11:24am First indications of unusualness arrive via an email from the owners of the Diamond Geezer diamond trading website. It's a very pleasant email, alerting me to the fact that they're on Dragon's Den this evening and I might like to watch, and not in any way promotional. 8:36pm Reply to email, wishing them luck. It's strange finally communicating with the 'other' Diamond Geezer website, the one that's higher up Google that I've managed to clamber.
9:18pm Ho hum. Dragon's Den is quite interesting, as ever, but no sign of any besuited diamond merchants. Aha, here's Clive... [blog visitors: normal] 9:19pm Clive scatters a few chunks of finely-cut ice onto a cushion and announces that Diamond Geezer is one of the UK's leading online jewellers. Ping. The first visitors start to arrive at my blog. [blog visitors = normal+a few] [note to readers: I've got this stats package called Reinvigorate. It's got this clever USP whereby it pings every time your website receives a visitor. One vistor, one ping. I don't have it on all the time, honest, because that would be sad and self-obsessed, but I thought I'd go for the sound option tonight, just to see what happened...] 9:20pm Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! My stats package is pinging like it's never pinged before. Blimey. [blog visitors = normal+100] 9:21pm Evan Davies does one of his pointless recaps, summarising what any viewer with even half a brain couldn't possibly have forgotten since one minute ago. The pings increase. [blog visitors = normal+250] 9:22pm Duncan Bannatyne switches Den conversation to the internet and the diamondgeezer.com web address. The pings increase to stormtrooper-army-level. [blog visitors = normal+500] 9:24pm My (ping) blog (ping) is (ping) currently (ping) averaging (ping) about (ping) five (ping) visitors (ping) a (ping) second (ping)[blog visitors = normal+1000] 9:27pm The conversation switches to diamondgeezer.com's Google ranking. Quite high. No mention is made of diamondgeezer.blogspot.com, obviously, but viewers heading to Google appear to be clicking on me by mistake. Can they not spell? [blog visitors = normal+1600] 9:29pm If I were a shallow money-grabbing blogger with a website smothered in adverts, I'd be rubbing my hands with glee. [blog visitors = normal+2000] 9:31pm Clive turns down the biggest deal ever offered in the Den. Good for him, the leeching dragons. What's wrong with only making a £3000 annual profit anyway? [blog visitors = normal+2200] [You can watch Clive's performance on the BBC iPlayer, here. Share his pain.] 9:33pm Clive's genuine Diamond Geezer website has collapsed under the weight of his direct traffic. Bad luck Clive. Blogger, of course, is holding up brilliantly. [blog visitors = normal+2400] 9:35pm The programme's moved on, but misdirected visitors are still piling in. [blog visitors = normal+2600] 9:40pm OK, calming down now. [blog visitors = normal+2700] 10:00pm Another mention for Diamond Geezer over the closing credits, and my blog gets a final spike of incoming gemseekers. [blog visitors = normal+3000]
10:30pm Clive's website is struggling back, in low-graphics mode. [blog visitors = normal+3400] 10:50pm After all that internet attention, I've received only one comment from a newly-arrived visitor. And it turns out that they weren't Googling for "diamond geezer", they were Googling for "Neasden Nature Trail". Ahh, target audience. [blog visitors = normal+3500] 11:10pm Clive appears on Five Live to discuss his Dragon's Den appearance. Few listeners, if any, appear to be clicking through. [blog visitors = normal+3600] 11:20pm Clive rounds off his interview by saying that he too was watching his website stats during the BBC2 programme, and that his "visitor record shot through the ceiling". He fails to mention that his website couldn't cope with the attention. [blog visitors = normal+3650] midnight Peace returns, and my pings again resemble sparse background radiation. But, blimey, that's more visitors than I've ever had in such a short time. [blog visitors = normal+3750](And the moral of the story? If you want to make a profit out of blogging, why not change your name now to a product that Dragon's Den is featuring next week...)
Update: "diamond geezer" was the second fastest-moving search term in the UK for the week ending August 3rd (more details, and graph, here)
