On Viewers

So once upon a time I had another website.

It was my "professional" website - the one that was going to propel me to writing greatness (after this one failed to work out quite as I had planned, of course).  Originally I had started writing career related items, hoping to spark an interest by publishing views on my industry - hard hitting insightful ways to do things.  Then, when that failed, I went with publishing items on success and achievement - turns out there are far more relevant voices on that subject as well.

Finally, as a last ditch effort, I started publishing short pithy parables.  It was something that I enjoyed writing, and I thought they were different, fresh, and unique (arguably, they still are all that).  But they, too, got lost in the Interweb chatter - and finally after 3 years of writing them, I finished in November.  Nothing new since then.

Last night, on a lark I checked how the site was doing:

You will notice that according the website, I periodically get over 500 hits a day.  But looking at unique visitors, you see a different story:

A high of 54.

I post this, not from a sense of sadness (I have made my peace with the fact that writing will only ever be a hobby) but rather from a snapshot of the Interweb and how it works.  My website, essentially, has become a stop off point for spammers, a place to hit on a semi-regular bases in hopes of getting to post a listing for something or other.

It will stand as a monument, mostly to myself and a fine reminder of the fact that numbers really never are what they appear.