I don’t obsess about this–although you may think I do–but here is the latest from Quantcast.
As you can see, at a current monthly pace, I am being visited by about 1,400 people stateside, and 2,200 abroad. As regulars might imagine, virtually all of the 2,200 is coming from Japan.
I would blog just to blog. In fact, when I started doing it in May 2003, it wasn’t quite that for the first month or so–but very near. One important thing I have cared quite a bit about in recent times, though, is that “Regulars” number reported by Quantcast. It is the middle bar, the one below “Addicts” and above “Passers-by”. Regulars are people who Quantcast defines as visiting the website more than once a month, but not more than 30 times a month like the addicts. (If I didn’t know who the less than 1% addicts were, I would actually be pretty scared that someone is addicted to Hoofin. As you know, I am kind-of struggling with the ups-and-downs of life, and I’d hate think someone is spending theirs following it! No, no!)
For me, the math comes out to be 3,600 overall and about 540 are regulars. Maybe 10 to 18 more are addicts.
You guys (gals) are the people I write for primarily, ne? And so I have to hear from you. Something other than “hey get rid of your opinions and adopt mine!” which seems to be a theme in Japan blogosphere of late.
People tell me that I have a lot of good things to say. I appreciate that. You know no one is 100% all the time, though.
If I gave a shout out to the passers-by, it’s not likely that they are ever going to read this. I know that most PBers come here for information on things that I have written about with a passion. Those very mundane topics of, you know, Japanese pension and who gets the Making Work Pay Credit. What will happen when the Zairyu Card comes out, etc. This is my explanation for why I had a big bump last April, in fact: most of the extra people were looking for some sort of information about the Making Work Pay Credit. Late this month, I am seeing a little of that again.
I know I’ve helped several dozen people around Japan with these issues, and there is a certain satisfaction when I think about that.
[Update: Alexa is telling me a different story, one of sudden collapse!
In November, I had been ranked high enough, within Japan, to have my site receive its own ranking for that country. (Even though it was in the top 40,000’s range!)
However, now, I have been pushed worldwide back into the long-tail of bloggers, with global numbers in the rank of top 3 million or 4 million . . .
So, which is it? I tend to trust Quantcast–because I can match it to the Sitemeter report. So if trending up means trending down, I guess it’s welcome to the fluid world of the internet . . . ]
Hoofin 