Here at SB, we use Google analytics for getting info about how many people are reading our blogs, and how they get here. I also have a SiteMeter monitor on GM/BM. One thing that I get a kick out of is taking a look at my hits, and seeing what kinds of interesting connections come up. Sometimes it’s funny; sometimes it’s informative, sometimes it’s just depressing.
So last night, I was unwinding after putting my kids to bed, and was taking a look. The interesting/amusing connections I found:
1. The number one search term leading people to Good Math, Bad Math? “pharyngula”. PZ, I hate you! (And yes, I’m deliberately not linking. 🙂 )
2. The number one persons name in searches that lead people to GM/BM? “Ken Ham”. Now *that* is depressing. Ken Ham, who I’ve never written about, directs more hits to my blog than my own name.
3. The strangest search term that led readers here: “butt propeller”. And not just once; three separate visits on three separate days got here via searches for “butt propeller”. I’m really not sure what to make of this one. Probably related to my post on Swinburne where I talked about monkeys flying out of my butt as a metaphor.
4. An interesting connection: I posted something yesterday about a [really bad probability argument][bad-prob] for Christianity. I got the link through email from a reader. It turns out that it’s on a fairly obscure site that [Orac][orac] had linked to in a friday post about Holocaust denial. The reader who sent me the link is definitely one of Orac’s readers as well; so the nasty probability argument was discovered through an unrelated subject on scienceblogs. I like the SB networking aspect of that; on the other hand, I wish I’d looked at the site hosting the wretched argument that I mocked; I’d rather not have given a bunch of asshole holocaust deniers the publicity.
5. Back on GM/BMs [old home][gmbm-blogger] on blogger, I did a couple of posts about a crackpot named Gary Osborne. Gary came to the blog to “defend” himself. (His idea of defending himself is call other people names, and then complain that their criticisms of him are ad hominems.) An interesting thing that I noticed was that every time he posted on the blog, I’d see referrals from a rather obscure british search engine with Gary’s name as the search keyword. After he stopped responding, the hits from that engine went away. Suddenly, I’m seeing a bunch of referrals from that engine, and I discovered that Gary has, once again, posted a [web-page][osborne-declares-victory] on a site without comments discussing his wonderful victory over me, and various GM/BM readers who joined the original discussion. Gotta love people who run away from debates and declare victory, eh?
6. Most disturbing search terms that found my blog?: “juniper lee cartoon porn”. I have no idea who Juniper Lee is. Frankly, I’m too scared to do the search and find out.
7. Unexpected linkages: 65 page views referred from [animalcules][animalcules]. Since I’ve never submitted any of my posts to that, and I didn’t know of anyone linking to me in articles in animalcules, I was surprised (in a good way) by that.
8. Another very surprising one: a search for “daily show” and “kurt vonnegut” led people to GM/BM twice.
9. A couple of frequent commenters here are frequent trollers on Panda’s Thumb. Since I frequently don’t pay a lot of attention to the names of commenters on other blogs, unless I get into a discussion with them, I hadn’t noticed the connection.
10. Three different people set up blogs specifically to respond to something I posted. Each has exactly one post.
[bad-prob]: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/06/fundie_probability_even_worse.php
[orac]: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/06/who_perpetrated_the_holohoax.php
[gmbm-blogger]: http://goodmath.blogspot.com
[osborne-declares-victory]: http://www.gardinersworld.com/content/view/72/45/
[animalcules]: http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2006/02/announcing_new_blog_carnival_1.php
Good Math/Bad Math
The beauty of math; the humor of stupidity.
I guess this is a good place to mention something that might take up far too much of your time. I was at a sociology of science workshop a couple of weeks ago, and they mentioned some software called Issue Crawler. It’s designed to look for connections between web pages, so that sociologists can map the connections and see who’s involved in dicsussions of particular issues, and how they arrange themselves. Of course, it prodces pretty graphics.
Anyway, I’m sure you can see ways of playing with this.
Bob
‘Butt Propeller’ is another term for the bacterial flagellum, hence the link with ID. I didn’t know it was used that much though.
Oh, everyone hates me, so I’m used to that now.
If you’d like, I could scour my site and delete every reference to “http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/”…
PZ:
Nah, no need. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you too much 🙂
This ought to explain point 6: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/05/thanks_a_lot_tim_1.php
Shameless link to my attempt to spread the Butt Propeller meme.
What a complex this guy has. He cut and run from here and did the same thing when Bronze Dog, You and to a lesser extent I hit him again over at my blog and now he’s using the same weak ass arguments again to declare victory?
ooooohhhhhh. How convienient that he is not only the keeper of the “great secret” but he is the one who discovered it. He must use this very important bit of knowledge to back his position as the ultimate arbiter of angles and measurement.
What a joke.
According to the dreaded Pharyngula the source to the “butt propeller” meme is “The ID movement ought rename itself the Church of the Butt Propeller, since this appears to be one unquestionable underpinning of their faith.
Posted by: PaulC | January 31, 2006 09:21 AM”
Several posters has noted that the construction is helpful for creationists spreading manure.
Maybe the meme was invented on Pharyngula. Which perhaps doesn’t help Mark with his feelings. 🙂
Seems Typekey timing out and spam filters works differently here than at, for example, Pharyngula. (Ducks Mark’s thrown curse.) Anyway, I didn’t mean to post anomymous.