Hey, Where’d Everybody Go?

I would be embarrassed to admit the attention I pay to how many people land on this site. For the last three years or so, the number has been in the low hundreds every day; it has spiked briefly several tiimes, but I don’t think it has once hit 1,000. I’ve also found that in the past couple of years, more and more people arrive on the sprawling Infospigot web property not to partake of the brilliant bons mot but in search of pictures of Mount Shasta or the Haymarket memorials in Chicago. That’s fine–glad to be of service.

But in the last ten days, something odd has happened. That steady volume of visitors has shrunk suddenly and rather sharply, to just a few dozen a day. I can’t think of any reason this might have happened so quickly. Maybe Google has weeded out a lot of the redundant references to the site. Maybe something else has happened. Hope it wasn’t something I said.

7 Replies to “Hey, Where’d Everybody Go?”

  1. I’m still here! At least NetNewsWire checks 3-4 times a day.
    Funny, but I don’t think I’ve ever checked to see how many people check out my directionless blog. I’ve always assumed it was less than a dozen, and usually that’s people who decide not to hire me.

  2. My guess is that your readership has not declined. What’s changed is that you now provide a full feed for RSS readers. Now we can read your full post in our favorite RSS readers. The only reason to visit the site is to make a comment. However, you probably now have more people who read your full posts since you eliminated the click-thru barrier.
    If you want to check my hypothesis, try google reader and subscribe to your feed. When you add a subscription, the reader shows you how many google readers are subscribed. I think you will see several hundred subscribers.

  3. I’m still around. I find myself in lurk mode more and more these days and I also don’t surf as much as I once did.

  4. Roy — interesting (and optimistic) thought. You’re the one who got me to change to a full feed, so thanks for that.

  5. And Rob: Hey, I know you’re there. I was just whinging. (Saying that, I wonder how that Brit term has become an alternative or replacement for the American version, “whining.)

  6. Well here I am lurking away and Dan posts this shameless cry for help. Dan!!! We are all still out here and we still live and die for your posts.
    I am not sure you should have admitted to your most fervent admirers that you seek thousands of sycophants not just us.

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