There's a new blogtool on the block called MyBlogLog.com. It's a simple unobtrusive service (one line of javascript) that keeps count every time a visitor to your website clicks on one of your links. It tallies all of these clicked links and then it lists them in a daily league table. And it's fascinating. Here's what I've discovered about you.
a) You don't click much Evidence: Last week, no link got more than 20 clicks in one day (and only five links got more than 10 clicks) My blog is teeming with links. Sometimes I spend ages finding what I think are interesting and appropriate links. And then you ignore them. Obviously this is your prerogative, but maybe I shouldn't bother.
b) The more I link, the less you click Evidence: On Monday I gave you 28 new links to click on. Each received an average of only 1.7 clicks OndayswhenIshoweryouwithlinks, they drown and you barely notice them. One or two clicks each, that's all they get, from less than 1% of my readership. Hardly worth them being there.
c) The less I link, the more you click Evidence: On Friday I provided you with only three links. Each received an average of 7.7 clicks On days when I'm link-lite, each link shines like a glowing beacon in a sea of text. And so more of you click on them. Still less than 2% of my visitors click on them, though, which is still a bit feeble.
d) You're more likely to click if I ask you to Evidence: On Thursday I asked you to go and do Tom's quiz. 29 of you did. But 253 of you didn't, which is 90% of you, so that's still not very successful.
e) You like clicking on the stuff at the top of my sidebar Evidence: Over the course of a week, the five links at the top of my sidebar get an average of 18 clicks each Either you're nosey, or people arriving here for the first time are more interested in working down my sidebar than they are in the rest of what I have to write. It looks like I'm under-utilising all that dark grey space over there, and maybe I should change my listed links more often.
f) You rarely scroll down the screen to click anything Evidence: 90% of yesterday's 80 clicks were to links visible at the top of the screen As I suspected, most of the writing on my blog has a shelf life of two or three days maximum. After that it passes so far down the page that almost nobody reads it any more, and nobody clicks on it either.
g) You really don't click much Evidence: I had over 1000 unique visitors last week, but less than 900 offsite clicks My blog is teeming with links that you ignore. But that's OK, because I like linking even if you don't click. To be honest, I probably ignore most of the links on your blog too. And now you can find out, with MyBlogLog.com. It's free for the first seven days (and free forever if you stick with the basic service). Go on, it'll be fascinating. </advert>
