The Americanization of Grandad
Grandad July 28th, 2007
This site has been running for nine months now.
When I started, I wasn’t even sure what a blog was. I’d only read one or two.
It started as a joke, and a bit of an experiment. I’m the kind of person who likes to take the back off things to see how they work. I couldn’t take the back off a blog, unless I had one. Ergo Head Rambles.
In my first full week [last October], I got about 1,400 hits. Now I get an average of around 23,000 a week. Where do they all come from? what are they looking for? Why do they come?
I was messing around the other day, and I found a site that lists Irish Blogs listed in Technorati. Apparently there are nearly a thousand. And what is weird is that I am listed at number 42. And 43. I didn’t know I had two sites!
What baffles me is that there are a lot of great writers out there. There are the likes of Sarah Carey [who comes in at 30] and Kathy Foley [who isn't on the list for some reason] who write for the Sunday Times and the like. There are a lot of sites that are dedicated to a particular subject. So how did I end up up there? I just ramble. There are a lot of great blogs that I read [I won't list them for fear of hurting feelings] that are way down the list. Why?
There is one thing that really scares me though.
I have been playing around with Google Analytics [BTW, Google - I preferred your old site!!], and have come up with a hair raising fact.
From fairly early on, I started to get visitors from America. Maybe they like being slagged off? And numbers are growing. But last Friday was a turning point. I don’t know what happened. I don’t think I did anything special.
From last Friday, and every day since, I have been getting more American visitors than Irish ones.
Does this mean I’m turning American?
Is this the effect that blogging has, that they never told me about?
Do I have to develop an American accent? Do I have to start referring to people as “you guys” [*shudder*]. Do I have to bastardise [sorry - bastardize] my spelling? Do I have to fly the American flag from my chimney? Do I have to say ‘zee’, not ‘zed’?
So PLEASE could I have more visitors from Ireland and the UK? I don’t want to lose my identity.
I’m scared.
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