Web Site Report – April 2002
April 2002 marked the first full month of operations for this site as well as the first month during which search engines started to send visitors to the site. What follows is a short report of web site statistics, search engine queries and our very first reader’s comment! Obsessive fans of christian-sauve.com, rejoice and read!
1. Numbers!
My prickly “urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, April 2002 Total Visitors - 1,384 Total Pageviews - 3,672 (Corrected pageviews: 1,791) Total Hits - 8,727 Total Bytes Transferred - 76.55MB Average Visitors Per Day - 46.13 Average Pageviews Per Day - 122.4 (Corrected average: 58) Average Hits Per Day - 290.9 Average Bytes Transferred Per Day - 2.552MB
I don’t place much faith in “visitors” statistics (which are notoriously unreliable and inconclusive), but the pageviews per day average are quite nice, especially for a personal site that doesn’t advertise itself. Stay tuned for more as the site establishes itself during the next few months…
Google indexed the site in late March 2002, but has only incorporated the results in its database on April 28th. The effect was immediate; page views went from a 75-100 daily average to a 200-250 page views per day. Woah!
Our five most popular public HTML pages were
Pages (Visitors) www.christian-sauve.com/index.html (687) www.christian-sauve.com/reviews.html (160) www.christian-sauve.com/writings.html (76) www.christian-sauve.com/bioinfo.html (59) www.christian-sauve.com/links.html (57)
which sounds about right given that they’re the five main “top-level” pages. If we isolate only the “documents” pages, the five most popular pages are
Pages (Visitors) www.christian-sauve.com/texts/amazon-bookmarklet.htm (45) www.christian-sauve.com/texts/moviegoing-2001.htm (26) www.christian-sauve.com/texts/100films.htm (26) www.christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1999.htm (25) www.christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm (23)
which is interesting to contemplate, especially given that my “Amazon bookmarklet” page was built to fulfill a perceived need.
Our top five sources of referrals were
Top Referrals (Visitors) google.com/search (126) yahoo.com/bin/query (72) geocities.com/christian_sauve/texts/free_tix.htm (32) geocities.com/christian_sauve/reviews/movies_2000.htm (24) geocities.com/christian_sauve/ (19)
No surprise there; the Google giant obliterates all, even the two most popular pages on my older web site, as well as my older index page.
Speaking of references, mad props and thanks go to the following people, who have been enlightened by establishing links to my humble scribblings:
- www.dhs.org/pet.html (Luc Lanthier)
- eric.gauthier.net/francais/mots.html (Good friend -and Aurora-Award-Winning author- Eric Gauthier)
- www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis/marsreview.html (SF Writer Geoffrey Landis’s personal site. Featuring a blurb from my not-too-good review of Landis’s Mars Crossing. I keep buying his books, so I don’t think he minds the occasional mixed fanboy review.)
Other works of mine referring my own site (how uncool is that?)
- www.revue-solaris.com/equipe.htm (Member of the editorial board of…)
- www.revue-alibis.com/equipe.htm (Member of the editorial board of…)
- www.revue-alibis.com/numero/2002/2-camera-oscura.htm (Latest movie-review column)
2. Ooh! Reader Comments!
(To protect readers and innocents alike, I will maintain anonymity from all correspondents, except in the case of good comments from friends, in which case I will assign all credit to them. They rock.)
Eric Laforest, on my “Losing Weight” testimony:
Interesting to note you seem to have independently come up with the same views on weight management as John Walker (hacker demi-god). http://fourmilab.com/hackdiet/
Indeed. Walker’s e-book should be mandatory reading for anyone even thinking of managing their weight. It neatly dissects all the confusion surrounding the issue with an engineer’s viewpoint and the result is a shining beacon of simplicity in a field that could use some. Strongly recommended.
A reader from Arizona, about my review of Payne Harrison’s “Forbidden Summit”, a shockingly bad UFO-conspiracy novel by an author who used to be a champ in the military techno-thriller genre:
Found your review of Payne Harrison’s “Forbidden Summit” on the web AFTER I read the stupid book. I was so inspired by it that I started it on a plane trip in October and left it in the middle. I finished it on a second trip six months later (last week). I agree with every word of your review. I should have left it in the the drawer after I put it down the first time. And I too, really liked his first two books). Such great promise, such utter drivel.
There are books where I feel that the author should personally write a letter of apology to all readers. Forbidden Summit makes these books look bad.
3. Search Queries Oddities
- Fact One: Google rocks like three Lolapaloozas multiplied together, if not even more.
- Fact Two: Everyone uses Google/Yahoo to find what they want on the web.
- Fact Three: Half the people in the world have a sub-average IQ.
Put together, these three facts clearly lead us to my assertion that search engine queries are a creepy window in the web’s collective unconscious. As you’ll see, it’s not a pretty picture. Hold your breath and peek in between your eyes as we look at what people typed in to get to christian-sauve.com in the last four days of April 2002…
-Our biggest success story
>isbn lookup
When I designed the “Amazon Bookmarklets” page in February 2002, it was to offer something I had looked for, unsuccessfully, on the web: The ability to quickly and efficiently check up ISBN information through the Amazon database. I received no less than 14 hits on “isbn lookup” in April 2002, showing a real need for that type of stuff. Pat on the back, as I find out that as of early may 2002, the “Amazon Bookmarklet” page is second in Google’s list of results for “isbn lookup”. Sweet!
-Our second-biggest success story
>free movie screening (x3) >free movie preview tickets (x2) >free movie tickets >free movie tickets screening >how to get free movie tickets >star wars advance tickets ottawa
For kicks, I wrote a short article on the various means and ways to attends free advance movie screenings, based on a few personal experiences and what I know of the movie business. It used to be a popular page on geocities.com, and now the tradition continues…
-Yep, that’s my name
>sauve >www.sauve.com
Ooh, it’s such a pleasure to steal even one hit from cybersquatters who bought the www.sauve.com
name a few years ago
-Nope, that’s not my name; it’s a religion!
>academies, christian, ak >academies, christian, oh >asimov christian >christian aspect on waiting for godot >christian book reviews >christian graphic powerpoint >christian kid movie reviews >christian shop shirt black cross >christian tv reviews on bad influences on teens >essay on christian rap song >funny christian dramatic monologues >funny christian summer stories >trainspotting christian reviews
Sharing your name with a major world religion can be a bother, and this list illustrates why. Though technically exact (I mean, that last visitor has had the privilege of reading Christian’s TRAINSPOTTING review), I can only imagine the surprise anyone looking for “christian movie reviews” or “christian kid movie reviews” will have when browsing my site…
-Parlez-vous Francais?
>bernard lenteric >convention de star trek a montreal >editions franco-ontarienne >entitees extraterrestres >héros brutal science fiction intelligent >la machine à explorer le temps, h.g. wells >les films de pierre billon >pierre billon enfant du 5 nord >resume nuit enfants rois lenteric >résumé la nuit des enfants rois >techniques d'impression bd >termite avec diffrente partie du corps >voyage au centre de la terre résumé >essai sur fahrenheit 451 >hotel nouvelle rene levesque >photos d'ecureuils
Two things about these French-language search engine queries bother me:
- The first is that I really should put up more stuff in French on my web site.
- The second is that our prickly “Urchin” web stats engine (which I’m forced to use according to the terms of my hosting agreement) doesn’t retain accents. Oh, I spent a while figuring out that all those “rsum” really meant “résumé”…
- (A third would be; is there a Bernard Lenteric fan club?)
-Current events
>book about september 11 scam
This probably refers to Thierry Meyssan’s L’Effroyable Imposture, an obnoxious book detailing a conspiracy theory about the September 11th 2001 events. (eg; “The Pentagon crash never happened”, etc.) I don’t think I’ll ever review (or even read) that particular piece of trash…
-Kinkier than thou
>adult sex toys in montana >chinatown massages new york city
How the heck should I know?
>catholic school girl elizabeth hurley bedazzled screen shots
Now that’s a kink even I can appreciate.
>wheelchair devotee pictures gay >free movies of hunted sexy female model
Oookay.
-Christian can’t spell. Bad Christian, bad!
>renee zelwegger diet >renee zelwegger naked nude >renee zelwegger nude scenes
Here is the naked truth: People look on the web for nude pictures of actresses. Some actresses have unusual names. Many people, including myself, misspell their names. Now, professional sites employ fact-checkers who make darn sure that Renee Zellweger’s name is spelt correctly. I don’t, and most people using Google don’t. Whereas there may be thousands of pages purporting to offer pictures of “Renee Zellweger” naked, there may be only a few dozen pages suggesting naughty pictures of “Renee Zelwegger”, of which my own movie-reviewing page ranked, for a while, at number 6. Hence the results above. Now, my page doesn’t offer undressed pictures of the adorable Ms. Zellweger, but does lump my review of JERRY MAGUIRE (et al.) with other movies in which I may have made note of a nude or naked scene. The solution? I’ll simply spell her name correctly and hope to sink in the morass of the thousands of pages offering “NAKED ZELLWEGER!”
>fran dresher sex movies
That, of course, should be “Drescher”
>kate beckinsdale nude
“Beckinsale”
>jennifer tilley naked bound
“Tilly” (who is indeed naked in BOUND, not merely a BDSM fetishist’s wet-dream)
>mina sorvino princess
Look! “Mira”!
>halley joel osmond
Apparently, I also suck at spelling kid actor’s names. It should be, of course, “Haley Joel Osment” Ooh! Two mistakes!
>guetamala weather
Not only do I insult celebrities by misspelling their names, but I can also dismiss entire countries such as, er, “Guatemala”.
>danelle steele
Ironically enough, this isn’t a misspelling: I had correctly mentionned “Danielle Steele”, but elsewhere in the file reviewed a book by “Danelle Morton”.
>mechal jordan pictures
Though this is a mis-spelling by the searcher, it points to my review of Karl Schroeder’s Ventus, which features a protagonist called Jordan, mechal (“MECHAnicaL”) life-forms and “spectacular pictures”…
There are three big lessons to learn from this section:
- I can’t spell. Okay, known fact, let’s move on…
- If you want hits on your web site, you can always deliberately misspell.
- Apparently, exactitude is more important to me than hits, because I’m correcting all of the above as I see them.
-Bad spelling is temporary, but perversion is forever
Even spelling actresses’ names correctly may not do much to deter the most sophisticated porn-hunters. To wit:
>erika eleniak nude in under siege >car babes >patriot cheerleaders naked
Go figure why my site should be seen as a hot source of that.
>naked leelee sobieski >rebecca de mornay nude
I don’t understand… Incredibly enough, their names are spelled correctly…
>kendra torgan pictures
The name is correctly spelled, but Italian model Torgan has only appeared in a handful of movies yet, one of which (KILLING TIME) I’ve talked about.
>photo of the part where roselyn sanchez take off her clothes
(A reference to RUSH HOUR 2. Yes, the name is correctly spelled. On the other hand, I do make an explicit reference to that scene…)
>pictures of dean cain smoking >pictures of lochlyn munro
*sigh*…
-Music
>lovin spoonful summer in the city mp3 >mp3 theres no business like show business
Mention “MP3″ once, and watch them would-be downloaders pour in. In this case, both hits are references to my custom-built “New York” trip soundtrack. Putting my CD collection on-line and casually including “MP3″ would probably result in a few more hundred hits per month. Hmmm…
>fatboy slim right here right now video screenshots
It occurs to me that given my interest and partial knowledge of “Big Beat”, I could write an introductory essay and watch the hits pour in! Hmmm…
-Movie zeitgeist (Movies released in the past year or so)
>memento plot murderer >summary of the cinematic techniques used in the movie memento >le fabuleux destin d'amelie poulin analyse >le fabuleux destin d'amélie poulin soundtrack (2) >because we can moulin rouge >differences between the movie pearl harbour and the real story >john q vcd cover >moulin rouge and postmodernism >vcd cover the kid bruce willis >wig legally blonde >behind the scenes jesus christ vampire hunter >interpretation - kiss of the dragon
And the winner is… sweet AMÉLIE POULAIN, with props to MOULIN ROUGE and MEMENTO.
-Older movies
>action music mission final fight impossible list spybreak >austin powers theme song >bad physics in science fiction movies and event horizon >bad and good physics in event horizon movie (x2) >bittersweet symphony cruel i ntention >comparison of the movie sleep hollow and the book >critical reviews on the movie casablanca >cube plot 1997 gay >dennis rodman spy movie >essay on the movie animal house >examples of social commentary in the big lebowski >fallen movie spoiler denzel >feminist meaning lola rennt >films action representation woman james cameron aliens >fisherkingfilmessay >frequency 2000 movie interpretation family values >gone in sixty seconds classical narrative movie >how the movie gladiator relates to government >indiana jones and the temple of doom summarized story >jackie chan pictures on the movie drunken masters >liar liar film script jim carrey >martin hache summary >max q movie cast 1998 >movie fatal instinct >national lampoons favorite deadly sinslust >natural born killer anime >o brother were art thou compared to the odyssey by homer film summary >o brother where art thou symbolism yellow >october sky and society >office space complete script >rush hour film racial mixing >sixth sense and second viewing and clues and list >stuart smalley saves his family psychology >texas chainsaw massacre dubbed foreign versions >theories in the movie antz >todays technology in relation to the technology in gattaca >zorro the gay blade sounds
Notice how some of those queries are phrased suspiciously like essay questions. Kids, I love doing some of your homework for you, but the very least you could do would be A> An appropriate citation in your paper, and B> Some feedback from time to time!
-How the Anglos see us
>from good to great translation french
Strictly speaking, that would be “de bon à grand” (or “De bon à excellent”), but the specific expression has no real equivalent.
>pierre elliot trudeau lousy french
*sigh*
-Author! Book! Review!
>autobiography george zebrowski >bad and beautiful ian halperin >blood music greg bear >book club questions lions game nelson demille >book reviews of shawshank redemption >book reviews on stephen king lack of plot >character sketch of tom clancys net force >chuck palahniuk critic choke >dan simmons hyperion explained >derryl murphy >et tu babe >detailed plot summary of stranger in a strange land by heinlein >executive orders debt of honor spoilers plot >deus ex machina updike computer >descriptive chapter summaries of the book snow crash >j. r. r. tokenbiography >jack mcdevitts eternity road summary >jurassic park _by michael crichton_ chapter summaries >larry beinharts >lysa moskowitz-mateu david lafontaine >m.a.c. farrant >nicholas pillegi >novel grid characters philip kerr >palahniuks style fight club style >richard bachman book reviews >richard preston monologue >rush limbaugh fat liar >snapshots from hell peter robbins >stephen king book reviews different seasons >stephen king desperation >teranesia egan prabir last chapter >the murderer ray bradbury >the tranquility alternative >use of narrative harlan ellison repent harlequin said the ticktockman >william j. coughlin destruction >worst-books heinlein
-Cool searches
A few search queries I am proud to have helped:
>book bordering on aggression >american invasion of canada what if
Both referring to Floyd Rudmin’s Bordering on Agression, a book detailing america’s plans to invade Canada over the years. It took me long time to track down the book, so color me pleased to be able to share the knowledge around.
>economic fiction
I once qualified Richard Rohmer’s Death by Deficit (a novel about the bankruptcy of Canada) to be “Hard economic-fiction”. I’m happy to see the term catching on… 
>in theaters february 2000
I annotate my reviews by time and place, so movies seen in theaters in february 2000 are noted as such.
>rockland ontario
Yay, hometown!
>steinberg gemini harrison ford
Interestingly enough, I picked up Richard Steinberg’s The Gemini Man because I had heard a rumor about a movie project of the same name that was to star Harrison Ford. The book proved to be awful and unrelated to the rumor, but it’s fun to help.
>top grossing films of 1991
You wouldn’t expect a humble site like mine to compete with the big box-office sites out there, but thanks to the IMDB, I have included a top-grossing chart on every one of my “yearly movie reviews” pages… and the next thing you know…
>thorp roderick
I’m still waiting for an email pointing out that my review of Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever (now aka Die Hard) is the best DIE HARD book/movie comparison on the web, but that’ll do in the meantime.
>fdr drive photos from queensboro bridge
Well, I do have a picture of the Queensboro Bridge from above the FDR drive…
-Fuzzy searching
>codes and conventions of a typical thriller >horror movie bodycounts >motivation of watching romance movie >physics and movies and force and breaking glass >placement of soda in movies >slasher movie bodycounts >teen rock movies essay >the 100 greatest violent mayhem movies >the mark of a true mba is that he is often wrong but seldom in doubt >top-100 thrillers books
It occurs to me that any of the above might form an interesting seed for a full-blown essay.
-The weird ones
>biography tony shaloub >chinese fighting techniques outdated kung fu >essay about the embarrassment and humour >meta-story of sports >o.j. simpson cochrane photo picture >robert heinlein's comments about church of scientology >why do cuckoos make low pitched sounds
Why in the world would I know anything about the above?
>movie that ed harris and jean claude van damme starred in together
As far as I know, such a movie remains to be made. Fortunately for Ed Harris, perhaps.
-Consult a professional. Now!
>odds of becoming addicted to heroine at the age of 16
You; get professional help, not a book reviewer.
>penis due to scrach
Eek! Run to your physician!
>reword information on terrorists september 11
I fully support the noble goal of eradicating terrorism, but goodness, if you know where Osama is vacationing, go to your nearest American embassy/consultate rather than surf the web!
Please remember that all of the above is true. Nothing’s been made up. Not only do these people exist, but they also have access to the most sophisticated communication network in history. Pheer!