Saturday, November 06, 2010

List of the Month - What people come here for

Well, of course, I'd like to think that people come to my blog(s) for intellectual stimulation, to enjoy and engage with all the wit and weirdness and playful provocation that I put on here.  I would hope that the largest numbers of readers might be drawn here by posts like the ones I listed here at the end of last year, as an illustration of the exceptional variety of my output.  However, in a recent rummage around the nooks and corners of the Google Analytics breakdown of Froogville visitor traffic, I discovered - unsurprisingly, I suppose - that most people in fact wander past in search of titillation.  My 'home page', of course, is far and away the most visited part of the site; and also - curiously - certain of my month-by-month archives seem to have attracted quite a bit of attention; but in general, amongst the regular stand-alone pages, it is my series on 'Fantasy Girlfriends' which dominates these statistics.  And amongst the lovely ladies thus celebrated, it is the charming English actress Kate Beckinsale who is way out in the lead, with almost five times as many 'unique page views' as any of the others (although I am gratified to see that silent screen siren Louise Brooks and the ravishing 'Miss Scott' [George C. Scott's sexy secretary in Dr Strangelove] have recently been storming up the rankings).

Here's the complete list:



The 10 'most popular' posts on Froogville


10)  Twenty Weeks  -  18th October 2010
It's good to see that one of my more serious and important posts - commemorating the 140th day that my friend Wu Yuren had been unjustly detained in a Chinese prison, and advertising Amnesty USA's letter-writing campaign on his behalf - has been getting at least a little bit of attention.


Strange that this - entirely frivolous - post should be the one that shows up most often in search engine results!  Do people really need that much help in choosing a good name for their quiz team??


8)  My Fantasy Girlfriend:  Diana Darvey  -  22nd December 2007
For a Christmas treat, I post a video of the impossibly glamorous cabaret artiste - a regular guest on English comedian Benny Hill's TV show during the mid-1970s - performing a medley of songs (in a succession of ridiculously sexy costumes).


7)  My Fantasy Girlfriend:  Jan Francis  -  7th February 2009
The lovely English actress - a ubiquitous face on British TV during my childhood in the 1970s and 1980s - continues to have a strong fanbase.... who seek out posts like this one.


The willowy redhead with the Garbo-esque cheekbones and the dauntingly sporty physique (she's an accomplished endurance athlete) is, unsurprisingly, another search engine favourite (a former Playboy Playmate!.... although I discovered her through a video game...).


5)  My Fantasy Girlfriend:  Louise Brooks  -  12th June 2010
The iconic early movie star is moving steadily up the rankings.  And quite right, too!  The concluding video mash-up of great moments from her classic role in Pandora's Box is particularly worth a look.


4)  Grand Prix  -  8th October 2010
This recent post - a review of John Frankenheimer's classic motor racing film Grand Prix - has been boosted towards the top of the list by my new 'Comment King' Hopfrog, who entered into a long and vigorous conversation with me about the relative merits of some of our favourite Formula One drivers.


3)  My advice to the Chinese government  -  9th October 2010
An even more vigorous (though much less protracted) comment thread than the one above on motor racing was generated by this post in response to the announcement of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese human rights activist and pro-democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo.


2)  My Fantasy Girlfriend:  Miss Scott  -  22nd May 2010
The sexiest secretary in film history (very well played by the gorgeous English actress/model Tracy Reed) has deservedly moved up into the No. 2 spot.


But way out in front we have...


1)  My Fantasy Girlfriend:  Kate Beckinsale  -  21st November 2009
My post was less an appreciation of the delightful Ms Beckinsale's acting career or her 'English Rose' prettiness than a personal memoir of my repeatedly narrowly failing to meet her while she was an undergraduate at Oxford University, and then finally meeting her (sort of) several years later - in the most frustrating of circumstances.  Although this page has stacked up an enormous number of 'hits', it also registers an extremely high 'bounce rate': it would seem that most visitors are merely searching for glamour photos of the actress, and are not motivated to stick around and read about my recollections of her.  This blogging lark can be a thankless business!


2 comments:

JES said...

Google Analytics. I'm pretty sure I signed up for that, or whatever it is you do, and should check that out to see what it tells me about my own place. The Sitemeter/Statcounter services are interesting/useful and even sometimes encouraging, but one hungers for a different way of looking at stuff.

Speaking of which, you might like a stroll through the Information Is Beautiful site.

Froog said...

Google Analytics might appeal to your tech-nerd side, JES, but I find it a bit po-faced. There's reams and reams of information on it, but none of it - for me - very readily digestible, nor presented in any very visually appealing way. I find Statcounter way more fun.