Google Analytics is a great way to compile and compare statistics for website visits. Here’s a summary of my stats for 2011:
Unique visitors: 97,134 (+4.7%)
Page views: 154,385 (+6.6%)
Average time on site: 47 seconds (-14.5%)
New visits: 90.02% (+1.3%)

Most read articles:

1. Kalgoorlie Miner online: 12,016 unique page views
2. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton: 7158
3. Yahoo! Mail Australia: 6886
4. Kalgoorlie Miner website: 4604
5. Sir Henry Parkes: 2368
6. Google Finance Australia: 2252
7. Moving to Kalgoorlie: 2029
8. Mathemagic Computer Tutor: 2002
9. Mount Lofty summit walk: 1963
10. Magpie swooping season: 1798

Country of origin

1. Australia: 79,455 visits (+3.22%)
2. United States: 7808 (-6.99%)
3. United Kingdom 3458 (-5.56%)
4. New Zealand: 1666 (+11.96%)
5. Canada: 1613 (+6.61%)
6. India: 1165 (+36.74%)
7. South Africa: 912 (+45.45%)
8. France: 723 (+14.76%)
9. Singapore: 624 (+31.92%)
10. Malaysia: 579 (+40.88%)

Visitor’s browser

• Internet Explorer: 52.67% (-4.76%)
• Firefox: 20% (-4.45%)
• Chrome: 14.09% (+4.8%)
• Safari: 10.94% (+3.25%)
• Opera: 0.6% (-0.04%)

Mobile visits

3539 (3.31% of total) in 2011 compared with 529 visits (0.51% of total) in 2010.

• Apple iPad: 1909 visits
• Apple iPhone: 475
• Unknown: 375
• Samsung Galaxy SII: 56
• Samsung Galaxy S: 33

Traffic sources

• Google: 81,150 (+5.8%)
• Direct: 9342 (+30.05%)
• Bing: 6154 (-4.5%)
• Yahoo: 2628 (-6.67%)

Top search queries

1. y7mail
2. google finance
3. yakedi
4. stephanie rice
5. mount gambier

Comments

• More visitors (+4.7%) but they’re not staying as long (-14.4%).
• I hope to achieve 100,000 unique visitors in 2012.
• Fewer visitors are using Internet Explorer or Firefox; more using Chrome and Safari.
• Growth in visitors from Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa; decline from USA and UK.
• Growth in visits from mobile devices, especially iPad.
• Only one new post in the top 10 (Mount Lofty summit walk).

Basically, I decided to focus this week on my plans for the future, and didn’t want to be distracted by posting articles and comments to various websites.

I’ve made some progress this week and by the middle of April I expect to have things finalised.

Thanks for visiting.

Microblogging, for the uninitiated, is online publishing of status updates within a limited space, normally 140 characters. Think Twitter or the wall on Facebook.

StatusNet offers its software for download, which can be installed on any PHP/My SQL server. This gives the user control over branding, design and access.

I have installed the program at gorey.com.au/miniblog/.

For people who don’t have a domain or access to a server, StatusNet offers a hosted account.

So, why would anyone use either of these?

The “cloud” version doesn’t appeal to me because it simply duplicates what Twitter and others do, albeit using open source software.

However, I’m enthused by the self-hosted version, despite its current limitations. Owning the web address and controlling access is a good thing.

At the moment it’s not possible to pull Twitter updates or cross-post to Twitter and other services. That’s a must-have feature as far as I’m concerned.

When that’s available, a user will be able to run their own customised microblog and aggregate content across different services.

I can also see the potential value for businesses and organisations.

I’m restricting registration on my microblog to family members at this stage.

Visitors can “follow” my posts either by going to the site, via RSS feed or using an account with http://identi.ca or status.net.

It’s a neat WordPress feature that you can stipulate a finish date for comments.

I’ve previously allowed open commenting indefinitely, but sometimes strange remarks come through on issues that I’d either forgotten about or no longer feel strongly about.

I’m not so precious to believe a blogger shouldn’t be able to reap some revenue from the content they have published, in my case over a period of nearly six years.

In addition to text and banner ads, AdBrite offers advanced options like a full-page ad and inline text ads.

I’m a little uncomfortable about these, but will let them run for a few days to see what the revenue is like. I feel that inline links ads might confuse people (although it’s a different link style) and the full-page ad might be annoying.

If anyone would like to comment from a user perspective, please do so.

AdBrite has a lot of user-controlled options and enables the publisher to set a price for ads as well. It works with other advertising publishers and, in this case, Google Adsense will override other advertising if the target price isn’t reached.

AdBrite sends a cheque when the publisher’s specified revenue goal has been reached. I prefer Google’s electronic transfer, but they only pay when $100 has been earned.

I have also reactivated the Alpine News website, basically as a commercial vehicle to either sell the domain or obtain advertising revenue.

Writing is a good habit to maintain.

A couple of my other sites like Australian Newspapers are virtually dormant.

I’m enjoying the brief format of Twitter at the moment though and Short Say.

Maybe that’s part of my problem here.

If you haven’t visited Short Say yet, take a look. Anyone can register and comment or post.

I had trouble remembering all of my posts from 2008, but spent a few minutes browsing through the WordPress index to recollect.

Because I cover a range of topics it’s hard to single one out, so here are some that still amuse or resonate (with me at least):

Soapbox:
Stop poaching doctors from poor countries
Our government does not want us pointing out the bleeding obvious that most GPs in Australia are now from overseas. We obviously aren’t training enough doctors. The undesirable solution? Pay overseas doctors more than they can earn in their home countries that need them more, like Bangladesh and India.

Karma:
Hoon problem
It still makes me feel good that seconds after observing a hoon speeding along a residential street in Kalgoorlie a police car appeared from nowhere and chased him.

Clever idea:
Reward good drivers
I suggested that instead of penalising bad drivers (speeders, etc) governments should reward good drivers with lower vehicle registration charges while hiking fees for the bad guys. I can’t see a flaw with the idea.

Making the world a better place:
Lawnmower warning story
I sleep better at night knowing that fewer people in Mount Gambier are at risk of igniting a lawnmower in their bedroom thanks to the safety warning we published in The Border Watch.

Personal:
Tributes to Peter Gorey
Dad’s passing in June had the biggest personal impact on me this year.

Wacky:
Bog snorkelling
I had several contenders for wacky post of the year, but bog snorkelling has a quirky charm.

Tackling the big issues:
Subway price variation
I blew the whistle on Subway charging $5.45 for a six-inch tuna sub in Kalgoorlie while it cost just $3.95 in Melbourne. The freight excuse is rubbish when you think how much dearer the rent must be in metro areas.

I hope you enjoyed your visits here this year. Best wishes for 2009.

Unfortunately, the site was down for at least 12 hours.

What happened was Site5 migrated all their accounts to new servers, including mine. It was supposed to be a seamless transition, but I had trouble with several of my sites.

I had been thinking for a while about moving this domain and www.borderwatch.com.au to an Australian host.

I took the opportunity to relocate this site to Digital Pacific, a company I had dealt with happily in the past.

Site5 offered the advantage of hosting multiple domains on one account and virtually unlimited storage space.

The fact is I’m happy to host images away from my own domains, so space really isn’t an issue.

I really notice the speed of uploading to Digital Pacific was much faster.

I had trouble getting WordPress to load, until I realised it was a problem with the .htaccess file. Everything seems to be working now.

These are the top 10 keywords driving people to my site, according to Google Analytics:

1. kalgoorlie miner
2. google finance
3. y7mail
4. cloudstreet
5. AFL drugs
6. michael gorey
7. yakedi
8. mathemagic
9. meet a mining man
10. the day we went to bangor

I’ve omitted similar keyword phrases, such as “google finance australia” and “hawthorn AFL drugs scandal”.

There are no real surprises in my list, but it’s interesting to note that people actually bother to search for “michael gorey”. It’s possible they’re looking for the Canadian musician or the American tyre company executive, I suppose.

I’m disappointed some of my more insightful posts, such as the one about broccoli, don’t rank more highly.

The people searching for “the day we went to bangor” must be like me and feel nostalgic about that tune.

I’m cross now though. It’s stuck in my head after reading that and I won’t be rid of it for hours.

The next tier of keywords shows:

• kingsbridge cathedral
• media alliance
• vista problems
• york hotel kalgoorlie
• abc radio cricket
• magpie swooping season
• dorothy the dinosaur pictures
• jackie weaver
• firehorse gorey
• lunch with mussolini

I find some of those more illuminating than the top 10. Maybe I should write more about Wiggles characters.

The remarks related to a former work colleague of mine.

I’ve been posting here since July 2003 without needing to hold comments for moderation, but that’s now changed, unfortunately.

I’m not lamenting the loss of bygone innocence. In fact it’s a wonder something like that didn’t happen sooner, when you think about it.

It does shows how easily people’s reputations can be attacked on the web. Not here though.