I am obsessed with my site stats – probably the baseball fan inside me. I track my traffic, look for patterns, try to understand why it comes (posts) and goes (lack of posts) and why some pages blow up big at certain times.
For 2010 thus far, the top ten searches that bring people to Flash of Steel are:
1. Civilization 5 or Civ 5
2. Flash of Steel (multiple spellings)
3. Three Moves Ahead (multiple spellings)
4. Troy Goodfellow (sometimes with the middle initial S)
5. Best Strategy Game(s)
6. hotu
7. Settlers 7 Preview
8. Tom vs Bruce (multiple spellings)
9. Chick Parabola
10. Hannibal Demo
The Civ 5 searches are by far the biggest, probably because I (for once) followed search engine optimization rules and didn’t use the Roman numeral for a post simply titled “Civilization 5”. That post ends up in the top three or four results.
“Chick Parabola” surprises me because I can’t believe people are looking for it. It’s something we made up in an early episode of Three Moves Ahead. Glad people find it useful.
The only content page that beats my Civ 5 post in was a stupid throwaway post comparing box art for Settlers 7. That got linked everywhere, and made Reddit the number one referring site for the blog. After the announcement of the new Civ box art, that Settler post has found new life via the Civ Fanatics forum. In fact, that post was so popular that in the month I wrote it I ended up exceeding my traffic limit for my host.
The top referring sites were:
1. Reddit
2. Google
3. Quarter to Three
4. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
5. Twitter
6. The TMA Libsyn page
7. Matrix Games
8. Rob Zacny’s blog
9. Tacticular Cancer
10. Gamers with Jobs
- So who are you guys?
Half of you use Firefox. You are overwhelmingly American, with three English speaking countries following (Canada, UK, Australia). 159 different countries visited FoS, few for very long. There is a lot of interest in Alpha Centauri, and people tend to stick around once they start reading one my feature series. (New one coming while I wait for Bruce to make progress on his decade article.)
Later this week, Three Moves Ahead 75 episodes in – more stats.
w00t Stats!
If you publish your dissertation on this site, I’m sure _that_ would drive in the traffic. (I’d totally read it)
I am curious how people are learning about the chick parabola other than by listening to the podcast. The term is about a year old, and I’m not sure it’s widely spoken about– yet. I do find it a useful tool for thinking about games, and would love to see an actual graph of the average chick parabola next to metacritic scores…
“I am obsessed with my site stats” I would imagine that most people who have a website on the net would be obsessed with stats. A few years ago I had a domain (no longer have) that hosted Gallery and WordPress on my computer and the stats were probably the most fun part. What service do you use for your stats, WordPress, Google Analytics? I used the built in stats of Gallery and WordPress myself.
Can someone explain the Chick parabola to me?
Wildpokerman:
The Chick parabola was introduced in an early Three Moves Ahead. Tom was explaining how he experiences games, going through excitement, bewilderment, mastery and then a curve depending on how the game responds to his mastery.
Nate:
I used Google Analytics for this post, but also use Sitemeter for some basic stuff. Libsyn tracks the podcasts numbers.
And I know a few people who have zero interest in their stats beyond some very specific and basic things. I love the depth of the stats I can get.
Wheres Tom? His absence is becoming a worry. :(
hehe. put all your top searcher hits into a single post and see what happens, desperate! :O
I originally came here in search of Tracey Steel, stripper extraordinaire but stayed to listen to the melodious tunes of Troy Goodfellow, who has persevered far longer than I thought he would.
I think I got here via Tom’s Wikipedia article and perhaps Google for “Three Moves Ahead”. I was so surprised to see there was a strategy gaming podcast and that one of the games-writers I follow was on it that I just had to hear it.
Enjoyed the post, Troy; looking forward to the next stats analysis.
I think it was Jennifer Sparks’ logo that ultimately kindled my interest, it has such a wonderful design. So many shades of blue!
I had been absentmindedly scavenging forum posts for new podcasts to listen to, when I followed a link referring me to this site. I’ve been a fan ever since, reading every post, commenting on a few and of course listening to your weekly musings.
Before I frequented this site, I wasn’t even much of a strategy gamer. I’ve become one due to the best strategy game blog in Troy’s house. You won me over.
I’m from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, if my IP didn’t already tell you that.
Sparky’s art is a big thing for sure. The redesign in February led to a burst of activity from me, as well, since the blog finally looked the way I wanted it to. I even made money off the ads!
Chile represent here.
I no longer remember how I got here, but possibly it involved other gaming blogs’ links. I got a bookmark to polycat.net from the same time, and I think I arrived to both pages in more or less the same moment.
I ended up here after hearing that Tom Chick and Bruce Geryk were on a podcast together somewhere. Haven’t looked back since.
I’m pretty sure I came via a link from Fidgit when you started the podcast.
You forgot feed subscribers! Surely you look at that on a daily basis too :)
Kudos on the success, Troy. Who would have thought a strategy gaming blog could become so durable and popular, six years ago? Look forward to the TMA.
Colm:
Yeah, the feed people. Tons of those. Mostly GoogleRSS and Feedburner.
I came here for strategy gaming but now have an interest in Tracey Steel, stripper extraordinaire
Pretty funny about the longevity of the “Chick Parabola.” Especially since good games with legs should be something more like a logarithmic or linear curve instead of a parabola.