I was going over my Google Analytics today to get a snapshot of information that would help me tweak a couple of things on my blog. The following bits of data struck me as interesting and/or peculiar in some fashion, so I thought I would share them for grins and giggles. I started using Google Analytics in mid-September, so this represents a little over 3.5 months of tracking.

Once again, here is my favorite method of presenting data: the unordered list.

  • New vs. returning visitors to my blog is split about 50% / 50%.
  • 57% of readers use Internet Explorer to view my blog. The second place browser is Firefox at 35%. Apparently I am not a big hit among the Linux crowd, as only one person running Konquerer has ever visited my blog. Yes, I know you can run other browsers on Linux, but Linux visitors accounted for only 0.5% of my traffic.
  • One person visited my blog using Internet Explorer 4.01. I have to assume this was running on a Pentium II machine with a top speed of 96 MHz. The Smithsonian just called sir. If you could bring that machine by, they would love to put it on display in the American History Museum. Make sure you bring the green screen monitor. Seriously, though, if you are out there, let me know who you are. There has to be some story behind that.
  • About 10% of viewers use 800×600 resolution, which is high enough for me to continue to offer a fixed width site that will fit on a screen that size. The rest of my visitors have higher resolutions.
  • 2% view my site in only 8-bit color. I can’t make my computer go that low, so I have no idea the view they are getting.

By far my favorite stat is the one that tracks how people get to my blog. Where were they before they came here? That gives me a pretty good idea how they found me. Not surprisingly, the largest group are those who receive my blog via RSS. This group accounts for 29.19% of my readers. What is surprising, however, is that the second largest percentage of viewers (28.82%) comes from Biblische Ausbildung. In other words, if I hadn’t encouraged Steve Cook to start blogging, my readership would be much smaller. He sends me more readers than Google search! Where do I send the check, Steve?

Google Analytics also revealed a few lesser trends among my readers:

  • Most of the women who read my blog are named Suzanna.
  • My readers’ top three favorite colors are blue (23%), green (19%), and puce (11%).
  • The male readers would pick Mary Ann over Ginger by a margin of 5 to 3.
  • The majority of them think black and white photography is pretentious.
  • My readers prefer Krispy Kreme donuts (56%) to Dunkin’ Donuts (22%). One guy at Taylor University picked some place called Tim Hortons.
  • Only 3% of my readers can throw a curve ball. An additional 5% know how to throw one but have never been able to get the ball to break properly.
  • If they were stranded on a deserted island and could only take one blog with them, the majority of my readers would opt for a boat instead.
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