I know the header to this article sounds stupid and confusing, but it certainly describes where I am at the moment.
Sometimes I think I understand a concept, recognize it and accept it as a fact. Then something happens and I realize I really did not understand it at all, and still do not.
Because I have been working at developing readership on my site, I have been able to lower my Alexa rating from a 3-month average of 4,313,696 the day I started my Blog to its current 3-month average of 118,981.
Alexa ranks all web sites around the world in order of their traffic rank, the lower the rank the greater the traffic to the site. Pundits tell me that if your traffic rank is lower than 100,000 it is a big deal.
The 3-month average always lags behind my 1-week average and my yesterday average.
Currently my 1-week average is 102, 276 and has been as low as 82,711. The yesterday average does not always show up in my Alexa ranking but it has been as low as 49,279.
I recently celebrated the 5-month anniversary of Ed Bagley’s Blog and feel pretty good about what I have been able to accomplish given my knowledge level and nontechnical nature. I am a writer and not a tech head.
Included in the Alexa report is also some mind-boggling statistics about the makeup of my Blog readership.
My Blog originates in Lacey, Washington in the United States of America. I would figure that the majority of my readership would be from the USA, and I would be dead wrong.
Would you believe that only 25% of my current readership is from my own country? This fact just blows me away. You could knock me over with a feather.
I find it incredible that 19% of my readership comes from China, 14% from Indonesia, 12% from the Palestinian Territory and 9% from Iran.
My Blog is in English and I have to believe that the 54% of readers in China, Indonesia, the Palestinian Territory and Iranthese four countries or territories alonemust have English as their second, third or even fourth language.
What is it about the writing of my Blog that attracts these readers from these far away places?
I have not a clue.
I surmise that these readers must be among the educated, literate and affluent in their culture.
Considering that best estimates put the current number of web sites worldwide at 700 million, one can only imagine how many people have email addresses and do not yet have a web site, but it has to be even a far greater number.
Truly the Internet is bringing everyone in the world closer. Readers in China may as well be in the rec room at my home; they certainly are tuned into what my mind is putting on the Internet.
I do not consider my writing to be controversial, at least not in the sense of hundreds of other bloggers on the Internet who spew out lighting rod material constantly.
I also find it incredible that I am currently the 5,509th most popular site in Indonesia, or the 64,201st most popular site in China, a nation of 1-billion-plus people.
How could I be the 9,823rd most popular site in Iran when I do not even write about Iran, or the Middle East? I do virtually no commentary on the Iraqi War, and talk very little about politics. Of the more than 214 articles I have written and published in 4 months, only 2 are about politics.
My current Alexa ranking in the United States is 39,953 but comes up as 118,981 because the latter is a worldwide ranking.
The world is truly getting smaller, and my mind is getting larger every day.
I do not have any adequate words to describe the impact of the Internet on my life. Perhaps a reader from halfway around the world will email me and tell me why they are faithfully reading my Blog. In that moment, both of our worlds will become closer.
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
Ed Bagley is the Author of Ed Bagley’s Blog, which he Publishes Daily with Fresh, Original Articles on Lessons in Life, Jobs and Careers, Movie Reviews, Sports and Recreation, and Internet Marketing intended to Delight, Inform, Educate and Motivate Readers. He also operates an upscale resume writing service for executives and professionals that is part of his Blog. Visit Ed at . . .
http://www.edbagleyblog.com
and check out this main article section at . . .
http://www.edbagleyblog.com/LessonsinLifeArticles.html