Sunday, 30 October 2011

It’s all in the Numbers….

….if only I knew what they all meant!

I installed Google Analytics a few months ago, but haven’t really looked at it in much depth. When you first log in, there’s a number which appears in either red or green, with an up or down arrow. During this last week it has been green and gone up each day. Today it has reached 91.62% and I’m assuming this is a good thing.

Apparently if your bounce rate is over 35% this is a cause for concern. Yesterday mine was 76.6% so this must be a very bad thing!


My blog has been visited 983 times so far this month, the lowest number of visits being 19 on the 1st of October and the highest being 57 yesterday. I would have assumed that the days with higher traffic would be those when I have taken part in memes, such as Julia’s WOYWW and Shimelle’s 10 on the 10th, but this isn’t always the case.


Another thing I have noticed is that the number of visits bears no relation whatsoever to the number of comments, which makes it difficult to judge which kinds of posts are most popular. On one particular day I was visited 30 times, but that day’s post received only one comment. Another post had 26 visits, but 16 comments.


All in all I find those numbers quite fascinating, but at the same time utterly bamboozling. Please tell me I am not alone.


ETA I created a Wordle for this post, but cannot get it to appear. So much to learn!

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8 comments:

  1. Alison30 October 2011 at 20:30

    I don't visit 'analytics' very often, as it leaves me with a sore head!!
    Alison xx

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  2. furrypig30 October 2011 at 21:03

    I completely understand what you mean! I have been very surprised b the most popular posts according to google analytics. I actually don't have it on my computer at the moment so will have to try and remember to get it back up so I can check it regularly again,

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  3. humel30 October 2011 at 21:48

    lol - I can relate to this! I find some bits interesting, and some just confuse me - and I'm very much a numbers person....

    NB My bounce rate is pretty high too, but I don't let it bother me. Maybe it just means regulars are visiting and they don't need to hop around my other posts because they're already read them? (I'm an eternal optimist, me...)

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  4. Sian31 October 2011 at 08:26

    And don't forget that there will be other readers who always read in Google Reader and never actually come near your blog. I had been blogging for months before I realised this!

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  5. alexa31 October 2011 at 08:28

    Another candidate for confused.com here! Though I did read somewhere that the bounce rate is really only applicable to companies who are trying to sell you something which is not on the home 'landing' page, and where they want you to click through to lots of other pages. As Mel says, most regular readers of craft blogs don't do this because they're up to speed with what's on the blog and simply read the current page. :)

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  6. Julia Dunnit31 October 2011 at 08:57

    Yah, I am babmboozled by the numbers too - on a WOYWW day, I sometimes get more comments than hits...how does that happen!!

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  7. Scattychick31 October 2011 at 11:04

    I didn't know such a thing existed lol. I visited all my blogs most days but it all depends on family commitments more than anything else. I don't always have time to comment and when I do sometimes blogger won't let me lol

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  8. Lisa-Jane1 November 2011 at 13:35

    I have no idea about it either! Maybe I ought to check out Shimelle's class again... I know I get traffic from a VERY odd source though but I like to see graphs and things even if I don't have a clue what it means!

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