Changes to this blog

I have changed the way that I am dealing with comments on this blog, this only related to anonymous comments and doesn’t affect anyone commenting using their blogger account, nor does it stop anyone who wants to preserve their anonymity from doing so.    

I think the main problem relates to the amount of traffic that this and the Thanet Press Release bog now gets, around 2,000 visits a day to Thanetonline and around 700 to Thanet Press Releases.

There are several different types of problem comment, I will explain below.

1 Commercial spam comment, this runs at around 200 comments per day, some getting through the automatic spam filter and some not, however on all 200 occasions I receive a comment notification email. Obviously this means that I can’t read all of the emails so I have had to turn this facility off. Before the current spam storm that has been going on for several months, nearly all of the emails related to comment that had actually appeared on the blog. My phone made an unpleasant noise when a comment appeared on the blog and I took some action, either deleting, spamming or replying to the comment as appropriate.

2 Obscene and insane comment, this seems to have no purpose and be akin to people writing on lavatory walls, although recent experience seems to suggest that some of this is commercially related. What starts out appearing pointless often leads to the same mad comment appearing at a later date with a link leading to either an infected and malicious site.

3 Comment which has content that may be libellous, in many cases it mentions real local people and I have no way of telling if the libellous allegations are true or false, apart form possibly giving up my life to investigating them, so the only thing I can do is delete them as soon as I see them. My guess is that they are a mixture of allegations that have some foundations in truth. Comments left by people who are just too stupid to realise that there are limits to what you can say in public forum. Comments left by people who would like to see my blogs closed down, so approach this by leaving comment that is likely to either attract a libel action or a complaint to Google who host blogger and have rules which if broken result in a blog being removed. Comments left by people with mental health or behavioural issues.                 

I had considered turning comment moderation on but frankly I don’t have the time or the inclination to vet all the comments. I guess like most of the other blog readers, I look at the blogs occasionally during the day, reading the comments as threads and trying to make sense of them, sometimes adding something myself, if I have the inclination.  

The comment management I do completely differently from a page that shows all of the published comment for the blog, the options here are, delete leaving the “this comment has been deleted by the blog administrator” delete altogether so it and any replies vanish completely and spam so it and any replies vanish completely.

The regular commentators who either use their own names or a pseudonym, John Hoyler, Tom & Tim, bloggers like Simon, Tony and Peter, Chris Wells and so on never leave comments that need deleting and I didn’t want to interfere with their ability to leave comment.

So at the moment I am going down the road of altering the comment permissions when I don’t have the opportunity to keep an eye on the blog. I tried it out last night, turning off the facility to comment anonymously while leaving the facility for signed on commenters to comment and then turned it back on this morning.

Early days of an experimental solution, but already I have had a large reduction in commercial spam.      

Any thoughts from blog readers about this will be gratefully accepted and I will take them into account.  

    

Half term week at the moment so I baked 36 cup cakes this is what was left of the by the time they had cooled and I went to photograph them.

Laura Sandys Gets a Blog and a bit of a ramble

Laura Sandys has now got a blog, click on the link to go to it http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/laurasandys/

I have to admit to having second thoughts about blogging, I have been fiddling with Facebook, something I don’t really understand, at the moment my Facebook thing is linked to this blog, so – as if by magic – what I write here appears there.

Funny thing Facebook, you seem to have to be a member to see my Facebook wall, see http://www.facebook.com/michaelsbookshop?sk=wall I tried to se it so anyone could see it, even people without a Facebook account. This can’t be that difficult as the council manage to do it with theirs http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thanet-District-Council/83700846372?sk=wall in fact they have just posted that rubbish collections have resumed after the snow. How they get a 13^th Feb post to appear after one the made on the 1^st of March is another mystery, but not one I think would be useful to me to solve.

Truth of the matter is that having taking up painting and drawing again after a gap of about forty years, I want to devote my spare time to that and not blog writing. So I guess there will have to be a change of emphasis.

With Facebook I was eventually reduced to opening a second account, so I could see what my first account looked like to other people who are Facebook members, all very strange.

I will ramble on.

Pinch and a Punch it’s the First of the Month, popularity scores for the Thanet Blogs

A word of warning, if you thought the rest of this blog was a bit boring, this is the pits.
First the Google referral stats for this blog http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/311/ if this is all Geek to you, they show the people who arrived here by clicking on a link, on another website and may be an indicator of that site’s popularity.

Next the referral stats for my press release blog http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/311/id3.htm I have only put these up because they show my other blog in a very good light, it seems to have overtaken Eastcliff Richards.

This is all a bit like Adrian Mole and measuring ones thing, once it stops growing due to age one tends to measure other things, in this case statistics.

Next my act of audience piety, a screen shot of the visitor statistics for this blog during last month http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/311/id4.htm many thanks to the 4,186 individuals who read this blog during the last month.

Next a bit of a peculiar disparity, things as the say don’t quite add up, being a closet geek I use special statistics, this means I embed a wasisname in my websites and the lovely machine at google reads this and gives me all sorts of information about the site usage.

Here is the screenshot of the overall graph http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/311/id5.htm the less geeky have had access to this sort of information about their blogs since last July, when blogger added a statistic page to the bit where bloggers twiddle with their blogs and this gives a different set of figures and a different shaped chart see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/311/id6.htm As you can see it’s a lot more optimistic and raises some questions like. What about the 128,752 visitors since July when the site meter that has been on the site since – oh well for ages – only registers 177,683. there is of course the possibility that loads of visitors have been sneaking in by some sort of backdoor and missing the site counter. Sadly though I suspect that my metaphorical thing is shorter than I thought.

There is a neck and neck race between Bignews Margate and Thanet Life, when I looked yesterday the flying doctor was in front but overnight the intrepid track layer has crept in front by four places, this battle between plane and train – what am I talking about here and was it only yesterday I metaphorically measured my thing?

I imagine most of the other blog writers will be far too self-confident to even look and see where that stand in this dubious scale.

Just one further thought and that is the time effort involved, with all of the different bits of web publishing and taking screen shots, these pinch and a punch, posts are some of the most time consuming ones that I do, this one took about an hour to put together.

An hour of my life, you see blogging is really for the insane, why do it? The answer is, I don’t really know.

Just thought if this web statistics thing interests you, I can’t unlock the password on my blogger statistics, probably because I am not geeky enough and can no longer unlock the http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ as I have had had to switch its hosting to a Windows server, because of a problem with an Access based searchable online database, you didn’t really want to know that did you?

However I can completely unlock the statistics for another of my sites http://thanetonline.com/ so that all of the links work and you can see the amount of information available to webmasters http://www.thanetonline.com/stats/awstats.pl?month=02&year=2011&output=main&config=www.thanetonline.com

This is because of the wonder of linux that lets you fiddle with things that windows wouldn’t dream of.

Here for instance is the list of visiting ip addresses http://www.thanetonline.com/stats/awstats.pl?month=02&year=2011&config=www.thanetonline.com&output=allhosts this is the thing that identifies all of the visitors to the site, I am not a number, comes to mind.

New Thanet Blog INthanet

Ken Read or “Readit” if you follow the local blog commentators has started a new blog, see http://in2thanet.blogspot.com/

Pinch and a punch it’s the first of the month

I have just got back to work after the bank holiday break and will start with this one, below the web statistics for last month, for my two main blogs, these statistics are the nearest I can get to a Thanet blog popularity chart.

I haven’t bothered to explain them in detail, if any of you have difficulty understanding them please leave a comment saying what you don’t understand and I will do my best to explain.

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/

5,194 Visits
8,568 Page Views
1.65 Pages/Visit 71.49% Bounce Rate
00:02:11 Avg. Time on Site
35.25% % New Visits

Source/Medium Visits Pages/Visit Avg. Time on Site % New Visits Bounce Rate
1. (direct) / (none) 1,189 1.57 00:02:29 26.49% 72.16%
2. google / organic 1,063 1.54 00:01:16 68.20% 76.29%
3. eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com / referral 734 1.71 00:01:41 15.94% 67.98%
4. blogger.com / referral 299 2.20 00:06:21 0.33% 63.88%
5. bignewsmargate.blogspot.com / referral 259 1.51 00:01:55 20.46% 76.83%
6. thanetstrife.blogspot.com / referral 166 1.97 00:03:28 6.02% 61.45%
7. yahoo / organic 166 2.01 00:02:58 65.66% 65.66%
8. thanetonline.com / referral 135 1.58 00:01:36 12.59% 72.59%
9. images.google.co.uk / referral 91 1.70 00:01:42 64.84% 67.03%
10. marknottingham.blogspot.com / referral 82 1.88 00:02:51 12.20% 70.73%
11. michaelsbookshop.com / referral 65 1.80 00:02:47 69.23% 63.08%
12. birchington.blogspot.com / referral 49 1.69 00:02:45 26.53% 67.35%
13. twitter.com / referral 48 1.15 00:00:22 25.00% 85.42%
14. google.com / referral 41 1.15 00:01:24 17.07% 87.80%
15. stopmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 40 1.45 00:01:50 12.50% 72.50%
16. images.google.com / referral 39 1.56 00:01:05 84.62% 74.36%
17. thanetblogs.blogspot.com / referral 39 1.18 00:01:56 2.56% 87.18%
18. promotethanet.blogspot.com / referral 38 1.87 00:03:21 21.05% 68.42%
19. thanetcoastlife.blogspot.com / referral 37 2.19 00:04:10 13.51% 48.65%
20. eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com / referral 36 1.58 00:00:58 13.89% 72.22%
21. margatearchitecture.blogspot.com / referral 36 1.50 00:00:32 25.00% 72.22%
22. billowrights.blogspot.com / referral 35 1.34 00:01:17 0.00% 80.00%
23. aol / organic 34 1.71 00:01:06 70.59% 55.88%
24. yvonnes-jottings.blogspot.com / referral 33 1.76 00:02:30 6.06% 60.61%
25. thanetpress.blogspot.com / referral 30 1.60 00:01:25 23.33% 70.00%
26. thandotnet.blogspot.com / referral 27 1.15 00:01:43 11.11% 85.19%
27. thanetunderground.blogspot.com / referral 26 2.00 00:02:40 15.38% 46.15%
28. startmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 25 1.44 00:01:28 32.00% 80.00%
29. jonathanansell.forums.umusic.co.uk / referral 24 1.25 00:01:23 83.33% 83.33%
30. facebook.com / referral 23 1.13 00:00:32 69.57% 86.96%
31. search / organic 21 1.67 00:00:24 90.48% 80.95%
32. nakedinthanet.blogspot.com / referral 20 1.60 00:01:25 30.00% 80.00%
33. bing / organic 13 1.92 00:00:56 53.85% 53.85%
34. google.co.uk / referral 13 1.85 00:00:41 38.46% 61.54%
35. ask / organic 9 1.44 00:00:13 88.89% 77.78%
36. villagevoices.blogspot.com / referral 9 1.67 00:05:46 22.22% 55.56%
37. kenthistoryforum.co.uk / referral 8 1.25 00:00:26 87.50% 75.00%
38. planesoverhernebay.blogspot.com / referral 8 1.00 00:00:00 0.00% 100.00%
39. search1.sky.com / referral 8 2.75 00:08:52 62.50% 37.50%
40. thanetobserver.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.71 00:00:11 42.86% 71.43%
41. thanetstar.com / referral 7 1.00 00:00:00 28.57% 100.00%
42. blogs.thanetfinder.com / referral 6 3.33 00:04:36 50.00% 33.33%
43. thegreatdaktari.blogspot.com / referral 6 1.00 00:00:00 0.00% 100.00%
44. tiscali.co.uk / referral 6 1.83 00:06:59 50.00% 50.00%
45. images.google.com.au / referral 5 2.20 00:00:22 100.00% 40.00%
46. images.google.de / referral 5 1.20 > 00:00:00 100.00% 80.00%
47. altavista / organic 4 1.25 00:02:47 100.00% 75.00%
48. images.google.es / referral 4 3.00 00:01:47 100.00% 25.00%
49. newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com / referral 4 1.25 00:00:32 50.00% 75.00%
50. search.yahoo.com / referral 4 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%

www.thanetpress.blogspot.com/

846 Visits
1,220 Page Views
1.44 Pages/Visit 74.59% Bounce Rate
00:00:49 Avg. Time on Site
49.05% % New Visits

Source/Medium Visits Pages/Visit Avg. Time on Site % New Visits Bounce Rate

1. eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com / referral 180 1.38 00:00:42 30.56% 81.67%
2. google / organic 171 1.50 00:00:40 91.81% 76.02%
3. (direct) / (none) 117 1.22 00:00:41 47.86% 85.47%
4. thanetonline.blogspot.com / referral 66 1.71 00:01:05 27.27% 60.61%
5. thanetstrife.blogspot.com / referral 60 1.52 00:00:58 23.33% 63.33%
6. marknottingham.blogspot.com / referral 30 1.10 00:00:26 33.33% 90.00%
7. twitter.com / referral 29 1.48 00:01:51 37.93% 72.41%
8. startmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 25 1.48 00:00:43 20.00% 68.00%
9. eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com / referral 17 1.53 00:01:48 29.41% 58.82%
10. stopmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 17 1.35 00:00:22 29.41% 70.59%
11. blogger.com / referral 15 1.73 00:00:38 20.00% 66.67%
12. thanetcoastlife.blogspot.com / referral 12 1.50 00:01:04 33.33% 66.67%
13. nakedinthanet.blogspot.com / referral 10 1.80 00:00:48 40.00% 50.00%
14. margatearchitecture.blogspot.com / referral 8 1.88 00:02:37 62.50% 50.00%
15. aol / organic 7 1.43 00:01:53 100.00% 85.71%
16. billowrights.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.71 00:02:12 0.00% 57.14%
17. thandotnet.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.14 00:00:10 42.86% 85.71%
18. thanetobserver.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.14 00:00:25 71.43% 85.71%
19. yahoo / organic 6 2.33 00:01:40 66.67% 16.67%
20. ademdjemil.co.uk / referral 5 1.40 00:00:19 80.00% 60.00%
21. thisfrenchlife.com / referral 4 1.75 00:00:45 100.00% 75.00%
22. blogs.thanetfinder.com / referral 3 1.33 00:00:26 66.67% 66.67%
23. giteinbrittany.blogspot.com / referral 3 1.67 00:00:50 100.00% 33.33%
24. images.google.co.uk / referral 3 1.33 00:00:08 100.00% 66.67%
25. uk.mg.bt.mail.yahoo.com / referral 3 1.33 00:00:01 100.00% 66.67%
26. villagevoices.blogspot.com / referral 3 1.00 00:00:00 66.67% 100.00%
27. google.co.uk / referral 2 3.50 00:01:11 0.00% 0.00%
28. images.google.com / referral 2 1.50 00:00:11 50.00% 50.00%
29. newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 0.00% 100.00%
30. ramsgatetourettes.blogspot.com / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 50.00% 100.00%
31. search / organic 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
32. 172.16.1.18:15871 / referral 1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
33. ask / organic 1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
34. birchington.blogspot.com / referral 1 2.00 00:01:28 0.00% 0.00%
35. by120w.bay120.mail.live.com / referral 1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
36. co102w.col102.mail.live.com / referral 1 2.00 00:03:24 100.00% 0.00%
37. crawler.com / referral 1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
38. crm.wikio.net / referral 1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
39. facebook.com / referral 1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
40. gaddsbeershop.blogspot.com / referral 1 3.00 00:02:19 0.00% 0.00%

Pinch and a punch for the first of the month and loads of pictures

Here are the referral stats (where people come from on the net to get to this site) for the last month.

With my problems at the moment it’s just the first 60, the figurers mean the following:
Source/Medium Visits Pages/Visit Avg. Time on Site % New Visits Bounce Rate.

So the best I can get to a chart of local blog popularity.

The picture above is of grains of sand on Kingsgate beach, click on the picture to make it bigger, click on the link http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts3/id31.htm for a few others from yesterday evening’s picnic there, I think I took a few hundred more and will put them up in the fullness of time.

here are the rest of yesterdays picts

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts3/id38.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts3/id39.htm

1. (direct) / (none) 1,252 1.68 00:03:47 29.15% 70.13%
2. google / organic 1,072 1.63 00:01:50 69.31% 73.97%

3. eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com / referral 717 1.47 00:01:27 13.25% 73.92%
4. bignewsmargate.blogspot.com / referral 289 1.46 00:01:20 15.57% 71.63%
5. blogger.com / referral 278 2.60 00:11:03 0.36% 52.88%
6. thanetstrife.blogspot.com / referral 156 1.67 00:01:52 8.97% 64.10%
7. thanetonline.com / referral 122 1.89 00:02:51 28.69% 61.48%
8. yahoo / organic 110 2.27 00:02:43 79.09% 69.09%
9. michaelsbookshop.com / referral 109 2.06 00:03:10 45.87% 57.80%
10. marknottingham.blogspot.com / referral 108
11. thanetcoastlife.blogspot.com / referral 67 1.93 00:03:03 14.93% 46.27%
12. images.google.co.uk / referral 64 2.16 00:03:27 57.81% 65.62%
13. doverferryphotosforums.co.uk / referral 51 1.47 00:01:19 88.24% 68.63%
14. eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com / referral 49 1.37 00:00:48 20.41% 75.51%
15. twitter.com / referral 45 1.29 00:01:22 15.56% 86.67%
16. aol / organic 36 1.33 00:00:53 77.78% 83.33%
17. billowrights.blogspot.com / referral 35 1.17 00:00:17 2.86% 82.86%
18. thandotnet.blogspot.com / referral 32 1.88 00:05:03 0.00% 59.38%
19. margatearchitecture.blogspot.com / referral 30 1.70 00:00:37 36.67% 66.67%
20. thanetpress.blogspot.com / referral 30 1.33 00:01:07 20.00% 73.33%
21. stopmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 29 1.62 00:01:37 13.79% 68.97%
22. monaxle.com / referral 25 1.32 00:01:21 96.00% 76.00%
23. thanetblogs.blogspot.com / referral 24 1.17 00:00:04 0.00% 83.33%
24. images.google.com / referral 22 1.50 00:01:02 95.45% 72.73%
25. google.com / referral 20 1.20 00:00:26 45.00% 80.00%
26. yourbritishvillage.com / referral 17 1.65 00:01:03 70.59% 70.59%
27. bing / organic 16 2.31 00:01:12 75.00% 68.75%
28. planesoverhernebay.blogspot.com / referral 16 1.81 00:02:32 6.25% 62.50%
29. promotethanet.blogspot.com / referral 16 1.19 00:01:40 43.75% 81.25%
30. search / organic 16 1.81 00:02:21 81.25% 68.75%
31. google.co.uk / referral 15 1.87 00:03:25 13.33% 46.67%
32. nakedinthanet.blogspot.com / referral 15 1.13 00:00:28 6.67% 86.67%
33. gps-brasil.blogspot.com / referral 13 1.00 00:00:00 0.00% 100.00%
34. thanetunderground.blogspot.com / referral 11 1.55 00:02:22 72.73% 72.73%
35. yvonnes-jottings.blogspot.com / referral 11 1.36 00:00:38 63.64% 81.82%
36. ask / organic 10 1.10 00:00:21 80.00% 90.00%
37. bmfinkent.co.uk / referral 7 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
38. newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.57 00:00:45 28.57% 71.43%
39. startmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.29 00:02:09 0.00% 85.71%
40. villagevoices.blogspot.com / referral 7 2.14 00:01:03 28.57% 57.14%
41. blogs.thanetfinder.com / referral 6 1.83 00:01:32 66.67% 50.00%
42. tiscali.co.uk / referral 6 2.17 00:07:26 50.00% 33.33%
43. thegreatdaktari.blogspot.com / referral 5 1.20 00:00:31 0.00% 80.00%
44. images.google.de / referral 4 2.00 00:00:54 75.00% 50.00%
45. search1.sky.com / referral 4 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
46. thanetobserver.blogspot.com / referral 4 1.00 00:00:00 75.00% 100.00%
47. facebook.com / referral 3 1.67 00:03:07 0.00% 33.33%
48. wikio.co.uk / referral 3 3.67 00:12:33 33.33% 33.33%
49. altavista / organic 2 1.50 00:00:27 50.00% 50.00%
50. birchington.blogspot.com / referral 2 1.50 00:00:27 50.00% 50.00%
51. google.ca / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
52. images.google.co.in / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
53. images.google.co.nz / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
54. images.google.ee / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
55. images.google.ro / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
56. lordmatt.co.uk / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 50.00% 100.00%
57. opensandwichkent.co.uk / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
58. riverlogue.blogspot.com / referral 2 1.50 00:01:42 50.00% 50.00%
59. thanetonline.blogspot.com / referral 2 3.00 00:22:52 0.00% 50.00%
60. uk.mc236.mail.yahoo.com / referral 2 2.00 00:01:39 0.00% 50.00%


Here are a few picts I took today in the end I managed to get most of the crud out of the camera.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts3/id33.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts3/id34.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts3/id35.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts3/id36.htm

Here are the http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/ stats

1. eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com / referral 245 1.46 00:00:50 21.63% 81.22%
2. google / organic 158 1.72 00:01:12 83.54% 81.01%
3. thanetonline.blogspot.com / referral 144 2.24 00:03:29 29.86% 54.17%
4. (direct) / (none) 114 1.49 00:00:20 57.02% 81.58%
5. thanetstrife.blogspot.com / referral 88 2.06 00:02:40 17.05% 60.23%
6. marknottingham.blogspot.com / referral 37 1.16 00:00:15 18.92% 86.49%
7. twitter.com / referral 31 1.94 00:01:59 22.58% 80.65%
8. nakedinthanet.blogspot.com / referral 26 1.15 00:00:16 19.23% 84.62%
9. thanetcoastlife.blogspot.com / referral 25 1.44 00:00:38 28.00% 68.00%
10. blogger.com / referral 22 2.18 00:03:47 31.82% 50.00%
11. villagevoices.blogspot.com / referral 21 1.76 00:01:59 19.05% 71.43%
12. margatearchitecture.blogspot.com / referral 20 1.20 00:00:14 50.00% 80.00%
13. eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com / referral 14 1.07 00:00:45 14.29% 92.86%
14. thisfrenchlife.com / referral 12 1.25 00:01:08 91.67% 75.00%
15. thanetblogs.blogspot.com / referral 9 1.22 00:00:26 0.00% 77.78%
16. aol / organic 8 1.88 00:00:14 87.50% 75.00%
17. billowrights.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.00 00:00:00 0.00% 100.00%
18. stopmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.14 00:00:01 14.29% 85.71%
19. thandotnet.blogspot.com / referral 7 1.00 00:00:00 28.57% 100.00%
20. planesoverhernebay.blogspot.com / referral 6 1.67 00:00:44 16.67% 50.00%
21. startmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 6 1.83 00:03:58 16.67% 83.33%
22. yahoo / organic 6 3.17 00:02:08 83.33% 50.00%
23. blogs.thanetfinder.com / referral 5 1.40 00:01:48 80.00% 80.00%
24. tiscali.co.uk / referral 4 1.00 00:00:00 75.00% 100.00%
25. ademdjemil.co.uk / referral 3 1.67 00:00:21 66.67% 66.67%
26. images.google.com / referral 3 8.33 00:00:23 100.00% 33.33%
27. search / organic 3 1.67 00:01:27 100.00% 33.33%
28. search1.sky.com / referral 3 1.00 00:00:00 66.67% 100.00%
29. birchington.blogspot.com / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 0.00% 100.00% 30. google.co.uk / referral 2 2.00 00:00:40 50.00% 50.00%

Councillor, MP? Having a spat on the blogs make sure you are you.

I believe this is particularly important for our local politicians when they comment on the local blogs and as the internet becomes more important to local politics, with TDC now coming up with a protocol on blogging I thought I would add what I think is an important point.

Unless you join blogger and sign on when you post then anyone can impersonate you, not so bad for ordinary members of the public but for politicians I would think this could be dammed right dangerous.

Frankly I would recommend that all of our local councillors get themselves a blogger id and comment on the main local blogs to the effect that they will only comment using their identity, so that the blog administrators know if someone is impersonating them.

I should also point out point out that anyone can obtain a blogger id for themselves and yet keep their identity confidential.

Pinch and a punch it’s the first of the month and here is the Thanet blog chart.

Once again from this blogs web stats the number of people that come here by clicking on a link on another blog the only significant one not listed is Thanet Life as it has no live link to here.

This is not exactly a Thanet blog popularity chart but it is the nearest I can get to one the figures are for Absolute Unique Visitors.

eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com / referral 808
bignewsmargate.blogspot.com / referral 307
thanetstrife.blogspot.com / referral 172
marknottingham.blogspot.com / referral 134
thanetcoastlife.blogspot.com / referral 78
eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com / referral 69
planesoverhernebay.blogspot.com / referral 61
thanetunderground.blogspot.com / referral 42
billowrights.blogspot.com / referral 34
stopmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 33
thanetpress.blogspot.com / referral 32
promotethanet.blogspot.com / referral 30
margatearchitecture.blogspot.com / referral 26
villagevoices.blogspot.com / referral 23
nakedinthanet.blogspot.com / referral 19
thanetblogs.blogspot.com / referral 16
thegreatdaktari.blogspot.com / referral 15
startmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 14
thanetstar.com / referral 11
newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com / referral 8
thanetobserver.blogspot.com / referral 7

I always manage to miss someone please let me know if you spot one missing.

This gives you some idea of this sites usage during the previous month.
5,328 Visits
2,269 Absolute Unique Visitors
9,005 Page Views
1.69 Average Page Views
00:02:41 Time on Site
36.32% New Visits

This is from my new blog http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/ as it shows where this blog figures in all of this.

eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com / referral 307
thanetonline.blogspot.com / referral 158
thanetstrife.blogspot.com / referral 74
thanetcoastlife.blogspot.com / referral 24
eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com / referral 23
margatearchitecture.blogspot.com / referral 16
stopmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 15
nakedinthanet.blogspot.com / referral 13
startmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 12
billowrights.blogspot.com / referral 11
marknottingham.blogspot.com / referral 8
thanetobserver.blogspot.com / referral 6

1,152 Visits
617 Absolute Unique Visitors
2,078 Page Views
1.80 Average Page Views
00:01:10 Time on Site
53.56% New Visits

This blog doesn’t have links from all of the major local blogs but does give a different perspective.

I put it online primarily so that recent documents produced by Thanet District Council appeared in an organised and timely manner with proper feeds, something I hope the council will eventually manage to do for itself.

Feeds are very important as it is these that make the live links (recent posts on other blogs on my sidebar or sites like http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ work) this is very significant with the modern web as evidenced in that no traffic at all came from the static link on Thanet Life.

As far as I can see the council feels that it is tied up in too much red tape to just embed a blog on there website and let the council officers writing the documents have access to it which would be an easy and cheap solution.

Much of the problem here relates to the fact that for ordinary people IT and the internet has become much more usable and much cheaper, after all if you post a comment here you are publishing to the internet, something that not so long ago required specialist skills and considerable expense.

All you have to do is click on the comments link at the bottom of the post, put your comment in the box and click on “publish your comment” anyone can do so.

From the councils point of view there are many people both council officers and outside agencies that benefit in maintaining some sort of mystique around IT, quite simply if they allowed the modern user friendly and often free IT facilites to be used they would be out of a job.

Various council officers that I know tell me that the situation with TDCs IT is very bad indeed, with access to normal office equipment like scanners being almost nonexistent.

Anyway back to the statistics useful to me as this blog helps to promote my local history publications and bookshop two things I hope are beneficial to Thanet.

Of further interest to me are the statistics from my little used blog http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ as most of the local blogs don’t have a link to it there is no point in showing where the traffic comes from, however the way a very few people use it quite intensively is very different to how my other blogs behave.

312 Visits
51 Absolute Unique Visitors
447 Page Views
1.43 Average Page Views
00:06:12 Time on Site
16.35% New Visits

Thanet District Council to produce protocol on blogging

I have just put up the link for a new TDC document on http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/ which is where I am putting all their press releases and links to their newly published documents that I can find.

Reading through today’s new documents I noticed on this one http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=1611 item 11 is a draught protocol on blogging.

Any one any idea what this could be about and if it could effect us bloggers in some way?

Perhaps TDC are working up to using blogger for their press releases and to announce newly published documents as I suggested to them, mind you I didn’t notice any protocols being announced when they started using Youtube or Twitter.

Oh well I suppose any attempt by the council to control the internet should be interesting.

New Kid on the blog

West Cliff GB has started a blog called Ramsgate News click here to take a look, I have put it on the recent posts on the sidebar but it doesn’t seem to be coming up yet.

Blog Chart

Once again it’s the beginning of the month and I have been looking at my web statistics for this blog the list below shows the number of Absolute Unique Visitors that came here from other blogs.

eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com / referral 946
thanetstrife.blogspot.com / referral 347
bignewsmargate.blogspot.com / referral 280
eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com / referral 125
marknottingham.blogspot.com / referral 104
stopmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 86
nakedinthanet.blogspot.com / referral 74
villagevoices.blogspot.com/ referral 64
startmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 56
thanetcoastlife.blogspot.com / referral 55
thanetunderground.blogspot.com / referral 47
margatearchitecture.blogspot.com / referral 45
thanetblogs.blogspot.com / referral 35
promotethanet.blogspot.com / referral 30
thegreatdaktari.blogspot.com / referral 23
newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com / referral 20
thanetbloglist.co.uk / referral 15
planesoverhernebay.blogspot.com / referral 14
insideandoutofataxi.blogspot.com / referral 4
saveourdowns.blogspot.com / referral 4
thanetstar.com / referral 4
zumiweb.blogspot.com / referral 3
villeviews.blogspot.com / referral 2
birchington.blogspot.com / referral 2

A few anomalies to point out I couldn’t find villagevoices our Ken’s blog in the list but there was a blank listing for 64 and I am assuming that it’s him. The other one birchington.blogspot our Simon who for some reason or other doesn’t play the reciprocal latest posts on other blogs game that the rest of us do.

This business with feeds and self-updating illustrated links is something that I have been trying to get over to local government and the local press, it is a relatively new thing, perhaps a little difficult to understand but not that difficult to add to a website.

I should also point out to anyone in business who is feeling the pinch at the moment that a fair amount of new customers come to my bookshop because they have read this blog. It is quite a strange experience meeting people for the first time who already feel they know you quite well, a certain notoriety perhaps.

I should like to thank the 2,337 Absolute Unique Visitors that came her in the last month for putting up with my ramblings.

Local Blog Gone

Semper eadem the local catholic priest’s blog has gone, you now get a message saying, “Sorry, the blog at revsafisher.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.”

Father Fisher’s church is St Ethelberts Ramsgate, vanishing with no message seems a bit strange I hope it hasn’t been got at.

Whole lot of blogging going on

Whole lot of blogging going on

I have discovered two new Thanet blogs in one day http://thanethope.blogspot.com/ and http://thanetleisure.blogspot.com/ which seems to be called Margate Leisure in name but not url.

If anyone notices I have missed any local blogs off the latest posts on the sidebar please let me know.

Rainy afternoon ramblings

The significance of the local blogs, which I believe will be increasingly important in terms of media and local politics seems to have been missed by some of our politicians, comment by senior local Conservative politicians is markedly absent.

Now here looking at the counter at the bottom of the page, I am getting about 1,000 visits a week, so you would think these people who presumably want us to vote for them in the future, would wish to be identified and engage in some of the dialogue.

If you consider that many of the stories in the local papers recently, that could in any way be called news, have come from the blogs in the first place.

This is increasingly happening now with national media, with China Gateway and Chinagate in the last week I have been approached by Glen Campbell reporter director of the BBC asking if he can use the material on my blog for a program he is making about it.

Now frankly I would like to do some postings that show councillors in a better light, for instance John Kirby’s stance on Albion House, however I don’t know the detailed story so I can’t.

I don’t think a lot of people have realised the significance of blogging, when I first started to use the internet as a tool for sharing local history, to be able to publish to the internet without masses of other peoples advertising, I had to first purchase a web address, then buy hosting for it at considerable expense, then buy the necessary software and spend a considerable time learning to use it, with blogger all of this is both free and very easy

Trouble ont blogs

I seem to be having trouble accessing most of the other local blogs this morning is it just me or has something gone wrong with blogger, and why can I open my own blog?

Interblog

There is always a lot of talk of ip addresses and weblogs when things get tough on the blogs, frankly they are something I seldom look at, I put a counter on this blog some time ago and readers increase slowly at the moment there are a bit over 1,000 counts registering a week. I can’t tell how this compares with the other local blogs as they don’t have counters on them, however curiosity being what it is I am always interested I one statistic that I do get and that is how many people come to my blog by clicking on the link on another blog. The odd men out here are Strife as there is no link on the sidebar so the 28 comes from links in posts and Bignews that hasn’t had a link for very long.

All traffic sources sent 3,002 visits via 51 sources and mediums

30.58% Direct traffic

53.10% Referring sites

16.32% Search engines

Eastcliff Richard 787

Thanet Bloglist 132

Thanet Strife 28

Village Voices 21

Bignews Margate 16

Margate Architecture 6

Villeviews 5

Ramsgaterants 2

Thanet Star 2

Ramsgate Mitch 1

I don’t know what these statistics really mean they don’t relate to what the counter says nor the fact that I have often used the link on all of these sites to get back to my own, perhaps they only count one ip address once.

However I suspect the roughly relate to the popularity of the various local blogs.

Making a Splash at Ramsgate

I have put a recent posts on other blogs thingy on the sidebar, I have tried to restrict it to people who post often and hope I haven’t missed any out. I couldn’t get Naked in Thanet to work as blogger said it couldn’t detect a feed, I hadn’t in fact even realised it was hungry.

I have also put up my last letter to Doug Brown about water it’s a bit confused, because I am click here should you wish to read it.