My Google Analytics Statistics as of October, 31, 2007

One of my favorite blog-related activities is looking at my Google Analytics statistics. I'm interested in seeing what posts are most popular. I'm also interested in seeing who is linking to my blog, because those sites tend to be ones I would be interested in reading.

Some Google Analytics statistics, such as "bounce rate" are meaningless; a bounce is when someone visits one page and then immediately leaves your blog. A bounce could be favorable, i.e. a regular reader, or unfavorable, i.e. someone found your blog but didn't like it. Other statistics, such as "% new visitors" are also meaningless. Do I want this to be high or low? If it's high, does that mean I'm not getting enough return traffic? If it's low, does that mean I'm not getting enough new visits?

I've had 1,300 Absolute Unique Visitors overall. Some of those may have been the same person visiting from multiple IP addresses. I've been getting 50-100 absolute unique visitors per week. I had 307 Absolute Unique Visitors in October, down from 520 in September. (On the other hand, I didn't post for a large part of October, due to my illness. Still, 300 people is a nice number.)

I'm wondering if it's possible to make money off my blog. With only 300 visitors per month, it isn't very likely. I'd have to make $10 per visitor for it to be comparable to what I'd make in a regular job. Google Adwords is only pennies per visitor, from what I heard. I feel that my content is good and I have some regular readers. I'll just continue what I'm doing, for now. It would be nice if I could do this as a job.

As of October 31, 2007, according to Google Analytics, my top 20 posts by unique pageviews are:

1. The Compound Interest Paradox (202)
• This was one of the first posts when I started my blog. It's still one of my favorites. The Compound Interest Paradox is the reason that debt-based money is inherently unfair. I'm planning an updated version of this post soon.
  
2. The Voting Scam (187)
• This post was frequently linked to at the time it was posted, but it hasn't been visited much lately. The content is still relevant and I don't feel the need to update it. It isn't possible to reform the current system by voting. This leads to the conclusion that government has no legitimacy at all. This naturally leads to agorism.
  
3. Who's the Richest Man in the World? (145)
• A lot of people found this post via Google Search. My answer is not the one people expect. This post is one of my more "fruity" ones, so don't use The Strawman Fallacy to discredit me if you don't like it. Has someone, or a handful of people, managed to seize nearly absolute control of the entire world? I suspect the answer is "yes", but it's hard to be sure.
  
4. The Five Levels of the Economy (126)
• I really like my classification of "red/pink/white/grey/black" markets. I think that "pink market" is my own invention, but I've seen the others mentioned elsewhere. To recap: A red market worker provides no useful products and directly works or benefits from the state. A pink market worker does something useful, but is heavily regulated by the state, which drives up his salary and drives up customer prices. A white market worker is a normal, productive worker. A grey market worker does worth that is otherwise legal, but off the books. A black market worker does activity that is explicitly forbidden by the state. As an agorist, I would like to find some high-paying grey market work. Unfortunately, my only employment options are in the white/pink/red market for now. I consider working as a financial systems programmer to be pink or red market work, because financial institutions receive a massive subsidy from the Federal Reserve in the form of negative real interest rates.
  
5. The Communist Manifesto's Successful Implementation in the USA (111)
• This is another one of my early posts, and frequently cited. It really doesn't need updating. If you analyze carefully, the USA is essentially a communist dictatorship.
  
6. The Social Credit Monetary System (96)
• This post is also frequently searched for. A lot of people search for "social credit". There also is some confusion. I define "Social Credit" to be a monetary system without a centralized issuing authority, which is a prerequisite for an agorist revolution. Other people define "Social Credit" as direct payments from the government to the people, to compensate for The Compound Interest Paradox. I call this to be "Social Credit for Wimps". My definition of Social Credit involves a monetary system without any state involvement at all.
  
7. The Subprime Mortgage Lending Scam (85)
• This is just the most recent instance of how artificially created economic cycles are used to confiscate wealth. It's more interesting to people, because it's current events. However, this wealth confiscation technique has withstood the test of time.
  
8. The Transistor, UFO, and WMD Conspiracy Theory (72)
• Don't use The Strawman Fallacy against me for this post. I'm pleased with its popularity.
  
9. The True Purpose of the Federal Reserve (51)
• I don't even bother writing about the Federal Reserve anymore, because I'm so thoroughly convinced of its evils.
  
10. The Federal Reserve and Income Tax Conspiracy Theory (50)
• Was the Federal Reserve merely a money grab by a handful of bankers, or is it part of a larger plot to enslave everyone?
  
11. Ron Paul for President! (45)
• I've given up on the idea that the current economic and political system can be reformed by voting.
  
12. Reader Mail #1 - The Federal Reserve Still Sucks (45)
• I was answering questions about my blog's content that were being debated on another forum. I like my "Reader Mail" posts, but this is the only one to make the top 20.
  
13. The Discounted Cashflow Paradox (aka the St. Petersburg Paradox) (44)
• This is another illustration of the fundamental flaw in the current economic system. This paradox troubled me for a long time until I figured it out.
  
14. Agorist Philosophy Overview (44)
• This is a good introduction to agorism. All I need now is trading partners! Actually, I get paid pretty well in my regular slave job, so the agorist community probably needs to get pretty far advanced before it would pay for me to participate.
  
15. Ron Paul Forums and Paid Disinformation Agents (44)
• It is practically guaranteed that there are people trolling internet forums for the purpose of spreading disinformation. Some may be clueless amateurs repeating the brainwashing they received elsewhere. However, there definitely are some determined and professional disinformation agents out there. That's why I started my own blog. Here, I don't have to worry about censorship! I do have to attract readers, but I have a decent amount so far.
  
16. Did the USA Declare Bankruptcy? (41)
• The USA has been technically bankrupt since 1971, 1933, or 1913, depending on how you count it.
  
17. Gold and Silver Price Manipulation (40)
• Many people say that central banks and the financial industry are manipulating down the price of gold and silver. This helps keep confidence in worthless fiat money. I should buy some gold and silver.
  
18. The Strawman Fallacy (39)
• Some people say to me "Don't post your more speculative ideas, because that discredits your sounder ideas." That sounds like nonsense to me. You should evaluate each of my posts independently. If you don't like one of them, that shouldn't affect your judgement of the rest of them. I admit that I do post some weird stuff occasionally, but I post what I think is interesting. My strongest ideas are: The Federal Reserve is evil, the income tax and IRS are evil, government regulations are evil, and an agorist revolution is the only nonviolent way out of the current messed up economic and political system.
  
19. Ron Paul Doublecross Prediction (37)
• I don't think that Ron Paul has any legitimate chance of being elected, even though he is by far the most qualified candidate. I think that the true agenda is for the US government to collapse in an agorist revolution. In that case, Ron Paul is doing a good job of spreading awareness of the evils of the Federal Reserve and income tax.
  
20. Analysis of UAW and GM Contract (25)
    
• On the one hand, I was pleased to see this post in the top 20, but I'm disappointed it wasn't more widely read. I think the contract was a really bad deal for the workers, but they were backed into a corner.

I find the "most popular posts" section to be interesting, because it tells me what people are interested in. However, I'll only come back to a topic if I have something new to say. Hopefully, people who found my blog recently will follow those links and reread my most popular old posts.

Also, looking at popularity since I started my blog is a biased method; I should also look at the most recent month only. Surprisingly, the post popularity statistics are still the same; this methodology isn't biased against newer posts.

Another interesting section is "Referring sites". This lists who has been linking to my blog. This section breaks it down by visits and not Absolute Unique Visitors, which would be more useful. The "most popular posts" section lists things by unique pageviews, which is more useful as it removes duplicates.

1. Google Search (507 visits)
• I could do an entire separate post on this. Some of the searches that lead to my blog are quite surprising. I've had only a handful of hits from search engines other than Google, according to Google Analytics. Some of my favorite Google Search keywords are:
1. "compound interest paradox". For a long time, my blog wasn't even in the search results; now I'm the #1 result.
2. "Ron Paul". For some reason, I'm listed on a lot of the Ron Paul blog aggregator sites, even though I only sort of support him.
3. "federal reserve sucks". I'm on the second results page for this one.
   
4. "social credit" or "c h douglas social credit"
5. "gold/silver price manipulation" and variations thereof
6. "taxes on bonds' home run baseball" and variations thereof. For awhile, I was near the top of the search results, but my post has since been deeply buried.
   
7. "cjhowe" (1 search). I'm on the 3rd results page. He's one of my favorite trolls/fools/paid disinformation agents. It's hard to tell which he really is.
2. Blogger (319 visits) If you go to the navbar at the top of the screen and click on "next blog", it will take you to a random blog; this accounts for 2/3 of the Blogger referrals. About 1/3 are from profile views, presumably when I post on other blogs.
   
3. Direct Traffic (298 visits) This is my favorite, because it means someone has bookmarked my blog.
   
4. Ron Paul Forums (251 visits) I'm a frequent poster there.
   
5. forums.anandtech.com (58 visits) Other people have been promoting my blog there.
6. Yahoo Mail (50 visits)
7. forum.miata.net (32) Redpillguy was debating my blog there. It's ironic to see a car discussion forum near the top of this list.
8. technorati.com (31) These were auto-generated aggregator posts, mostly from the keyword "Ron Paul".
9. wonkosphere.com (29) These were auto-generated aggregator posts, mostly from the keyword "Ron Paul".
10. fredthompsonforum.com (22) This is a joke forum. The post was by someone else, in reference to "The Voting Scam". I was scared for a moment until I realized the forum was a joke.

There also are a handful of interesting blogs that link to my blog. I'm going to put them in my "links" section.

I also like the "Map Overlay Section". I've been visited by readers in 63 countries:

1. USA (1412 visits)
2. UK (111 visits)
3. Australia (81)
4. Canada (74)
5. Philippines (20)

I've been visited from 45/50 states in the USA. The only ones missing are Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Mississippi, and Deleware. The omission of Wyoming is interesting, because it's one of the homes of the "free state project". I would think members of the "free state project" would be particularly interested in my blog.

The top states are:

1. California (291)
2. New York (156)
3. New Jersey (75)
4. Texas (72)
5. Missouri (60)

Anyway, I find my Google Analytics Stats to be very interesting.