi, I am Pam Russell, a relatively new reader of your blog, which I am enjoying a lot. I was a member of ASCSA in the early 80s, so it is fun to hear the news, as well as your stimulating essays -- thanks so much. (Reading from icy New Hampshire right now!)

[Shelley Ramos]

You may have one more source for hit volume to your blog now that Brenda has linked your blog from her blog. Thanks for the warm review of Brenda's tea. I've known Brenda since highschool and it's great to hear a peer's review of her talk...especially when it is a good review. :)