Thank you! Second most popular South African blog in religion

The Mail & Guardian newspaper runs a service called Amatomu that ranks blogs and websites on various criteria.  One of the metrics is the number of visitors to a blog.  

Among the top blogs in South Africa are friends such as Steve Hayes' Khanya blog (which is a far better blog than mine!), my friend Gus' Church blog (Paarl Methodist Church), Mark Penrith's very popular 'Because He lives', Roger Saner's Future Church blog (also a favourite), and then there's Stephen Murray's blog - perhaps one of the best designed blogs among us, and Thomas Scarborough's "Urban Ministry Live" blog.  

I'm pleased to say that Mark, Steve and Stephen are also members of the Lausanne Blogger Network!

However, your visits have placed my blogs at numbers 2 and number 15 respectively in South Africa.  Thank you for looking in from time to time, moreover, I am grateful that you interact with the content that I post (I realize that some of it is rather eclectic!).  This blog - An uncommon path - actually gets more hits than Dion's Random Ramblings.  However, it is listed 13 places lower on the ranking.  The list can be a little flaky at times (I have seen with a few blogs that they often get stuck at the point where the amatomu.com code loads...  So, I removed the code from this blog for a few weeks.  I have since discovered that it is better to use the non-java version of the tracker code.  That seems to have sorted the problem out!)

I have had both of my blogs in the top 5 a few times, and Dion's Random Ramblings has been at number 1 a few times.  I'm not sure how accurate the statistics are (as I said above), but it is great to be able to give the blog some validation as a source of religious (and particularly Christian) interest in South Africa.

How many visitors do I get per day?  

Well, I normally get around 250-300 visitors a day to each blog.  This blog has gone as high as 1500 visitors a day - depending on the topic of my post and its relationship to a particular event in the news.

If you have any suggestions for improving both the content, and making it easier for you to interact with me and the content, then please leave a comment below or drop me an email.  I would love to hear from you!

I know that I break some cardinal 'blogger rules' by not posting only within a single genre, writing posts that are a little too long, and not posting enough 'link bait'.  But, my blog is a fun and personal space!  It reflects my life and thoughts...

God bless,

Dion

Update on Sunday, September 19, 2010 at 9:14AM by Dr Dion Forster

Well, it seems that the 'non-java' version of the amatomu.com code that I am using for my blog ranking works better than the previous 'java' code.

As of today (Sunday 19 September 2010, which is less than a week after the original post above) this blog has climbed 8 places from 15 to 7.  It may soon be back in the top 5.

One of the questions I was asked was how my other blog (Dion's random ramblings) could still be so popular even though I no longer post to it.  As one person rightly pointed out, when they don't update their blog for a while it looses popularity.

Indeed, that is often the case when your blog visits are from a regular group of persons who navigate to your blog to view your content.  However, search engine optimization does account for a large number of the visitors to that blog.  By this I mean, Google ranks a blog based on how many successful searches terminate to that blog (i.e., when people search for a topic, your blog is listed as an option, and it gets clicked - your blog's prominence is increased by google and you rank higher on the search page).  Another element that makes your blog more prominent is the length of time that it has existed (older blogs with higher terminated searches rank higher than new blogs with higher traffic).  Since this blog has been running since 2005 it has had years and years of terminated search traffic to make it a popular blog.

Let me list an example of this.  But, first let me give a caveat.  You may notice from some earlier posts that I follow a discipline of not 'googling' my name or my posts.  It may sound silly, but I don't really want to get sucked into responding to what will get me a higher ranking or more popular ranking on google etc.,

However, that being said I was alerted some time ago that my first name 'Dion' ranks on the first page of google when it is searched for.  Now, that is quite remarkable since there are some very famous Dion's in the world (Celine Dion, Dion diMucci etc.) Yet, if you search for 'Dion' my name will appear on the first page of google in the top 5 ranked pages for that name. In truth I am not a person of any kind of consequence, I certainly have no public profile, yet there it is... And of course the reason is that the page ranks high because it has existed for a long time.

There is one other reason why that blog (which I no longer update) still grows in popularity - linkbacks.  Any website that is linked to by other websites (particularly more prominent and popular websites) give prominence to it.  Over the years my site has been linked to from thousands of blogs and websites (for various reasons).

So, there you have it!

In short, as a minister of religion, I would of course be happy to have my blog climbing in prominence and ranking.  This allows me to share the message about which I am passionate (God's transforming and gracious love for the world) with many more people.  It is a bit like having a 'growing congregation'.

What to do on the internet on a quiet and boring Saturday. A few tips for your browsing pleasure.

The internet is a wonderfully entertaining place to spend a few quiet minutes (hours, whatever the case may be).

I have had quite a busy morning with a meeting, and then a wedding (to Justin and Joy-Anne Lee whose wedding I did at the wonderful Rosebank Union Church in Sandton / Bryanston today - it was truly a lovely event, in a magnificent setting!)

However, I am home now, Courtney is playing outside with some friends, Megie is putting Liam off to sleep. So, I have a few minutes to check my favourite websites. I thought I would put a quick post up to tell you how I do my browsing, and what sites I check out regularly.

How do you get the best out of your precious time on the net?

1. Use an RSS reader. I use the RSS reader built into Mac OS Mail (in Leopard) to check on my favourite websites. With an RSS reader you can do two things. First, the reader will automatically update as soon as someone updates their website. Second, you don't need to visit the actual website in your browser to see the updates (you can simply scan the headings in the reader and only click on the one's that interest you). Most readers will not only load the updated text but also 'rich content', like Videos, MP3's and images.

2. First check the sites you visit most often. I'll tell you what sites I visit most often below. However, if your time is limited it is a good idea to visit the sites you like first. Then, if you still have some time left you can check out other sites that may interest you.

3. Make use of community driven listing sites. There are many sites out there like digg.com where the community votes for (or diggs) blog posts so that you can instantly tell what is popular or interesting.

So, that's how I use the internet when I have just a few minutes (or a lazy hour) and what to find out what's going on out there.

Which sites do I check regularly, or subscribe to via RSS:

1. engadget - technology, gadgets, and other geek news.
2. Mail & Guardian - an independent South African newspaper (I like their honest and courageous approach to tackling tough issues).
3. Sojourners - a Christian site with daily scripture readings, content, and articles related to issues of faith and justice, faith and politics etc. The blog is called "God's politics"
4. jkontherun - ANOTHER gadget site, specifically for those of us who use PDA's, microPC's, palmtops of sorts, and various cell phone driver technologies.
5. Amatomu.com (religion) - I read the Mail & Guardian's listing of 'religion' blogs (that helps me to follow up on Wessel, Pete, Sivin, Stephen, Jenny, Sharky etc. please see links on the right of this blog to go to their blogs)
6. Wired - an alternative look at culture, technology, and society in general.
7. Boingboing - there's no real way to describe this one....
8. digg - a social networking site where you can vote for posts by other people. Check out the 'offbeat' stories section.
9. joblog - these great guys post some interesting things (warning there is often adult content on this site such a explicit language etc.) I do, however, like their design business (I stumbled upon them from advice they gave about the use of powerpoint).
10. BBC News - say no more.
11. New York Times - same here...
12. MacCentral news - Again, nothing needs to be said here...
13. how stuff works - quite an interesting site, often with insights on how things work!

So, I hope that offers some insight and perhaps a bit of help!

Technorati tags: rss, bored, Saturday, web browsing