It’s thanks to the blog naturally. As of June 2005 there were 68 million web pages and that number has, quite obviously grown. A site called alexa.com ranks them all based on traffic analysis. If you’re in the top 100,000 you get all sorts of coolness factors. I’m not there — not even close. However, this site is now ranked about 2.38 millionth which sounds low, but that does put it in the top 5% based on traffic. Naturally this fluctuates over time. Does that make me cool? No. Does it make me excited? Sadly, a little because I am a geek.
I’d love for this blog and ultimately my site to garner a lot more traffic. But to do that you have to pander to people either by going totally pop-culture (boring), porno (not really my thing), or being totally one-track. That’s not what my blog or my pages stand for or are about.
If I find it interesting, I blog it. Hence I’ve got posts about any manner of topics — none of them related. It’s eclectic if nothing else. If I were famous like Guy Kawasaki or Wil Wheaton, my blog would get traffic because of who I am. Wil’s site isn’t all that interesting any more. Guy gets traffic because of who he is, but he keeps it because of what he says. Guy’s blog is always cool. Wil just posts random thoughts like me, and sometimes he’s good — like when he talks about mundane domestic stuff or even his old Wesley Crusher days but sometimes he goes off about poker, and quite frankly it runs me off. I could have emulated either one of them and probably done quite well, but I decided to go on my own path and still I’m at 120,000 hits and counting. Honestly, two-thirds of those hits are garbage hits (follow a link, look, and leave within seconds) but the rest are real visitors. They stay, read, and sometimes even click on an ad (thanks!) — I like the fact that my blog stats show that the entry page and exit page are generally not the same which means people come, read a post, and then read another post before leaving. Content does that.
People love the Led Zeppelin/Pink Floyd thread — it’s still the majority of the traffic followed by that damned ColdPlay/Crazy Frog debate. Next most popular is Daniel Radcliffe’s (Harry Potter) penis (not a real topic even!) — but that’s most of the garbage traffic now — because people are looking for pictures and not me making fun of it. No porn here, sorry. The net has plenty of porn, in fact in the words of Avenue Q’s Trekkie Monster “The Internet is for Porn” and it shows.
So I will stay true to my roots and ramble on about whatever moves me on a given day. Sign up for the RSS feed if you’d like. And help me get clicks. I want to break the top million. Send people over if you think there’s stuff here worth reading, and many of you obviously do. And when you’re done, check out Guy’s blog and even Wil’s — in fact check my tiny, personally selected, blog roll on the bottom right side. It’s all stuff I read and look at: none of those paid placements. I don’t do that.