This website is nearly eighteen months old. There are times when I have wondered if it is worth the time and expense but then, out of the blue, someone writes to say how much they have enjoyed their visit and it makes it all worthwhile. Typically the website gets about 50 visitors a day, always peaking on Thursdays and tailing off at weekends. The best day ever for ‘hits’ was, coincidental, my birthday last August – 159 (that’s hits, not my age). I assume this was a coincidence since very few of you could have known, or, even if you had known, actually remembered, it was my birthday.
There are two things I have found intriguing about administering this website.
The first is the way people find it. The statistics show me the search engine terms people have used and sometimes they are obscure. For example, a couple of times people have arrived on my website by searching for Wigmore Hall. This puzzled me until I realised that one of my watercolours is a view of the front of Wigmore Hall and it has been picked up by Google Images. Perhaps I should paint a picture of the Olympic Stadium or Buckingham Palace as a way of increasing the visitors to my site?
Most searches, however, are unremarkable; Honey & Mumford, Honey & Rackham, learning styles, problem people, team working. And for some reason people often search on ‘Peter Honey dob’. Why would so many people want to know when I was born? However, the two words ‘pretty pussy’ are the most bizarre route to my site. This is because I wrote a piece about a kitten we once had called Pretty Pussy that, quite understandably, suffered a nervous breakdown. It amuses me to imagine peoples’ erogenous expectations being dashed when they arrive on my innocent site! It’s a miracle I don’t get hate mail.
My other surprise is to have discovered that every night computers all over the world churn away sending random comments to blogs and articles. The comments are always complimentary but have absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the blog. Typically, every morning there are over 20 of these waiting for my kind attention (32 this morning!). But the strangest thing is the sheer diversity. For example today they included encouraging messages from purveyors of trampolines, cordless mowers, folding down ironing tables, heart shaped waffle makers, throwing knives, boxing gloves for women, oak doors and paintball guns. Such a waste; I delete them all. Oh lord, perhaps acknowledging the existence of these random messages will give them the oxygen of publicity they presumably crave.
Ah well, the delete button is, as ever, at the ready.
