Walking Randomly’s first birthday

August 20th, 2008 | Categories: walking randomly | Tags:

Exactly one year ago today I wrote the first post on what has become my own little piece of the web. Walking Randomly was created on a whim after a conversation between myself and a web developer called Matt who was leaving the University to set up his own business. Beer was involved (for me anyway – he is tee-total) and so the details of the conversation are fuzzy to say the least but the net result was that I ended up with a version of Word Press installed on a server in the States along with the domain name of my choosing and an email that said “Have fun blogging.”

When someone goes to that amount of trouble on your behalf it would be churlish not to actually do something with it so I started writing about whatever entered my rather chaotic thoughts to see if I could make anything of it.

So, one year and 120 posts later, has it been succesful? Well, that very much depends on your point of view. My brother is an economist and he may well ask “Has it made you any money?” The answer to that question is “Not a penny!” – in fact it costs me money (although not much – I think Matt is giving me mates rates on hosting). So from this point of view it is a complete failure. In my defense, however, apart from a few Amazon Associate links, I haven’t attempted to make any money from it so my lack of monetary success is hardly surprising.

How else can one measure the success of a blog? Number of hits per day perhaps? Well, depending on which analytical tool I choose to believe, Walking Randomly gets somewhere between 250 (according to awstats) and 670 (according to webalizer) visits per day and this is rising steadily. Then there is the number of RSS subscribers which currently stands at 143 according to Feedburner. The number of RSS subscribers fluctuates on a daily basis but the general trend is upwards so I am at least going in the right direction. These figures might not be stellar but they aren’t bad considering that WR is somewhat of a niche site (putting it mildly).

What other figures can I use to measure Walking Randomly? Well, it has a google Page Rank of 4 out of 10 and an Alexa rating of 1,57222,14562 – both of which are somewhat disappointing. It also has a Technorati Authority rating of 38 which puts it in the top 276,569 blogs apparently. Whichever way you choose to look at these 3 statistics, WR is not doing so well but should I care? Do these numbers actually matter? What’s your opinion?

A less numerical but, in my opinion at least, much more important measure of blogging success comes from people’s reaction to what you write. For example, if I write an article explaining how to fix a problem with MATLAB and if even only one person finds it useful enough to say so in the comments section then it pretty much makes my day. Blog comments are a powerful thing – any one of you readers could make or break my day with a well crafted one – so be gentle!

It’s even better when someone goes to the trouble of linking to your site, providing they are doing so in a positive light of course. One person linked to me recently with along with the comment “Even the title suites me. I’ve been surfing this site most of the day. It’s amazingly cool.” and I didn’t even need to pay her! I don’t think that anything I have ever done has ever been described as ‘Amazingly cool’ before – I’d call that a success. Whoever you are – Thank you!

When all is said and done I enjoy going through the process of putting a post together and I enjoy getting feedback from readers and so, if viewed as a pleasant way of passing the time, WR has been a resounding success. My only hope is that it is as much fun to read as it is to write.

Now, where’s the Champage? I have a birthday to celebrate!

  1. August 20th, 2008 at 14:22
    Reply | Quote | #1

    Well, just like all the human birthdays that I forget, I guess I forgot my blog’s one-year birthday during my “week of rest” – congrats on your one-year birthday too!

  2. admin
    August 20th, 2008 at 16:15
    Reply | Quote | #2

    Thanks Maria, happy belated birthday to you too :)

  3. August 20th, 2008 at 17:26
    Reply | Quote | #3

    congratulations! you should know i def appreciate your blog. and since i’m just so awesome, my accolades are the ultimate metric of success. (jk)

  4. MJC
    August 20th, 2008 at 17:45
    Reply | Quote | #4

    I am hurt…. It is not always about the money…

    As you are still continuing with the blog it must be a “success to you”.

    The benefit from writing the blog must exceed its cost or else you would have stopped. Therefore the blog is part of your choices that maximise your utility. Hence it is a “success in economics too”

    See.. no mention of money…. (apart from my fee for explaining that to you)…..

    P.s. Beware comments posted- as i was once told- it is the negative ones that stick with you.

  5. August 21st, 2008 at 07:16
    Reply | Quote | #5

    Congratulations on your “first birthday”!

    Not much of metric, but we’ve been happy to find your site and make your acquaintance as we get more involved in the world of “math blogs” :)

  6. admin
    August 21st, 2008 at 09:47
    Reply | Quote | #6

    To Sam and CatSynth – those are the best kind of metrics in my opinion :)

    To MJC – I wondered if I would manage to goad a comment out of you with this post ;) – hope you are yours are doing OK.

  7. hp
    August 22nd, 2008 at 01:48
    Reply | Quote | #7

    Happy 1st birthday. I doubt that the 3 statitics you posted truly reflects the awesomeness of this blog because this stuff is very technical and not many people would enjoy it. I believe if there is a blog stats for math alone, your rating would be very high. Cheers yo. Any good champagne?

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