Unashamed hit quest
Posted 25 February 2008 // Carl Walrond
Eye of the blobfish
How does a blog get readers? Mmm, the trouble with good questions is there are no good answers.
If people land on a blog page through a search, then it must have something to do with the search engine’s ranking of the page. So if I linked to some of our most popular pages I should surge in hit rankings, right? The blobfish is one of the most viewed Te Ara pages. Why? God knows. Perhaps people see themselves or other people they know reflected in its bleary eyes and pallid complexion. I’ve looked worse on a Sunday morning coming down.
Another possible way to whore myself to hits is linking to sites that link to us, such as other (popular) blogs. After the West Coast’s uranium ice cream was picked up by the blog Ink from the squid in November 2007, that particular page’s ratings surged.
I’m not sure what other methods there are – I’ve always thought it’s pretty random what people latch onto. Maybe I could point to some of the least visited pages on Te Ara. I’m not sure which they are, as at the bottom of the pile the base gets pretty wide, but here are a few best guesses:
- moustachioed man in singlet makes toilets
- the bottom of the sea
- Soil Bureau Headquarters
- effete gent talks soil.
Funnily, I actually find some of those rather good – that’s probably my taste: somewhere near the end of the web’s long tail.
