Why is my blog heating up?

January 18, 2008 5:05 PM

Why is my MySpace blog suddenly so hot?

I've been blogging there for a couple years now, with a few people reading it from time to time. But in the past month or so, I've been ramping up steadily and now I'm getting 200 hits a day. I only have 116 friends!

It's not particularly scintillating reading, mostly just random observations and complaints or whatever, but I do try to keep it kinda funny and at least a little interesting. WTF is going on? Is there a bot hitting it or something? Does everybody who blogs more than once a year get hits on MySpace?

This is so not a troll for further attention. It's just that if people really like reading it, I'd like to take it somewhere where I can get a tiny cut of the ad revenue. Thanks.

posted by Camofrog to computers & internet (10 comments total)

[Removed the link to your blog; add it to the website field on your profile page, that's what it's there for.]
posted by cortex at 5:21 PM on January 18

Good lord, not to sound cruel, but having seen it, I have absolutely no clue.
posted by misha at 6:16 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]

Is there any way to look at where your traffic is coming from? I stay very far away from myspace so I have no idea if this is possible... one possible explanation is that people might be googling something you wrote about and it is driving them to your blog. Most bloggers have analytic tools to help them, well, analyze their traffic. Google analytics for example.
posted by pwally at 6:20 PM on January 18

If you cant view the logs you'll never know. Also in the world of the web 200 hits isnt hot, its barely alive. A mispelled search or unique error is usually to blame. For instance lets say there's a famous family guy episode with emmanuel lewis, but you think its gary coleman. So all the fans who think it was Gary Coleman do a search and find you at the top. The site that correctly lists Emmanuel Lewis has a higher pagerank (or whatever the myspace equivalant is). Or perhaps you wrote Emanual Lewis. Now everyone with spells Emanual Lewis with an 'a' goes to your site.

On top of it, hacking myspace is practiaclly a national sport in some countries. It may just be a myspace webcrawler messing around in there. Without the logs you'll never know.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:52 PM on January 18

Thanks Misha! I kinda agree. I don't really put any work into it.

I figured 200 hits isn't anything to bank on. I'm just really curious why all of the sudden it's spiking like that. Totally weird.
posted by Camofrog at 8:58 PM on January 18

Isn't the simplest solution here just to post a blog entry and go "Hey so uh... why are all of you coming here all of a sudden?" I don't use My Space so obviously I can't be sure, but if the blog part is anything like your standard blog, people should be able to leave comments and say why they're coming there. Shouldn't they?
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:55 AM on January 19

A stalker. Clearly.
posted by anaelith at 6:43 AM on January 19

I agree with Effigy2000: this is a perfect topic for a blog entry. One method bloggers use to draw visitors and to keep them engaged is to ask a question like that. The answer will lie in the comments you receive!
posted by iguanapolitico at 12:57 PM on January 19

I agree with damn dirty ape. If you mention something that people google, you may get more hits. Has happened to me before.
I've also gotten spam comments on my blog before, too. Maybe related?
posted by fructose at 9:07 AM on January 20

I figured it out -- Tailrank linked to a blog entry I made about the Texas UFO sightings. Musta been a slow day there.
posted by Camofrog at 10:45 AM on January 22