You don’t exist
I don’t check my web stats very often, but I was surprised to learn that nobody has visited New Music Strategies in over a week. Not one person.
When I do look at the statistics on my website, which isn’t very often, I’m always surprised to learn that anywhere between 700 and 1200 individual visitors turn up each day. Feedburner says I have 860-odd subscribers. It’s hardly broadcasting, but it’s a little bit humbling all the same.
But if I was ever to get an inflated ego about the number of people who read this blog, the bubble has been well and truly burst. I just checked, and not a single soul has read New Music Strategies since the 18th of this month. Even now, though you think you’re reading this, you’re clearly not.
I’ve checked. I have the Reports plugin for Wordpress, and I’ve looked using AW Stats and Webalizer. All of them say that the site has died a death.
Either nobody reads this site anymore, or those that do don’t actually exist.
I don’t particularly need to know how many people are reading in order to keep writing. It’s nice to feel like this is helpful — but I’m not trying to sell advertising or anything, so the information’s not critical.
The world of web stats is a bit of a mystery to me — at least from the point of view of how they work. I know this stuff is important and useful business information for people like you who want to gauge the results of different marketing strategies — so perhaps someone with a bit of technical knowledge in this department might be able to enlighten us.
If you have any clues as to what’s up, perhaps you could leave a comment below. If, in fact, you’re really there.
26 Comments, Comment or Ping
JohnMiltonGintz
Well Andrew, I will admit that I have skipped out for the last few days but not the entire week!…Did I???
I stumbled upon your e-book “20 Things…” and found it to be very enlightening and I do try to make it by at least a couple times a week. I also forwarded your e-book to anyone I thought it could help; from the CFO at my day job to the Music Scoring company I submit songs to…and hopefully they all found it as useful as I have!
I am really sorry to hear that I do not exist….but I was starting to suspect as much!
Keep on keepin’ on and THANKS!
John
Jul 26th, 2007
J. Space
I took your advice and set up my Google reader…maybe others have done the same?
Jul 26th, 2007
David Mondrup
I can’t tell what’s happening; but I can confirm that this is the first time visiting the actual blog foir some time now, though I’ve been reading all of it. Following your own splendid advice in the free ebook (which I bought in hardcopy too, btw), I’m reading it all through Google Reader. Perhaps fead readers like that can account for it?
- or perhaps not …
Jul 26th, 2007
sanne Roemen
Well.. i’m here now. Does it register? No seriously, that’s strange. I’ve been reading your posts with Google Reader so I never really visit your site. But uhmmmm the fact that nobody responded to this question of yours seems even eerier.
Jul 26th, 2007
Greg
I’d have bet I’m posting right now…but if the Reports plugin says I’m not… ^^
Jul 26th, 2007
LJ
The problem more than likely stems from the server your site is hosted on is overloaded. Every night in the wee hours of the morning the server will run a cronjob (a scheduled task) to process the raw server logs and update your stats. This process is only set to run if the server resources are under a set amount. So, either (a) your server is heavily overloaded (if your on a shared server, this might not even be your fault) or (b) the process that updates the stats is frozen and needs to be killed. Etiher way, your web hosting support should be able to fix your issue.
Hope this helps
Jul 26th, 2007
Roger Peters
That’s very interesting. Although I may not have actually visited the site in a while, I subscribe using Google Reader. There are definitely people reading, so I’m glad to see that you’re going to keep writing.
Jul 26th, 2007
Darren Landrum
Most of the time, web stats are collected from the Apache web server logs, which collect information like IP address, hostmask, browser type, and of course, date and time. Various programs basically just parse this information to present it to you in a meaningful way. If all of your webstat programs failed all at once, this is the first thing I would ask your host about.
Jul 26th, 2007
Greg
I don’t exist…so my comments won’t appear.
Do they?
Jul 26th, 2007
Dubber
The people using Google Reader (or any other RSS aggregator) to keep tabs on New Music Strategies are generally registered and taken note of by the plugin I use, but for some reason, the counter hasn’t been ticking over for a while.
I’ll get in touch with the people who host the site. That sounds like the right answer. Thanks, everyone.
Turns out it’s just me that’s imaginary, then.
Jul 26th, 2007
Nick
I was here just yesterday! Didn’t you see the dirty dishes in the sink, my old socks in yer hamper? I tried to tidy up as best I could, mind.
Jul 26th, 2007
Chris
Dude, upgrade to Feedburner Pro or try Sitemeter. They’ve been reliable for a lot of people.
Jul 26th, 2007
Sam
I think I’m still here, and I’ve dropped in at least 2-3 times in the last 7 days, and sent a few folk scurrying in this direction into the bargain, although I’ve never been sure if they’re actually all there so this could be the proof I needed …
Jul 26th, 2007
Valerie
For the record, I read on Bloglines whenever a post turns up, but I also visited this site three days ago. Good luck.
Jul 27th, 2007
Stef Lewandowski
Hi Dubber, this is probably because you’ve had so _many_ hits that the space allocated for log files got too big. Ask them to check your available space.
Even pings, RSS feed requests, etc. count as traffic so this is probably a server problem….
And install Google Analytics!
Jul 27th, 2007
Amit
huh? i’m pretty sure i’ve commented here during this time.. and then Phil from Nimbit replied a couple of days later.. i always knew about me but didn’t know that Phil doesn’t exist either!
Jul 27th, 2007
George
For the record, I’m here and reading regularly.
Jul 27th, 2007
Pete Ashton
You didn’t tweak your templates on the day the stats died, did you? Could be you corrupted the javascript that sends the stats to the stats crunching machine. First thing I’d do is get fresh code and see if that makes a difference.
Jul 27th, 2007
KwangErn Liew
May I suggest using Google Analytics.
Jul 27th, 2007
Peter
Nope - I have been with you every time you post! True I do not visit the web site per se, I let my feed reader do all the hard work and open up the inbuilt browser if there is anything else to follow in depth - like a video link. Guess I do not exist then
Jul 27th, 2007
Paul Dixon
Clearly there’s a technical problem with your webserver logs, but just so you know - I enjoy reading your blog! (and I too use Google Reader)
Jul 27th, 2007
Mike
I second Pete Aston’s comment.
Jul 27th, 2007
Len
I just discovered your site, Andrew, and very happy that I did.
Many things you’re writing about music here resonate with the Cluetrain Manifesto (www.cluetrain.com) written some 8 years ago about markets and the Internet in general. (I’m curious whether Cluetrain inspired you in any way).
Thank you for what you’re doing. I subscribe to the RSS though rather than visiting a blog.
Jul 27th, 2007
Dubber
You know what? I think I was inspired by the Cluetrain Manifesto. As soon as I read those words, they were instantly familiar to me, and when I visited the site, I remembered having been there before in the past. It’s certainly been a while though.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that was what planted the seeds. In which case, I’m very grateful.
Jul 27th, 2007
Richard from GoStats
Not that it will really change any of your traffic levels, but: GoStats can make viewing your traffic levels more fun and easy. There is also a plug-in of GoStats for word press just in case.
Jul 27th, 2007
AK
Thanks Richard, I recently registered with your site GoStats.com for the wordpress plug-in and it is actually simple and easy to use.
Cheers!
Jul 28th, 2007
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