Do you remember the episode of "The Simpsons" where Disco Stu explains the sales potential of disco records to Marge? Stu points to a chart showing the sales of disco records from the years 1973 to 1976 and says, "Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue... A-y-y-y!"I'm having a bit of an A-y-y-y moment right now. Generally my site averages around 300-400 unique visitors per day, with around 400-600 page loads. I know, a lot of you would kill for numbers like that, but you have to understand that it was a lot of work to get to this point. It's one thing to say that you'd kill for those numbers, but it's another thing entirely to go out to the freeway overpass every day with a burlap sack filled with mewing kittens.
Anyway, you see those two little icons at the bottom of this post? Yeah, those:
 Stumble it! | |  Digg it! |
StumbleUpon and Digg are "social networking sites," which seemed to be the big thing for a while. Maybe it still is. Whatever. Digg has never done me much good, but occasionally someone "Stumbles" one of my post and I get a few hundred hits out of it. And before you get too excited about adding the magical StumbleUpon icon to your posts, remember that only about one of twenty of my posts gets stumbled, and the number of hits I get from it is dependent on how many "friends" the Stumbler has in the StumbleUpon network. Basically, if a serious internet geek who spends way too much time making "friends" online really likes one of my posts, I get some traffic out of it.* And I should add that 99% of these visitors read a single post (if that) and then disappear, never to darken my IP address again. Since I'm really only interested in finding regular readers who will leave nice comments or maybe even buy my book, the net result of all this commotion is about on par with drinking eight MGDs in an hour and a half: A lot of Stumbling that culminates with me urinating in the orchard behind my house.
Sometimes there is an interesting snowball effect, however. In the past it's always burned out after I get around 1,000 visitors, but evidently my Straight Man post hit a chord (count the mixed metaphors in this paragraph and win a puppy!). One person Stumbled it, then another, and another.... So far, the results look like this:
I mean, holy crap, right? Even Saturday's traffic was about double for a normal Saturday, and it shot up like crazy after that. All because of a post that was just some goofy conversations I had with my wife.
Again, if you're a fellow blogger, feel free to add the Stumble icon to your posts (I think there are instructions at StumbleUpon.com), but don't come whining to me if you don't suddenly get thousands of visitors. This is truly a freak occurrence, and it only happened after a lot of hard work and dead kittens.
Still, if this trend continues, A-y-y-y!
*I don't mean to disparage you, Stumbler. I appreciate what you've done for me. But come on. Don't you, like, have a job or something?
Humor-blogs.com never urinates in my orchard.
 Stumble it!
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 Digg it!
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Leave a comment! |
Was he stumbling today?
Ooh, we are being enlightened on how the mysterious world of Internet works. I feel like those little green aliens on Toy Story. "The Stumbler choses who will go and who will stay."
Ok, you guys realize this isn't just one guy, right? When I say "the Stumbler", I mean anyone who happens to hit the Stumble button. Of course, it helps if that person has 500 "friends."
Although I like Theresa's theory.
My site traffic is similar in numbers to your daily traffic, but I have never had anywhere near 4,000 unique visitors in a day. Not even when linked front page by the UK Guardian or India Times. That's amazing.
I totally agree on your thoughts regarding random visitors. If they never participate or come back then they're just a number.
Wait...you want us regular readers to leave NICE comments?
Hi Diesel,
I like the idea of that many readers coming over to my site but since I'm so new to this world of blogging and mainly just doing it for kicks, I'll just settle for the nice comment you put there about my little Kylie! Thanks for that, I agree, she is a little cutie!!
As for me getting 4000 visitors at home, and there is no cleaning up afterward, well I'm beginning to really like this world of blogging! I really need to share this with the husband!! Stumber it is then!! He can be my bouncer for those that get out of hand. lol
Thanks!
M
I don't so much stumble upon your blog as i do stumble into it.
It was me. Sorry to upset your stats like that. I promise not to do it again.
Hell, I don't know how you handle all your regular readers and comments - never mind all those other BIG numbers!
I'm taking this post as a warning - no Stumbling and Falling on my blog.
Now, if I were selling a book...
I was all done, just waiting for the comments page to load, so I could thank you for the info, (and not sarcastically, either) when I saw that last line: humor-blogs doesn't urinate in your orchard, and burst out laughing. See, even on an educational day, you are funny.
Damn you! I just added it back to my Feedburner feed.
..and thanks for the tip.
In other words, I will slap you across the face and then buy you an entire cheesecake -- flavor is your choice, of course.
oh the pressure....
I don't do stats..I'm a reader not a writer...
what happened to the Banshee? I kinda miss him...
I'd kill for 100 unique hits that don't find me using search terms for animal sex.
You know, I wanted to do the Digg and Stumble thing but I keep putting it off until I get a real, big-kid, original-templated website that's NOT blogspot of my own.
"And I should add that 99% of these visitors read a single post (if that) and then disappear, never to darken my IP address again"
So it works kind of like photos of Giada de Laurentiis that I post from time to time. I get a spike in traffic from guys searching for pics of her and then it dies back down.
Biggest ever for me was when I posted about the American Idol chick who had "sexy" pics of her online. I just mentioned it in passing in a post and next thing I knew I was getting 2,500 hits for a week. Then they all went away. LOL
You kill me.
Wow popularity! you could copy and paste this post as a comment on my latest post.
Wow Diesel maybe you have been stumbled on by the ultimate geek stumbler who has thousands and thousands of geek buddies with lots of buddies of their own...and your numbers will keep growing and growing until you max out with Google at a PR10 and everyone starts begging you for a link...and you can make everyone who wants a link buy a book! This could be your big money break man! Promise the geeks more of those 'normal conversations with a living woman' type posts, and you'll never want for lumber money again! The secret to the geek universe. Real women. Talking. To you.
I've found Stumble to be kind of hit and miss. Hundreds of people show up for one post and then rush off again to find the next big thing.
As for digg, they seem to be way too serious for humor posts. I once committed the heinous sin of digging my own post and one guy tracked me down and slapped me around with flaming anti-diggs of death.
It was scary to see how serious he took it all.
I'm with you: more life, less net.
I have two older posts that have been bringing in well over a hundred rubberneckers a day for about the last 6 months. And since I'm too cheap to pay for Site Meter, my 100 visit limit is pretty much consumed by these people every day, which basically renders my Site Meter useless.
Oh, and the number of those people who stick around and come back again as a result of those posts? You guessed it - zero.
I only stumble after a 12 pack.
I never imagined that digg and stumble upon could ever ACTUALLY help any bloggers other than the ones already in the top 100. You have to get like 500+ diggs to make it to the front page, and who honestly looks beyond that?
(Ps- can you change your links to me? Lfar.ca is broken for ever. And ever. Ah-thanks)
You know, Diesel, the helpful,um, child-management comment you left on my Breaking Point post (and I don't know how to make that a link, please, please, someone tell me - in the meantime, the web address is http://suburbancorrespondent.blogspot.com/2007/10/breaking-point.html) made me think that perhaps you should start a new blog dedicated to answering questions by befuddled parents. You could become famous (if you're not arrested first).
Stop killing kitties, already! I'll come over here every day till I die if you just leave the flippin' kitties alone, you attention whore.
You deserve all the traffice. You work hard for it and make us laugh a lot when sometimes there is just nothing to laugh about. So, thanks for that.
I usually stumble WHILE writing, as I am invariably drunk.
Oh, is that how it works? How about just call it "networking" or "word of web" as in word of mouth, not world of web.
When I first read your title, I was thinking of Fonzie. Aaayyyyy.
ANOTHER serious post? Methinks you need some slapping by Grundir.
But thanks for the honestly interesting post. I haven't signed up (or whatever it is you do) to any of these things, thinking perhaps I should. I am just not that technically inclined. Anyone want to give me a tute on technorati and the like?
Someone did a list of the top 50 Aussie women bloggers and the people in the top ten have less visits per day than me..... so perhaps I need to get out there and promote myself.
Everyone wants to read about fecal murals and toothpaste don't they? Surely 150-200 people per day can't be wrong?????
Wow ! I mean, numbers don't mean anything to me but these... a-y-y-y!
I didn't stumble was that effective, especially for personal blogs - no offense here ! I thought it mostly brought traffic to SEO blogs, gadgets etc. things that need to be "news"
That's really cool for you though. What would be your ultimate dream goal with your blog ?
Oh well looook whos bragging, 'I get over 60 gajillion hits but thats a fluke honest'...
Good work though you must be doing something right.
I was going to take full and complete credit for your traffic since I linked to you in one of my posts, but then I realized I linked to you on Thursday. I'll bet your numbers went through the ROOF then!
Numbers, shnumbers, I write because I love to write, I don't care who reads.
I'm TOTALLY lying. COME READ ME!!! I'M BEGGING YOU!!!!
What Morgan heard: "blah blah blah, my blog roll is like 18 inches long, blah blah blah."
Poor Diesel, having to keep thousands of people a day entertained. :-P
Sorry I haven't left many nice comments lately - or any comments.
I thought a mixed metaphor had to be withing the same sentence - sort of like 'It's down to the wire folks, so don't count your chickens yet.' Your metaphors are in successive sentences. Or is it that they're refering to the same topic?
I'm confused. Can I still have a puppy?
I agree that having some sort of blog popularity is a lot of work. A few months ago I realized that making a living through blogging would be more work than, well, working.
I was stumbled once, and I got about 4 times my normal number of visitors (currently about 100 per day). But I just don't have the online networking skills to make it happen big time.
I hope the orchard I planted last week hurries up and grows. I have to pee.
And Howard- Diesel also has a dessert wraith to make sure jealous bloggers don't poison him. He'll just chop your cheesecake into bits. Send it to me instead. Mocha espresso, please.
You know I tried stumbleupon a few times. One time it was a big jump--doubled my numbers--went from 1 to 2. Other times I got nothing. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the content though! ha! ha! Of course since I have no way of receiving $$$ on my blog - -it doesn't matter what my stats say. Of course it does make me feel warm inside.
The thing about your numbers though means there might be more competition for your picture contest-thingys. I already submit 300 possibilities and lose.Now if I have to compete with more people besides theresa's 400 entries....
I'm trying to get to the bottom of the Stumbling. Could it be due to the fact that my college has about 4,500 students, and I assigned them all to come read your post this week?
Disco America...
Always brings to mind "Disco Sucks" and those great pyres of burning vinyl I heard about in American Football stadiums at the end of the 1970s!