Saturday, March 25, 2006

Searches which led to our blog

Awhile back Anne at PalmTree Pundit mentioned some of the interesting search patterns which had led readers to her blog. I started recording, on and off, what Site Meter reported for the search strings which brought people to our blog. And then recently Dana at Principled Discovery mentioned a weird search which led someone to her blog. So I decided to report a bit about how some people are being led to our blog.


Normally most of the search engines seem to do a pretty good job of matching what the reader is looking for with our site. For example here are some of the recent search patterns which led people to us:

HOMESCHOOL
why people homeschool
why homeschool

I think we are a good match for the above search patterns. Here are a few more recent patterns which led to our blog:

"tricia smith" ~"indiana university"
We've blogged about some columns by a Trcia Smith Vaughan.

HOMER ON TAPE
My wife had a whole post about how our daughters loved listening to Homer's Odessy.

These were a fairly reasonable match.


Over the last month we've had a few which a real reach. For example:

"why do working people need unions"
On the 28th of February we were the 9th on the list for MSN Search.

"being too nice"
On the 19th of March we were number six on the list for MSN Search for Canada

Tylenol versus classical conditioning
Also on the 19th of March, for this pattern we were number 4 on the list for Ask.com.

americans behavior during the 60-70's
This was also on the 19th of March, for this search string we were number 1 for MSN Search.


I like Site Meter. It is very informative. I frequently check the By Referrals report to see where readers are coming from. And as you can see from above, Site Meter can also be entertaining. If you don't have something like Site Meter, you might want to check out Blogger's help section on Hit Counters and Statistics.


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4 comments:

Doc said...

I use statcounter, which gives more detailed stats (free version, invisible). I would love to share some of my more memorable searches, but this is a family blog! While my posts are generally g or maybe pg rated - searches leading to my blog are sometimes, well, not. It has made me more aware of my vocabulary.

Henry Cate said...

Thanks for the suggestion on statcounter. What kind of additional statistics do you get, that Site Meter doesn't give?

DavidofOz said...

I use Sitemeter, Statcounter and MyBlogLog. All three give differing visitor counts.
Sitemeter is the cleanest in terms of reporting and keeps the last 100 visits.
Statcounter shows the actual pages a visitor hits which is useful, but the free version only remembers the lst 100 page views - not visits.
MyBlogLog tracks the outgoing clicks and most of the incoming.
All are free and worthwhile.

Henry Cate said...

Thanks to Doc and David. It looks like it would be worth the effort to add statcounter. I've made a note to check it out this Saturday.