Until today I'd not checked out Google Analytics, since probably before I left Iraq, to see how many people have been visiting my blog. There's just too much other -- important -- stuff to be doing, I guess.
So I started browsing around that site, which is clearly set up so that people who are hawking their wares can get a sense of who's clicking on links to wind up at their site, how long they spend there, and where they got there from. Much of the information is way beyond my ken, or at least beyond my willingness to care about it.
As I was perusing the pages and pages of graphs and pie charts and other nifty visual presentations of data, I wound up on the page that lists the networks which have connected people to my blog site. So much for the anonymity of the internet, eh?
I noticed that there are some networks which carry the lion's share of the traffic to my web pages. One of them, rather near the top of the list, caught my eye and my attention.
Seems as though there's a government entity that has been monitoring my site recently, which I suppose ought not to surprise me, but does, in fact, creep me out more than a little bit. I had never heard of the acronym which was listed, and upon using 'the Google' to research it, found out that folks at that organization seem to monitor others' blogs as well.
Cool! Or Creepy!
I'd thought about using "Big Brother is Watching" as the title for this post, but figured that would be a bit sexist. "Big Daddy is Watching" probably doesn't really strike the right note of gravitas, nor does "Big Momma". "Big Sister" might be misinterpreted, so I settled on "Big Sibling," though there's not much in the way of onomatopoeia about it.
Some stats to consider about this governmental agency:
Number of visits
30AUG08-28NOV08: 003
29NOV08-27FEB09: 018
28FEB08-29MAY09: 022
30MAY09-28AUG09: 020
29AUG09-27NOV09: 126 -- a 530% increase in traffic
Average Time on Site
30AUG08-28NOV08: 00:36
29NOV08-27FEB09: 00:15 -- a 58.3% decrease
28FEB08-29MAY09: 01:53 -- a 667.8% increase
30MAY09-28AUG09: 00:04 -- a 96.8% decrease
29AUG09-27NOV09: 04:43 -- a 7,766.4% increase
So the number of visits from this governmental agency with a cryptic identity increased dramatically over the past three months, as compared with the previous twelve months. The amount of time they spent on my site per visit over these last twelve weeks increased 7,766.4% over the previous three months.
To be fair, though, it was only a 673.8% increase over the average time spent per visit over the twelve months prior to this reporting period.
Yikes! I wonder what it is about these past three months that has caught their attention, as compared to my year in Iraq.... Some brother/sister/sibling at that agency clearly has too much time on his or her hands.
Blessings and peace to one and all,
Fr. Tim, SJ
1 comment:
Hmmm, I seem to remember being taught in my church that God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, and numerous angels are watching over each and everyone of us all the time. And they don't limit themselves to Blogspots :-) So, what can a simple human discover that isn't already universally known???
Post a Comment