Oct 13, 2007

Thoughts on the blog

Torture

I started blogging with a clear purpose in mind. While a large part of my day job involves writing reports (technical and perception oriented) about motorcycles and related products and services, I realised increasingly that there was a lot more I wanted to write about in that area. Stuff that I had limited or no outlets for. Stuff that I found fascinating, but not many others in the professional area would have the time for. Once I started, of course, I realised that the web log is extremely interesting in its informal nature and the breadth of scope that I could choose to explore. There were no limits.

The blog is now almost 18 months or so old now, nearing 650 posts and just crossed the 3 million page impressions mark (from March 2007 to date; previous data has been lost in the switch from StatCounter to Google Analytics). In that time, here are few things I've noticed.
  • Maximum traffic is invariably generated by/goes to the news related posts, whether they be launch news, riding impressions or that kind of material

  • Any new bike launch will usually sustain a fairly gratifying level of traffic for as little as a week, to as much as a month

  • There's a noticeable ebb and flow to traffic that depends on posts. If I consistently most three or more posts a day, there will be a rise in traffic. For a while. After that it reverts to its normal state. However, if I put up a bunch of posts in a spurt over two days or so, the resulting spurt in traffic takes a lot longer to die down. I haven't understood the reason behind this so far

  • Traffic is always the lowest on the weekend

  • Beer posts always generate a healthy comment spree, quite at odds with the kind of traffic the posts actually get

  • The most commented on post is the DTS-FI images and specs post (39), followed by Milestone 500 (25) and Yamaha Alba (25) (!!)

11 comments:

sanket kambli said...

18 months old...congrats!! I am sure your not going to stop even if this blog becomes 18yrs old!! and you would surely have at least 18 times more fan-base!!!keep it vroooming!!! do avoid potholes!! thats what I have been doing since rains stopped!!take care!! adios!! ride safe@!

Anonymous said...

3 million page impressions?
U sure? :-)

that's too optimistic i'd say.

by the way, i used to monitor your previous (statcounter) stats when they were on. it's highly unlikey that the 3 million mark can be crossed so soon.

got proof?

Anonymous said...

3 million? koi proof? else just cut the crap

Anonymous said...

Bike Boss,

Your analysis on your blog is as goos as your posts on bikes.

All the best. Always post the best.

Carry on sir. We are watching :-)

Anonymous said...

Good analysis as your good posts.

Keep the momentum.

We are watching you always.

All the best boss.

:-)

Vibhu Rishi said...

Traffic is always the lowest on the weekend

Hardly surprising. Most people who surf do so from the office. And on weekends, they are not there.

Anonymous said...

Three million page views between March 2007 and now? Hmmm... come on now, that's a lie. There's no way a general (not focused on any one particular subject) blog like yours could be doing 375,000 page views a month.

Why do you lie? I did not expect it of you.

rearset said...

CLARIFICATION:
Reading through this post, 3 million does seem a bit much. But, again, the Adsense counter on the bottom left of my screen (Firefox extension) says 3,080,830 page impressions as I type this. However, when I query the website directly by logging on, it says on 408,953. Now I am totally confused. Anyone know what's going on?

And sorry about the confusion.

Payeng said...

3 million page impressions since march 2007, that means 3 million pageviews in 6 months..!!

That means on an average 1 million (10 lakh impressions) in 2 months or 5 lakh page impressions in one month..!! Or around 16,666 page impressions in 1 day.


Rearset Boss, as far as I know Amit Agarwal's blog: http://www.labnol.blogspot.com gets around 20,000 page impressions in a day and for the record he is the only Indian blogger who earns a couple of lakhs in a month from his blog.


If your blog can really generate this type of traffic then you too will be able to earn more than enough to quit your day job.


But then sponsors and advertisers will ask for proof of your blog visitor stats.


I too maintain a two wheeler blog and such high visitor stats seems highly unlikely at least right now and that too for a niche topic like Motorcycles in India.

--xh-- said...

three cheers, mate. this is now my first stop for any two wheeler gyan :-). and be it 3 million or 4,++,+++ I am happy as long as you write.

sanket kambli said...

this is how I think some counters work....some counters update everytime you click refresh button or page refreshes after entering commments etc etc.....while some count page visits by unique IP address or something....so you will get varied results depending on what code runs the counters....the counters are usually scripts(in programming parlance),...