Brain Fertilizer

Sorry, man -- I've been trying that for nearly three full years, and it doesn't work. I am resigned to my "Crawly Amphibian" status.

I gotta say, there's something ironic about someone whose domain is "evolution-nextstep" to not get beyond crawly amphibian... [grin]

Okay, in all seriousness, I'm thinking that much of blogging is like multi-level marketing. I probably don't deserve the traffic I get with my level/skill of writing, but I started long enough ago that people stop by here out of habit, or something. And I think blogging persistence helps in Google search rankings, too.

Who knows?

Believe it or not, you aren't the first person to have a little fun with that TTLB/domain name connection. (I think it's funny too.)

Part of the problem is that I languished in Blogspot hell for two years before I got a real host. I've ran evolution for four years (almost three in blog form), and for some reason, traffic trends have passed me by.

That isn't why I'm into it; it never was. It's just neat to see what other people think.

You've got the right (healthy) attitude.

There are more things you could do to get a higher ranking...but ranking and hits are not directly correlated. A good portion of my Large Mammal ranking is just that I'm a part of mu.nu.

And there are more things I could do to get higher hit totals than 290/day. Participate in a few of the Carnivals, try to come up with a good blog meme, leave comments on every blog you come across, blog controversial themes, develop a good schtick.
That all takes too much effort, and I'm too lazy. So I'm happy with where I am. I may lust after more recognition, but I'm simultaneously enjoying what I have now.

Oh, sure, beg for attention. I don't think anyone pays any attention to my blog either, for that matter. Nobody ever comments. You get tons more traffic than I do, though. Didn't I see that you'd been added to some big-name's blogroll recently? Trying to remember who it was...

Really? A big-name? Hmmm...I haven't seen any extra hits from anyone big.

Usually less than 3% of my readers ever comment. I think they saw how I treat Sharp as a Marble...

I've also been blogging for 2.5 years, and being in the military in the wake of 9/11 probably didn't hurt me any...

Are you talking about "In the Agora"?
I didn't realize they were that big until I saw their Ecosystem ranking.

...I really didn't understand that link from them...I mean, I added nothing to the conversation they were talking about. Ah, well, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

In any case, the only reason I put this post up is that you should always spread your posts out throughout the day, one every 2 hours or so...because that way you move to the top of rotating blogrolls and get "recently updated" marks on other blogrolls. It keeps people coming back, drives up hit totals, and can make sure you become a daily read: people know if they come back and hit 'refresh', they probably will get another opinion.

But when I have nothing to say and still want to post something, I'll do something silly/stupid, so hopefully someone at least gets a chuckle out of my being stupid...

That explains this post.

Oh, okay. I've actually thought about that, myself. Hasn't really changed my blogging habits, but it has crossed my mind that that's a way to get hits. For me, it gets me a wash of hits through the Pro-Life Blogs aggregator, particularly when I post something pro-life in nature. I don't ever do it on purpose just to get hits from PLB, but I've certainly noticed a spike whenever I do.