The Real Blogger Status

The Stats "Audience" page is now showing a mysterious entry, in the "Pageviews by Countries" list, for some blogs. The list of the top 10 most active countries, for the "Now", "Day", "Week", and / or "Month" lists, for some blogs, includes a non country name - "Unknown Region". The "Unknown Region" entry appears to be associated with a second Stats oddity, a monochromatic "Pageviews by Countries" map. This oddity is causing some concern, in various forum discussions . Where one would hope to see a familiar Stats multi-shaded Audience map, with various countries displayed in differing shades of green or black, some blog owners are seeing a monochromatic pale green display. The monochromatic display appears to be accompanied by the mysterious "Unknown Region" entry, in the countries list. I am examining the Stats "Audience" page, for this blog - in different time range...

We see an occasional question about search indexing, and visitor activity, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I find out what search queries are used, to bring my new readers, to my blog? This owner is thinking about how to get more traffic - the right way. You can use the Stats - Traffic sources dashboard page, and examine the top 10 Search Keywords, used to find your blog. Depending upon how large and popular your blog is - and what browser your readers use - you may or may not find out as much as you would think, however.

We've been using FeedBurner Email Distribution for years, to provide a turnkey email based publication distribution . With any email distribution system, the most essential function, in list management, is to add and remove subscriber entries. FeedBurner gives you that ability - if you look, carefully.

Real people live in various countries all over the world. Every country has Internet service - and people who surf the Internet. Some read this blog - and maybe your blog, too, My blog pageviews today increased from 150 to 1530 !! And almost all the visits were from Canada. Please Help Me! Why would you dread Canadian readers, eh? Knowing that your blog may host readers, in a worldwide community, would you fear traffic from unknown countries?

Some blog owners want significant details, from Stats. How do I get all posts listed, with pageview counts? or How do I get a specific time period, from last month? or How do I filter out the bogus counts? Not everybody observes that Stats gives us specific details, based upon what's generally useful, or what is possible to keep, easily. Some details are not provided, because Stats provides details that are significant, in the right context. Other details are not provided, because they are not retained, from day to day (week to week, month to month, or year to year).

Recently, we've seen signs of confusion, from people who have problems with their Internet service, which shows them moving around their geographic region. I logged in to Blogger, with no problem, yesterday. Today, after logging in successfully, I am asked for more details, to prove my identity!! This blog owner has a problem with location based security. Not all Blogger blog owners or readers understand that Country Local Domain Redirection , and the ability to access one's Blogger / Google account (and prevent others from accessing it), both depend upon the ability to determine the geographical location of each blog reader.

I've always been an advocate of redundancy, with essential components and features. One essential feature of a website is the ability to remain aware of where your readers come from, and what they are reading , on your blog. Besides Blogger Stats, I've advocated both SiteMeter and StatCounter, in a complementary role to each other. A while ago, SiteMeter decided to add video advertisements to their blog / website agent, that tracks the clicks.

Occasionally, we see a report in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , that reflects on the reader audience - not necessarily only the blog content. Why is my blog behind a Content Warning? Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable. Occasionally, a quick eyeballing of the blog in question may turn up some dodgy content, which may be suggested, in the forum, as problematic. This story may not end immediately. But, I've had that picture gallery, for years! Why did I just get the Content Warning? Here, the blog owner is not considering changing standards - or the possibility that the blog, becoming more popular, may be adding readers who don't appreciate a photo gallery started years ago.

Occasionally, we see signs of confusion, from people who understand Country Code Alias Redirection , in general. I live in Hungary - but I am reading blogs with the ".sk" suffix! This blog reader knows about alias redirection - but does not understand why he is seeing redirection for Slovakia (".sk"), instead of Hungary (".hu"). Not all Blogger blog owners or readers understand that Country Code Alias Redirection depends upon the ability to determine the geographical location of each blog reader.

Confusion about Stats, and referer spam inaccuracy , is expressed, weekly. You never have a real idea as to how many real visitors view your blog, since these referrer spammers are in fact identified by their name, and their number of visits on the Stats "referring URL" list. Referer spam inaccuracy is possibly the best known - but certainly not the only - Stats problem, discussed daily in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Stats is a controversial Blogger feature, because of various perceived inaccuracies - but even so, is more useful than competing products , because of its unique design. Not every blog owner realises that all visitor logs / meters provide displays and statistics, which contain known inaccuracies. The fact is, no visitor log / meter can ever be 100% accurate.

People who publish blogs which are relevant to a specific country may be able to focus search engine attention, for their blog - and better target readers in the country in question. Google Webmaster Tools provides the "Geographical target" setting, which lets a blog owner select a single country. The setting increases search engine attention, for their blog, in the country selected.

We see many questions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about blog content, and (lack of) appreciation by the readers. Occasionally, people become concerned about activity of the people reading their blogs - why they get so many new visitors (but nobody returns later, to read more), or why the main page is so well read (but nobody reads the archived posts). In other cases, they wonder why the blog was deleted - even though it had the required warning protecting it - or maybe why the content warning is there . And sometimes, they may wonder why so many people read the blog, but nobody comments on the posts.

As referer spam continues to be reported in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , we see occasional signs of confusion. Some blog owners, knowing how to use WhoIs lookups and similar online utilities, to their advantage, are looking up the referer spam targets - and are reporting the targets to their registrars and hosts. What these blog owners may not realise is that not all apparent "customers" of referer spam "services" may have actually contracted to be featured in the services.

One of the details of referer spam , that intrigued me for a time, involved who was reporting the spam. Most - but not all - referer spam is reported by newbie owners . People who just setup a blog, and are anxiously waiting for their first readers outside their own country, are suddenly astounded Wow, thousands of people are reading my blog - from China and Russia! I am an international celebrity, in my first week!! The euphoria quickly vanishes, when told in the forums Nobody is actually viewing your blog from these sites - and nobody knows about these links but you, since only you can see your Stats logs.

This week, we're seeing a new stream of problem reports, from blog owners whose blogs are, once again, mysteriously redirecting their readers to unknown destinations . When I open my blog, it automatically directs to another search engine display. This appears to be yet one more gadget, willingly installed by many Blogger blog owners, which is now redirecting uninterested viewers. The target of the redirection, this week, is a parked domain website (ie, "search engine display") - for a product which was apparently installed, willingly , by the blog owners.

Too many blog owners do not understand the unique capability of Stats - nor do they understand its limitations. We see the periodic question in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I find out how many actual people are viewing my blog? Stats does not provide unique visitor counts - Stats provides pageview counts.

We see periodic concern, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , over apparent visitor access to blog maintenance wizards, using the Quick Edit icons. I found this entry, in my StatCounter log. How did this person get access to my blog? http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7834826019588534175&postID=890014875501476492&from=pencil Was my blog hacked? This may not be a justified reason to panic, however. One may first wish to check that Stats (or whatever visitor log is in use , in this case) is properly configured, to not track your own activity . The link that you see may reflect your activity. Even if the visitor log entry in question does not appear to reflect your own activity - even when allowing for the vagaries of geo location , you may still do well to remain calm.

Periodically, we see evidence of confusion about Stats and the pageview counts, as provided in the various displays and time ranges, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . My pageview counts keep going down! or My counts go up during the day - but in the afternoon, they drop to zero!! or My counts keep going down! There's no end to the drop!! All of these complaints - and more - involve blog owners, who don't understand the relationships between the displays and time ranges.

Some owners of newer Blogger blogs spend time reading their Stats logs, and worry that their "All time" pageview counts don't always go up - they go down, too. Why do the counts go down? Is there one number, that I can believe? They don't understand that with Stats, you need to look for trends - not absolute readings. In the beginning, fluctuations are more obvious, and trends are less obvious. Thanks to the referer spam war , and to normal visitor activity , even the "All time" numbers will go up and down - for newer blogs, which have less genuine and constant visitor traffic. And the constant rise and fall is scary - until you get used to it.

One sign of panic, seen regularly in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , comes from people who spend a lot of time viewing their Stats logs. My pageview counts are always going up and down. Why is Stats so flaky? It's good to monitor your reader activity - sometimes this will warn you of a major problem in the Internet, or with Blogger. But keep a proper perspective .