How This Blog Is Doing

Readership is up, averaging just over 100 per day, and doing a bit more international business than previously, the national (outside OR) readership is increasing and the instate out of Portland readership is up. Readers since start up now exceed 24K. Technorati has moved "Authority" up a few points to 37 and ranking is now 217 some K instead of 340K. (I've seen 9 millionth) OR BNN has had "Chuck for" in the top 20 for 2 weeks, including a top 10 entry this week. Blogburst has had a continuous headline profile over the last week with one published, by linking, article. Headline exposures are opportunities for someone to link in from a news site like Reuters, they register as published when someone links. These headline impressions have varied with 200/day, several 100/day, and a couple 25/day, they get pretty buried.

Main page entries have settled back into first place after the Scott McClelland weirdness, with Ruger No1 45-70 not far behind. As has been usual, gun post entries are near matches to political entries. Encouragingly some gun entries are going to the main page.

Outside links are wildly variable from week to week, varying hugely in "Authority" and how linked. There were a couple real complimentary links, peer approval is nice, and these were from more respected blogs than this one. Some readers are coming in from Balloon Juice, a blog with a very active commenting section. Our comments sections have been more active than previously and for the most part holding in their quality. I ashcanned one comment that was not in itself a problem, the problem was the link back to a White Supremicist site, not happening here. I'm pretty relaxed, but this ain't total free speech.

Regular readers include UK, France, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Brazil, and Mexico. If I missed your nation, blame memory malfunction. Out of state regulars pretty much in order top down, NY, WA, MI, FL, MO, WI, OH, GA, TX and some single readers from a few more. It is always kind of cool to see readers come in from places I've been, even the search engine ones. Search engine hits are interesting, I've been first or near first listing on several articles and on several more first page. Some incoming hits are too weird for me to even figure out from the key words and some, oddly, looking for porn. I say oddly, because I've back linked the search and the introductory sentences are there and I really can't see them porn related.

You may have noticed the BNN rating, I figure I'm allowed to brag when it's good and you get to know when it sucks. The Zimbio button leads to a webzine, a different sort of deal that formats articles in magazine form. Somebody linked in from it and the backlink looked kind of interesting so I registered the site. Poke around over there at Zimbio and let me know what you think. I find Technorati pretty useful for keeping track of who is linking to me and generally what national influence the blog has. It is also useful for tracking the general regard blogs are held in that strike my interest. I'm an inverse snob that way, most of the blogs on my blog roll are smaller efforts. The big guys don't need a link off my page, and the bigger ones that are there drive traffic over here, so I give a convenience for getting there.

Steve Cully's articles generally do a good hit number. Of my titles, what sparks interest is generally tough to predict; some I expected to do well just sort of sit there. I am gratified by the attention, about 6 months ago I was ready to quit; I don't need mass approval but at a certain point it becomes about as useful to yell at the TV (ok, I've done that-GWB).

I admit I'd like to see the "comment" button get a bit more use, you don't seem to be a talkitive bunch, but that's ok. I've visited quite a few blogs that I like and respect that get much less comment use than this one.

Once again, I thank you all for coming around, I hope to keep meeting your expectations,
Chuck