Doing the job of webmaster for a business-to-business website has trained me to be a web stats fiend. I daily check Google Analytics for the latest trends across all the sites that I publish or manage. The proof is in the pudding and stats give you some great feedback for decision making in what to publish, how to manage the layout of the site, what content to feature and generally how to focus ones energy.
The stats for the last 30 days have revealed some interesting trends and decision points for thoughtsparks.net. The report from Google Analytics is very telling in the traffic flow as the site has seen a whopping 100% increase from the previous 30 days.

- StumbleUpon rocks. Do you see those major peaks in the graph? Those are Stumble surges. A full 688 visits to the site during this period came from stumbleupon. Stumble traffic average time on the site was 1:25 compared to pownce.com being 9:01, so there is some question of quality of traffic. The shear numbers however are compelling.
- Blogrush doesn’t rock. Blogrush sounds like a great idea but the implementation seems to be a bit lacking with only 8 visits for this entire time period. I think at least for now their free advertising on my site is a goner. Let me know if you have better luck statistically with their widget.
- Pownce rocks. Everyday I’m finding Pownce to be more of an asset, with great folks offering engaging conversation.
- TechFires.com rocks. If by chance you haven’t caught wind, Scott Blitstein over at MyThermos.com and I have launched the site for rapid tech reviews.
- YouMob.com rocks. This site referred 52 visitors to my site. Pretty cool.
- MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog kind of rocks. Now don’t get me wrong, both sites have brought me some great blogging friends for which I am thankful. I just don’t find either site compelling to spend great volumes of time as a social networking site. I love the avatar system and check-in every other day or so.
- Thereisnospace.blogspot.com rocks. The top blog referral site with 19 visits, this young lady writing from Dubai is a worthwhile read. She’s an original and engaging blogger.
- Kellementology.com rocks too. Kelly is another one that is her own woman who is a pleasure to know and an interest to read. If you are looking for run-of-the-mill blogs, pass hers by.
- Technorati and Digg aren’t rock’n. These sites seem to have too much gaming going on and I just don’t get into that stuff. I’d rather spend my time writing content.
- Advertising isn’t rock’n. You could probably say because I haven’t given it a great effort, but honestly I get bored trying to manage it. I also struggle to find effective ad systems that don’t bug me. I regularly get offers for freelance web dev work. If I want to pick-up extra cash, I think I’ll just do some honest work and let you folks read my site without those distracting ads. I’m not anti-ads or anything, just where I’m at with thoughtsparks.net, at least right now. The main reason for hosting ads is to pay for bandwidth which may become more and more of an issue, but we’ll see.
In the end analysis, this site is not about stats but about readers, about you. It’s about "Igniting Ideas for the Common Good". The web stats along with your awesome, well-formed and thoughtful comments give me some sense of whether I’m on track or not in accomplishing this goal. Truth is that I gain more from your stimulating feedback than any ad system ever could. Thanks for reading and engaging.
So what’s rock’n your stats? Are you finding any social communities or bookmarking sites boosting your traffic?
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