Post by @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 2 hours ago

I do zero analytics on any of my web traffic, so this is just a guess, but I should be surprised if many people come to my sites via Google.

I am just a bloke with a Raspberry Pi running a website and two blogs.

I suspect that, of whatever traffic I get, most comes from links I (and others) post here, and from RSS subscribers.

Similarly, I don't think that I found any of the blogs or sites that I read regularly via a search engine.

Word of mouth (webrings, people posting about stuff they've enjoyed / their own work etc.) ftw.

Anne Fokke Kootstra

@anne@peekeend.nl · 25 minutes ago

@neil I watch my nginx logs because ai scrapers hit my raspi hard. They wanted to scrape my mastodon instance not any more.

Werner the Werewolf 🎃

@worldwidewerner@mastodon.social · 30 minutes ago

@neil
I wrote this to @_elena a few months back:

https://mastodon.social/@worldwidewerner/116369434259394954

Jaimie's Erotica

@Jaimieserotica@kinkycats.org · 40 minutes ago

@neil
We run different sorts of blogs but...
As at today, most of my traffic comes from SEs and most of that from Google.
Masto is the SM platform that I'm most active on but the traffic I get from here is now virtually nothing. I get more traffic from Bluesky where I have less than a 3rd of the followers I have here. Engagement with my toots here which promote my writing is dwindling. Elsewhere, there's been a great reponse to my piece that was published last week. Here, its felt like 'meh'.

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 19 minutes ago

@Jaimieserotica

> Masto is the SM platform that I'm most active on but the traffic I get from here is now virtually nothing.

Ooh, interesting.

I'm sorry to hear that, because you are a lot of fun here.

And I think that, early/earlier on, you were getting a fair amount of fedi-originated traffic? So I wonder what (if anything) has changed.

But your writing is wonderful and deserves more attention!

Richard @RBPhotographic

@rbphotographic@mastodon.world · 4 minutes ago

@neil @Jaimieserotica it’s how I discovered @Jaimieserotica and her wonderful writing. I hate the fact I have to maintain a Instagram account to keep in contact with models as more have moved away from photography and modelling forums.

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 1 minute ago

@rbphotographic @Jaimieserotica

> more have moved away from photography and modelling forums.

I miss the days of individual forums (as opposed to centralised forums like "reddits") - they were a staple part of life online for me.

Jaimie's Erotica

@Jaimieserotica@kinkycats.org · 13 minutes ago

@neil
Thanks Neil
It's not that overall traffic is down (its massively up over last year), just fedi traffic... It is what it is, I guess.

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 10 minutes ago

@Jaimieserotica

I recall reading one of your posts, about your traffic stats (and, perhaps, goals in that direction), so I am glad that things are going in the right direction!

I could have some readers, loads of readers, or no readers, and I am blissful in my ignorance :)

Matt Lewis

@semiprime@mastodon.online · 1 hour ago

@neil Anecdote: I arrived on one of your blog posts from a search engine (probably DuckDuckGo) about a week ago. I rember thinking "oh, it's Neil from Mastodon's blog". I was looking to see if it was possible to import events into a Radicale calendar (not directly, apparently). Since I already knew who you were, I had reasonable confidence that you'd done a decent investigation. Thanks for posting about it!

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 1 hour ago

@semiprime Interesting - thanks!

Guillaume-Jean Herbiet

@gjherbiet@mamot.fr · 2 hours ago

@neil If you have any interest in getting analytics but do not want to add trackers to your website (which I totally understand), you can do some web server log analysis, e.g. with Matomo Log Analytics: https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo-log-analytics

GitHub

GitHub - matomo-org/matomo-log-analytics: Import any kind of server logs in Matomo for powerful log analytics. Universal log file parsing and reporting.

Import any kind of server logs in Matomo for powerful log analytics. Universal log file parsing and reporting. - matomo-org/matomo-log-analytics

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 1 hour ago

@gjherbiet

> If you have any interest in getting analytics

None whatsoever (https://neilzone.co.uk/2024/01/why-i-dont-care-about-websiteblog-stats/), but thank you!

Why I don't care about website/blog stats

Every so often, someone says to me

⁂

More from

Neil Brown

Nic Dafis

@nic@toot.wales · 2 hours ago

@neil In the early days of blogging, perusing referral logs was a big deal. I was once “summoned” to join a top-secret web forum by a few people clicking on a link to my blog, with the (correct) assumption that I would notice the sudden spike in traffic from a weird address.

I wouldn’t even know where to look to find referral logs now, and I presume they’re useless anyway.

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 2 hours ago

@nic

> I was once “summoned” to join a top-secret web forum by a few people clicking on a link to my blog, with the (correct) assumption that I would notice the sudden spike in traffic from a weird address.

Nice!

Feff

@feff@comicscamp.club · 2 hours ago

@neil
Same. There's a few blogs I've found from looking for lists of RSS feeds but most of the listed ones are corporate. I found more interesting blogs through word of mouth here...

...word of fingers? Although I suppose if you dictate to your device it would still be word of mouth...

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 2 hours ago

@feff

"Word of fingers" is rather apt. I like it :)

Sundial

@GoingDownWithSundial@mastodon.social · 2 hours ago

@neil and I agree about the word of mouth phenomenon :)

Sundial

@GoingDownWithSundial@mastodon.social · 2 hours ago

@neil I've stayed away from social media for a long time and was in two minds about joining mastodon. I'm really very glad that I did, and not just for the networking for my website. I've met a lot of interesting people here.

Not quite the same thing, but It brings to mind the online gaming community I was a part of when I first moved to Germany. I think without them those first months would have been very lonely. Still meet up with some of them irl. And there are some here I'd like to meet.

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 2 hours ago

@GoingDownWithSundial

Yes! Community is a key part of why I enjoy being online.

I love the fact that I get to chat with, learn from, and enjoy the writings and other creations of, so many people, wherever and whomever they might be.

Sundial

@GoingDownWithSundial@mastodon.social · 2 hours ago

@neil curiosity is such a beautiful thing.

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 2 hours ago

@GoingDownWithSundial

The Internet, as a tool for letting me explore and expand my curiosity through interacting with others, played and continues to play a massive part in me being who I am today. Absolutely.

Drew Mochak

@prism@infosec.exchange · 2 hours ago

@neil If google is no longer a search engine people will use another search engine. Every wrong answer drives traffic away. I can't imagine anyone will want to use this.

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 2 hours ago

@prism

> If google is no longer a search engine people will use another search engine.

I suspect that this could be true for people who actively want a search engine.

I don't know how many people just want an answer.

I agree though that, if the proffered answer is wrong too often, that it will drive (some) people away.

Steve Hill 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

@steve@mastodon.nexusuk.org · 32 minutes ago

@neil @prism my wife complained about Google presenting an AI answer whenever she searches. Which is a potential problem because her university have rules about AI use. I said "so just use a different search engine" and got back "what do you mean? I thought Google was the only one".

She is not super into computers - she uses them as a tool, rather than as an interest, but she is not a luddite by any means and learnt how to code a few years ago.

So that, is an insight into "normal people".

Drew Mochak

@prism@infosec.exchange · 2 hours ago

@neil If they just wanted "the answer" they would get it from the summary of the site without clicking onto the article anyway. Not great for you but I don't see how it makes the situation worse. The AI is just removing the pesky source of knowledge outside of the googlesphere. Since google does not own all knowledge, there's no way that the result they'll get will be more reliable than searching the web. Even the AI bros will use perplexity.

Daniel Schildt

@autiomaa@mementomori.social · 2 hours ago

@neil Do you know volume of traffic in gigabytes, at least?

Neil Brown

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk · 2 hours ago

@autiomaa No. I don't do anything like that.