A surprising traffic driver to Da Blog... and what it portends for both Da Blog and a web site

Looking over my traffic logs, I've noticed something interesting. A significant portion of traffic to Da Blog, even right now, more than two months after the fact, comes from my Upfront series popping up on web searches.

I have talked about several topics on Da Blog, but I haven't talked much about the world of TV. It's evident that if I did, I would be getting a lot more eyeballs. Since signing up with SiteMeter, I've never gotten more than four in a day.

On the other hand, I could approach it another way. What can I offer that might come up on a web search, or that people might be looking for? What's something I have that people might want to read?

Let's step through the "what should be featured" poll and point out items of interest:

• Sports Watcher: Eh. I very recently got someone voting for Sports Watcher, so someone likes it, but it's really just ego-stroking for me. When I was doing it, I don't think there was a significant group of people coming in and adding their hits just to see it.
• Rank America's pro sports leagues: Not very likely to come up on a Google search, but you never know.
• New method of determining champions: Also not very likely to come up on a Google search, though it's football I have in mind at the moment, so you never know.
• Simulated tournament/game: Not bloody likely. Even if I insert myself into a common nerd debate those people are usually already confined to their own message boards.
• New sports: No.
• Short poems or stories: No.
• TV Ratings Reports: Hell yes. I know people are going to be clamoring for these and for the analysis I would bring to them.

So, what else do a large amount of people do? They look for music. They might go to movie sites but I doubt it. They probably are fans of some sport.

Um... actually I don't know a lot of people and I probably wouldn't know what's popular on the Internet if I did.

Here are the top searches on Technorati right now (and no, this is not intentionally pimping to appear on as many hot Technorati searches as possible, but if you came in that way, welcome! Have a look at the two tags attatched to this post and see if you have an opinion on the polls):

• Noelia. Some pop star with a sex tape, evidently. (rolls eyes)
• Ron Paul. Well, there's something. I could take a look at politics. Of course there are a gazillion political blogs out there. But way back at the beginning of the year I was considering doing a ranking of each candidate's chances. Not sure if I would want or need to do anything like that now. If I had the tools I could have my own little election party on election day. Or I could take a historical look, like ranking the presidents that have come before, but that's been done a gazillion times as well.
• Youtube. Who the hell is searching for mention of YouTube on a blog? Well, the leading explanation is that people are looking for softcore porn. (rolls eyes)
• Harry Potter. In the news for obvious reasons, of course.
• Twango. Evidently some media sharing site in the news. Or something.
• iPhone. No, I don't have one. To hear the news people that must make me the only person on Earth without one. So, stuff in the news, gadgets in the news... didn't I already decide to focus Da Blog on that sort of thing?
• Netflix. You know what, I'm just going to scan the rest of the list for something interesting. And... nothing. Well, let's move on to the Yahoo buzz index:
• Skip the celebs and Harry Potter...
• WWE. (jerks around, pulls on collar)
• Hi-5. Myspace ripoff. I really must be the only person without a Myspace account. There's also a kids' show by that name, but I don't think it has much of an American presence.
• Transformers. A hot movie. Yawn. There are some things I can do with movies, but to stay completely current? Maybe I should give my Oscar picks.
• LimeWire. File sharing network. Yawn. Do people not know where these sites are, or at least how to bookmark?
• Let's see what the most popular non-search engine or social network or file sharing or anything like that sites are on Alexa:
• Skip MSN (inherited popularity from IE), YouTube, Myspace, Baidu (a Chinese search engine), and Orkut (Google's Myspace ripoff).
• Wikipedia. I just came upon the fallacy of this approach. Wikipedia is about everything, so of course it's going to get a significant amount of traffic.
• The aforementioned Hi-5 is among the sites thrown out next.
• eBay. Wow, that's still relevant?
• Amazon.com. Too generic, again.
• Finally we come upon imdB. Well, if it's that popular, maybe I should stay the course on my 100 Greatest Movies project.
• US only, the list goes Yahoo, Google, Myspace, MSN, YouTube, eBay, Facebook, IE's built in search engine, Craigslist, Wikipedia, Amazon, AOL, Blogger, Go.com (which houses all sorts of Disney-related sites like ESPN, which accounts for more than half of its traffic), and CNN. And I'm back to my comments on the news. imdB is just two spots after that.

Obviously this didn't work well. But if you have your own opinions, feel free to leave a comment.

Meanwhile you may be wondering when a web site will come. You may find it hard to believe, but I came very close to signing up for it tonight, last night as you read this. I got hung up because, as strange as you may find it to believe, I don't currently have a phone. But I expect to get one soon, so the web site may be going up as soon as this weekend.

The decision is creeping closer...

"I will probably "test the waters" with ZendURL for a period and get out if I don't like it. That's if ZendURL doesn't get a spate of negative reviews in the meantime." -Me, a week ago.

Well, guess what happened. ZendURL got a spate of negative reviews. It's like it came out of its overhaul worse than it came in.


So expect a web site to be established with FreeHostia in the near future. Unless big changes occur on the poll that I can't ignore.