Google has free services that let you track visits to your website. Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools are examples of such services. You register your website with Google and it gives you all sort of statistics on visits to your website on a daily and monthly basis. You can find which search keywords land people on your webpages with details as what path they take in reading through pages in your websites, frequency of visits, network location, all sort of data on traffic sources and visitor trending. The main purpose of Google Analytics is business. However, you can analyze the data for non-business purposes as well.
As a former engineer and a lifetime data-cruncher, I registered my blog with Google to see what kind of people (apart from my friends) read my blog and what lands them there. The results were interesting and at times odd.
As I've focused on traditional vs contemporary worship since my arrival in the US, I've written a lot on the subject in my blog. Interestingly enough, many visits to my blog have been initiated by searching a combination of the keywords: contemporary, traditional and worship (or service) and at times combined by church denominations. People who googled these keywords, saw my blog either in the first or the second page of Google search results. If you google traditional vs contemporary protestant worship, my blog would be the first search result. Given my focus on this subject, I was delighted to find about these analytics on my blog.
However, I don't know why Google always shows my first post on contemporary worship as its search result. Google claims that its search results are based on content analysis. I admit that I like this first post. It was original as I had a fresh perspective as a non-American, newly arrived here and hence had an objective outlook. But I've written other posts on this subject as well. I wonder why none of them show up when these keywords are searched. For example, my fourth and fifth posts on this title are informative also (especially the latter). Even posts that are not titled as such are focused on the subject (more or less).
And buying Google's claim, there were results that were odd and funny. For example, searching anti contemporary worship, my blog used to show up as one of the first search results. Fortunately, that's no longer the case. And again, my first post on traditional vs contemporary worship was the one showing up. I have strong criticism on making worship into something of entertainment or business or anything that the focus is not completely on God. But that doesn't make me anti contemporary worship by and in itself. Surely, different people communicate with God through different ways. What matters to God is purity and focus.
Sometimes, I'm surprised by seeing Google listing my weblog among its first search results, merely for the presence of search keywords scattered over a certain page (I face this problem frequently when I do my search on Google). To say the least, Google search engine is not as intelligent as it claims. While I appreciate visits to my blog, what surprises me even more is what makes people click on my blog, while they can clearly see (from the summary provided by Google) that the page listed is totally irrelevant to what they're looking for.
Another thing that I can get from Google data on my blog is a trending of what people are looking for over a certain period of time. That would give me a clue that something has happened or is going to happen at that place over those days.
Sifting through Google analytics, I've had another interesting observation. Sometimes, it lists one of my blog entries before the webpage of the place that people are searching for. This is really amusing. I admit that sometimes, I go into great length writing about a church or an event, but still, I wonder why should Google give precedence to my blog entry while people are merely looking for a certain church. But to me, it's no big deal. I'd appreciate publicity for my blog. I hope people who click on those search results mistakenly (or out of curiosity?) find them interesting and come back again.
And as a devout Shia Muslim, it was very delightful for me to see keywords related to my beliefs and deep religious passions like this or this, landing people on my blog. I ask God and trust Him to keep me and my blog focused on His way. Amen.
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