Feeding My Ego With Blog Stats

Because I'm so egotistical... um, I mean *curious*, I look at my blog stats fairly regularly. (For those of you reading this on MySpace, I mean the stats for the version of this blog that lives on Blogger, http://crumj.blogspot.com. MySpace doesn't provide detailed stats, just number of views). I noticed an uptick in hits these last few days, so I decided to dig a little deeper. As much as I'd like to think the increased hits are a reflection of my scintillating writing (yeah... uh huh), it appears that the activity is seasonal. A couple years ago I wrote a post called Extreme Pumpkin Contest Winners 2005. Turns out that if you Google "extreme pumpkin contest", my post comes up third in the results list. Too bad that wasn't a cleverly-written post.

I kept digging in the blog stats, especially searches that brought people to my blog. Some of them are fascinating. Here's the current list, as of a few minutes ago:


My personal favorites:

• how to fake a mullet: One of my concert reviews comes up as the third result when you search these words in Google.
  
• dishonest bad prose: An old post of mine called "Correct Use of Language is a 'Badge of Competence'" comes up as, once again, the third result in a Google search. Apparently 3 is my new lucky number.
  

So there ya go. If I find fame and fortune as a blogger, it'll be because of extreme pumpkins, fake mullets, and dishonest bad prose. I feel proud already.

Footnote: Special thanks to StatCounter (http://statcounter.com) for providing excellent free stats. Without StatCounter, my ego might deflate before your very eyes. Seriously, StatCounter is great. If you need web stats, give 'em a try.