Google Analytics and Montifax: A Partnership Built in Heaven?

About a week ago I learned of a new service provided by Google. The service is called Google Analytics and it provides relatively detailed traffic statistics for websites. One adds a section of code to one's website and then sits back and waits for the various stats to role in.

Almost immediately I thought that such a service could be used with Montifax so that Neil and I could get some sense of our readership. Not only would be be able to tell, to a limited degree, how many people were reading Montifax, but where they lived and how they were coming to the site (i.e. searches, referrals, or direct traffic).

So far none of the stats that have become available have been that surprising. Most of the readers, such as they are, are from the St. John's/Mount Pearl area, with Halifax the obvious second place. New York and Michigan (the two locations from which my uncle would check the site) are also represented. On top of that there seem to be a few people in the Montreal region, the Toronto region, Alberta, and B.C. (On the other hand, there are a number of people that could be reading by means not accessible to this application, RSS feeds being the most obvious means by which this could be occurring).

Even less surprising than the locations of the readers are the numbers. I would guess that the handful of regular readers are all people that are known to me (as I can't imagine anyone that didn't know Neil or I taking the time to read this).

In many ways having this knowledge makes writing these posts much more personal than it previously was. In the past it was possible, though unlikely, that just about anyone could be reading my posts at any time. While this is still true, I now have firm evidence to suggest that it isn't likely the case and that I do in fact basically know on a first name basis anyone who is likely to read this content.

Anyway, as time goes one and we gather more data it will be interesting to see if the usage and readership stays the same, or if it shows any change.