On the Fickle Nature of Internet Stats

Don’t Trust the Statistics!

Yesterday’s post was no sooner launched than it drew four “likes.”  An earlier post also drew a “like” in the same time frame, which was just few minutes. Thank you, readers.

But according to the site’s stats we had received only one visitor in that time frame. They couldn’t all be looking at the site on the same computer. The readers were in several time zones. Do the statistic elves hoard the numbers for delivery at one time? The fact that four of the “likes” were for a post that had just been published suggests not.

It is unlikely that the stats record fewer views than your site receives, although there may be some generic pings from scam mills. In general, your site is likely to have more readers than you realize.

So always dress for company.