Melanie Nilles

I’ve been watching my website visitor numbers climb and I appreciate that someone out there in cyberspace is interested in what I have to say. I don’t know how many people actually sit and analyze statistics, if you pay for the service of collecting statistics or have it included with the website service (which Yahoo! does). I used to be the one who analyzed the website stats at my former job, so i know what I’m looking at and what I’m looking for.

You can’t put too much into them. As my statistics teacher in college said–numbers can be skewed. I know I go to my site on occasion, but I also can see how many hits and visits I’ve caused in the numbers because I know my IP address when I see it in the table showing the host IPs from people visiting. Also, just because someone visits doesn’t mean they are doing much browsing. It may be an accidental passing.

However, if a person knows what they’re looking at, statistics can be quite useful. I’ve noticed that, since starting a blog and keeping it going with posts at least a couple times a week, I keep someone out there coming back to my site. The numbers of visitors now averages about 40 a day (hits are the numbers of files accessed, including graphics, of which you can have several per page). The average number of pages viewed per visit has climbed to more than 3. The blog gets the most hits with my main directory the second most. My books pages have climbed to third. The numbers grow over time, which tells me that a positive web presence can draw people in. None of those statistics mean that any of you looking will buy my books, but it makes me feel good that you’re interested in what I have to say and who I am.

What statistics are important?

The answer to that depends on what you’re looking for. I gave you a brief glimpse of what I look at. The reports available depends upon what is offered in your hosting contract. Yahoo! has a nice package and lists a few analyzing tools. I like WebLog Expert Lite myself, and it’s free. It tells me pretty much everything I need to get a good view of the activity on my site. Yeah, updating it, as I did a few weeks ago, skewed everything. All the numbers jumped because I was playing with my site so much, but now it’s been a couple of weeks and things have settled. Nevertheless, I am seeing the rise in visits. Perhaps the one statistic I like just for kicks is the “Search Phrases”. So far I’ve seen some interesting searches entered that led people to my site. (A couple of them I can guess were friends or family Others I never would have expected to lead someone to my site.

In the end, statistics for a website are all about numbers, but they don’t tell you what those visitors are thinking or looking for. Only direct feedback can do that, and I welcome feedback and comments. Nevertheless, a long-term analysis of the numbers can show trends and behavior patterns that provide some invaluable information.

Lately I’ve been rewatching Farscape. (We have all the DVDs.) I have been catching things in it that I’ve never noticed the many other times I’ve watched it. Wow! The trillion little wacky things make sense! What’s different this time, besides that I have two kids now demanding my attention? (hint: therein lies the clue)

When you have kids, you don’t hear much of anything. All the shouting, yelling, giggling, stomping, running, etc. drowns out anything I want to hear. So, I often find myself turning subtitles on the TV. I read the transcription of the dialogue between the characters and suddenly a new aspect of the show has opened up for me. I don’t know why, when all during college and even now I have to recite something out loud to make it stick (I studied by reciting my notes out loud, but didn’t realize it was how I learned best until after graduating).

So why is it that now I “get it”? I can’t say, except that I wasn’t paying attention all those other times.

On the other hand, I’ve become more focused on the written word the last few years, and I’ve matured as an adult. I won’t say how old I am, but that I’ve lived at least three decades. Whatever it is that has allowed me to find these details and more fully enjoy this show–which is certainly one of the most unique SF shows ever made, if not one of the best–proves that the written word is powerful for comprehension.

And that is what I love about reading! (and writing )