In the last few months I have been getting whopping daily traffic numbers on my blog, ranging from between 2500 and 3000 hits a day. While I would like to attribute this traffic to my sparkling prose, the genius of my ideas, my rapier wit, the manner in which my prose indicates my inherent physical sex appeal in the real world, and the intrinsic interest of the various topics I discuss, I suspect it has a far more banal (and less gratifying) explanation. While I am indeed, like the proverbial second string hair band, huge in Europe (especially Great Britain– not so surprising –and Northern Europe for some odd reason) India, Egypt, and seem to have an entire Slavic contingent that loves to hate me, it seems that traffic jumped up from around 1000 hits a day to these large numbers when I began posting pictures of various nebula taken by Hubble on my blog. When I look at the search referrals that have led people here, the vast majority of them are related to Hubble in some way or other.
This thesis is further confirmed, I think, by the fact that my post entitled “Brief Remarks on the Ontic Principle” has consistently received the most daily traffic for months. While I would love to believe that the “Ontic Principle” is sweeping the globe, no doubt this traffic is easily explained by the picture of the Eagle Nebula at the beginning of the post. The thing that really throws me through a loop are the emails I’ve been getting from folks asking if they can use such and such a picture I’ve posted. Just take em, folks. I wonder how much blog traffic can be accounted for in this way? For example, how many referrals do I get due to people searching for information about “larvae”? I confess the idea of an entomologist reading my blog after searching for information about larvae, not only because biologists are just plain hawt, but because I like the idea of random and accidental cross-fertilization of ideas. At any rate, you too can have amazing blog traffic if you post Hubble space pictures. Moreover, should other bloggers adopt this strategy for luring traffic your way, we can say we’re doing so in the name of a scientific experiment. We could even vary the experiment, placing random pictures of celebrities and significant events on our blog to see if they lure traffic.
May 4, 2009 at 2:08 am
terrifyingly (?) at my group medieval blog, we sustain frequent visitors searching for “erotic animals,” who are no doubt (I hope!) disappointed to find only a rather dry (for pornography, anyhow) article on animals one of us wrote for an encylopedia of sexuality…or perhaps one of my pieces on necrobestiality.
May 4, 2009 at 2:12 am
Ha Karl,
I don’t want to even begin contemplating that!
May 4, 2009 at 2:18 am
Then no links for you!
May 4, 2009 at 2:20 am
Bastard!
May 4, 2009 at 2:49 am
Um, Kip Winger? As in the band, Winger?
May 4, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Okay.
here’s one
here’s two
May 4, 2009 at 12:46 pm
For a while something like 80% of my hits were from people searching for the fictional character “Joe Dirt,” of whom I’d put up a picture.
Larvae and heavenly bodies (I would quote the Kant line about “starry heavens above” but I can’t remember it) are a little more dignified.
There has to be some historical connection between “Saint Hubbins” (patron saint of quality footwear) and “Hubble.” So Spinal Tap might have worked as well as Winger. Though Tap never had there career destroyed by Butthead saying “His teeth are whiter than white. Huh-huh huh-huh.” before changing the channel.