: Today's the day! Early this afternoon, somewhere between lunchtime and teatime, diamond geezer will receive its millionth visitor. Actually that's not quite true, it'll just be the millionth time that a slightly ropey stats package has registered a unique visit, which isn't the same thing at all. But, woo, one million visits is not to be sniffed at! It's the equivalent of the entire population of Birmingham reading my blog once. And it's taken precisely five and a half years to reach the magic million. On average, that's three packed bendy-busfuls of readers every day.
What's quite interesting, to me at least, is to consider how and why all these visitors have arrived here:
• 20% of my visitors arrived here via a search engine. Most of these poor deluded souls no doubt clicked here expecting that my site would yield the answer to some esoteric query, only to be disappointed by what they didn't find. I therefore shouldn't really count these two hundred thousand as true visitors - they arrived here under false pretences. • 35% of my visitors arrived here via another website. That's a third of a million arrivals via someone's else's blogroll, or because something I wrote got mentioned somewhere. I have no idea how many of these people ever came back again. But every click-through is appreciated. • Just under half of my visitors arrived here direct, without clicking through from a search engine or any other website. Which is nice, because it suggests that nearly half a million visits have been deliberate.
Let's explore that second category in a bit more depth. It's time once again for an update of my regular 'league table' of top linking blogs, ordered by volume of visitors clicking here from there. I've also included the 'highest climbers' since my last update (at ¾million) back in June. Thank you all for linking. Go on, go check out a few of the following and return the favour...
There's a real mix of different types of referrer in that list. There are huge blogs with readerships far larger than mine, who mention me occasionally and send scores of clickers gushing through. There are smaller blogs with a tiny 'diamond geezer' link nestling in the blogroll, directing a few passing clickers here every week or perhaps used daily by the blog's owner. And there are dead and dysfunctional blogs, which used to direct people here in large numbers but have since gone to the great 404 error in the sky. It all adds up.
And things are always evolving, as a bit of mouse-over will reveal. Top 10 of the last 12 months: 12345678910
Plus now there's RSS. Hundreds of you now read this blog without ever visiting it, which makes a mockery of attempting to count visitor numbers anyway. I probably passed the million several months ago, but just didn't realise it. Never mind the inexactitude. I don't mind where you come from, I'm just well chuffed that you bother. Hello and thanks to all of you. And here's to the next million...
