It has been a while since I pondered romantically about this eejit's errand we call Blogging. As I have said on a number of occasions, I cannot claim any level of expertise, only a modicum of experience.
Fellow-bloggette Anita Mathias was concerned during the summer that the material we write on a given day is there once and oft forgotten. That was my concern once to - and frankly, why you lot don't print this stuff off and paste it to your walls escapes me - after all, am I not the blogging answer to perfect infallibility? No.
It is a concern though. We write and sometimes our pearls are shiny - and there is a worry that something half decent might be buried in the soft silt of Mad Priest's last battle with the Established Church. However, as I think I mentioned, I am a pragmatic type of bloke - so I went searching through the statistics to see what you delightful people have looked at in the last 28 days.
I have written less than a dozen posts in that time, none of which is probably the fodder of the pearl mountain - so one would reasonably assume that dying of boredom, you scarpered and left me to it. But no. I have a friend, and on this occasion it isn't Jayzuss. It is Google and all things SEO (search engine optimization, if you please).
In the last 28 days, 246 of my past posts have been accessed and read (which is to say that someone remained on the page for more than 20 seconds, and therefore not simply peeling the picture off). They weren't just the 246 most recent ones either, but taken from across this body of written bilge that I presume to publish. The list of 'top posts' also conveys a list of posts most visited in the same period - and they come from a broad reach of time. Actually, that they are often older posts speaks poorly of current quality, but that is another matter entirely.
The moral of the story then is this. If people are looking for it, they will find it. The internet is quite unlike a book insofar as when a page is turned the previous one is hidden from view in perpetuity. No - the alarming truth is that once it is written, it can never be unwritten and can be searched out. That is why, brothers and sisters, I have opted not to re-post posts. Why trouble you a second time?
I tried typing David Cloake into twitter.
ReplyDeleteYou came up first one and a half pages, followed by numerous other David Cloake's in various other professions including an Electrician and Plumber.
You are obviously mult-talented or have lots of clones.
There is even a reference to you from the 1901 Census? I didn't realise that you were that old :)
There is one of you married to Emmie at St Matthew's, Hastings and another married to Selina at St Stephens, Saltash Cornwall. You certainly get about a bit! :)
So, be reassured, your fame will last through the ages.
Sure and oi didn't even know twas possible to re-post posts, and why would anyone want to anyway?
ReplyDeleteExplain please!
I assumed it to be placing the link in a new post as a sort of re-direct. Some think that it is a useful thing to do with old posts where they are perceived to be lost in time - I suppose!
ReplyDeleteAnd Ernie, thank you. Fascinating stuff!
ReplyDeleteI always find it fascinating to see which posts are being looked at and how people have got there, but then I am not surprised as I have found many of my favourite blogs by searching subjects on google and being directed to them :o)
ReplyDeleteSurely the older posts are among "top read" because the newer ones simply haven't had time to be read as much yet? I think that a more plausible explanation than a decline in quality.
ReplyDeletenot all people are reading the old posts, some of them maybe muppets like myself.
ReplyDeleteFor I am sure I am not the only one who has bookmarked you way back when. Whenever I go to your blog via my bookmark rather than through a link on FB I go back to the original one I bookmarked. I hadn't managed to find the time to reset it to go to your home page however I have now. Don't want you to think I prefer the old stuff. Old or new you most often raise a smile :-)