Ever since I have had this blog I have had Sitemeter installed. (The basic package, which indicates server location but not individual IP addresses. I don't want to shell out additional bucks for something I'm only going to use if someone is stalking me, which is highly unlikely to happen.) I rather like seeing where people who are reading me live. Not that in any case I know exactly who is who (although in a few cases I can make intelligent guesses.) My numbers have always been abysmal. On a very good week, maybe seven people a day visit this blog, according to Sitemeter.
So then I started looking at my Blogger stats, which show up as much higher. As much as by a factor of three. What gives? It was driving me nuts.
It turns out that if you go from one site with a Sitemeter page to another, then it does not count the second page unless you refresh your page. Since a lot of people -- myself included -- do not refresh their browser pages between sites, and since a lot of blogs have Sitemeter installed, visits are way underreported.
This of course does not include people who read via RSS feed or Google Reader. (Quite frankly, I find Google Reader the easiest way to access blogs, but that's just me.)
So, that mystery solved. There are still only a few people reading me, but I think I can live with that.
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