Monday, October 06, 2008

NeoCounter

When I installed this new gadget - or is it a widget, I hardly know the difference, or even if there is one - I thought it would be interesting to see where in the world my readers were coming from. [You will find it at the bottom of my sidebar.]


My first reaction is that in 11 days from installation, a total of 203 hits doesn't seem much beside the grand total of 25573 on my ordinary hit counter; but that one has been running for a year or so. Isn't it annoying that the technology is not there for these counters to count backwards as well, and give you your overall totals!


The second thing of note is that, not surprisingly, of the 34 countries in all, the US and the UK lead the field, with, as of now, 67 hits from the former and 65 from the latter. Australia and Canada are next with 10 and 9 hits, France with 7, Portugal and India with 3. The rest are all 2s and 1s.


Now then, you blog surfers in the UK: are you going to let the United States keep two hits ahead of you forever, as they have been up to now? It won't do you know. This is a British blog by a British writer and I expect my strongest support to come from the United Kingdom!



Having said which, with my tongue well into my cheek, I hasten to add that I consider myself to be just as much a citizen of the world as I am of the UK, and it gratifies me hugely to find that approximately half my hits are from non-English-speaking countries. I don't get comments from them though -that would be really nice.




9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Judith, I read your blog regularly after finding you via the Jake Thackray list (I think) but I rarely actually come to the site - I use Google Reader to aggregate the blogs I follow. I suspect therefore that if I get counted at all, I get counted as being in the US (via Google) rather that in the UK. However, having come here to leave this message, I find that the UK is at the top now - so it's been worth the effort!

Judith said...

Hooray! Thanks for that Anonymous. Though I suspect it is just as likely to be me editing my posts that has brought the UK numbers up!

I must look into this Google Reader thing for aggregating blogs you follow.

Lee said...

Google Reader is a blessing - you get a list of blogs that have changed since you last looked and can also get a glimpse of what they contain without actually going there every time. Well worth it if you keep an eye on lots of blogs.

Judith said...

I have just realised this, Lee, and am in the process of setting up my list. Your name is on it already. Is this what triggers another green 'follower' figure beside the name of your blog on your dashboard?

Judith said...

On second thughts, that is Blogger Reading List I am talking about. I did sign up for Google Reader as well, but I got lost somewhere and don't know how to proceed. Where does the Google list appear?

Aha! I have found it in My Account on my Google page, but I very seldom go there, as I do not use it as a home page.The two blogs I have so far in my Blogger Reading List seem to have subscribed themselves to my Google list as well. So perhaps I need do nothing more.

Lucy said...

India always seems to provide a few on those things. I'm quite tempted by a neocounter, but have always resolved not to do any stat counting, but they are interesting.

And of course there are always people like me who are in one country but from another...

G in Berlin said...

Hi Judith- I also read your blog through a reader and never really open your site. So my Germany would perhaps show as the US or perhaps not show at all? I ahve used Bloglines and Googlereader, although I use neither as my homepage. You can also change the setting on your neocounter to ignore your ip address and you should check out feedjit.com. That's similar to neocounter but the free version is more attractive (although it does not accumulate, so I use both;)).

annie said...

Hi Judith.

I've had a muddling and scrambling time understanding any of these Readers and RSS etc., but I finally hit something right and now the RSS feeds take a blog or website to my Google Reader. So I have both your blogs on my Reader, now. I don't have a blog so I guess I can't be a Follower. I'm a New England Yankee now
living in Texas so I should come up as part of your USA numbers.
annie

Judith said...

I haven't at all got to grips with feeds yet, Annie. I need a whole day to devote to their study I think, or even special instruction! I feel at some risk of having so many things to follow that I never catch up with anything, and eventually stop writing my own stuff, and that I don't want. It's a real balancing act.