Due to ongoing happy lifestyle changes, however, this rhythm started sputtering in July 2011 and will not be sustainable in 2012.  To this end, I am announcing a semi-hiatus of sorts for the year: No more book review quotas, and shorter/shallower movie reviews.  I’m not saying that there won’t be any new material: the reviewing impulse is strong in me, I know that I will need to review some noteworthy books and I’m committed to keeping an online record of my movie-watching.  Still, as I realign my time toward more urgent purposes, I’m giving myself an excuse to not feel forced to put up content in 2012.  We’ll how this goes.

I also expect to be back in 2013, so this isn’t a good-bye as much as it’s a “wait a minute… or a year.”

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Slight improvement in visits and Page Views.  I suspect some statistical anomalies in the “Average Time on Site”.  Otherwise, same old story.

For comparison’s sake, here is what my old-school Urchin stats are telling me:

Some extra evidence of higher visitors/pageviews, but nothing dramatic.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

The /nanowrimo-2010/ novel-writing log is exceptional to this month.  The rest is the same old routine, in largely the same order than usual too!

Because no one dares not care, here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Look at that!  Safari is within striking distance of IE8!

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

Well, hello Google.  Nice of you to bring three hundred more of your friends.

Otherwise, no new noteworthy links this month. A few hits to my novel-writing log came from my nanowrimo profile page.

3. Ohhh! Visitor comments!

Oh goodness, the spaaam, the awful spaaaam!

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

Pretty much routine.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords: [Comments in brackets]

• mushy, isn’t it? ace ventura
• we aren’t defeated by winter as canadian
• so.. we try again scott pilgrim
• vision issues while driving lazers coming at me

Eh… not much of a funny month in the search queries.

Until next month, I remain… uselessly fascinated by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

If you squint, you can see a difference between both sets of numbers.  Otherwise…

For comparison’s sake, here is what my old-school Urchin stats are telling me:

I squint and I squint… and yet I see nothing different.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

I should be pleased at how most of what I consider to be my high-profile essays and top-level pages are featured on this Top-10.  Alas, that Solaris article still dominates and that drives me crazy.

Because I know you care, here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Ooooh!  Dead heat between Chrome and Safari! Are we due for an upset next month?

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

The espritvagabond numbers are a blip given how a friend linked to my Australasia travelogue a few weeks after I completed it.

Otherwise, no new noteworthy links this month.

3. Ohhh! Visitor comments!

The spam, the spaaam…

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

Pretty much routine.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords: [Comments in brackets]

• dirty jason ["Dirty Jason" is the name of an x-rated web site.  It's also right in the middle of "Cooking Dirty, Jason Sheehan", which I reviewed a few months ago.  Arrgh.]
• can a federal public servant write satirical novel [Do I hear a challenge?]
• christian sauve beef sandwich [Hello, prankster friend]

Kind of a dull month in search queries.

Until next month, I remain… irresponsibly fascinated by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Pretty much the same thing, right?

For comparison’s sake, here is what my old-school Urchin stats are telling me:

A significant bump here… but why?

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

The australasia-2010 pages are a blip (it’s a temporary travel log for friends and family).

Since I know that you can’t get enough of this stuff, here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Not bad, not bad at all. Will Chrome overcome Safari by year’s end?

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

The facebook numbers are a blip, my sister having put up a status update referring her friends to our australasia-2010 travel blog. As you can see, she’s far more popular than I am!

I was also overjoyed to see that an author whose book I have reviewed with a certain amount of even-handed detail twittered that the review had “made his month”. Wheee!

3. Ohhh! Visitor comments!

Aside from various travel-related messages from friends and family: more Spam. It never stops, doesn’t it?

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• help im forty three; haven’t gained weight but feel stomach flabby suddenly
• i did not get the ending for solaris

Yeah… not much of a funny month in the queries.

Until next month, I remain… fascinated by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

I like those numbers: smaller audience, more interested audience.  I never had smaller bounce rate numbers.

For comparison’s sake, here is what my old-school Urchin stats are telling me:

A significant bump here, maybe due to the increased activity on the site: If you post more, more people will come!

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

The australasia-2010 page is a blip (it’s a temporary travel log for friends and family), but I’m very pleased to see the /2010/08 monthly page ranked so high.

Since I know that you can’t get enough of this stuff, here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Not bad, not bad at all.

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

The facebook numbers are a blip, my sister having put up a status update referring her friends to our australasia-2010 travel blog.  As you can see, she’s far more popular than I am!

3. Ohhh! Visitor comments!

Spam.  Oh, joy.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• will my search appear in christian sauve’s search queries oddities site report

Good one, Alain. With a search query like that, I can dispense with the usual nonsense.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Pretty good news: While the bounces are still high (which is normal for a search-engine-driven site), the content-posting frenzy of early July, along with updated Google XML maps, clearly had an effect.

For comparison’s sake, here is what my old-school Urchin stats are telling me:

A more-modest increase there, which is interesting given how it suggests that the bump in visits is from authentic human visitors rather than robots, spiders and spammers.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

An interesting mixture of flagship essays and latest content.  Still wish the index page was higher that the Solaris article.

Since you can’t get enough of this stuff, here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Stability and good news at the same time.

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

The spectacular increase in Google referrals confirms that the updated XML sitemaps are having an impact.

Ego-surf update: Google now gives 15,600 results for “Christian Sauvé”, up significantly sharply from last month. It has now indexed 1,270 pages on this site, which is about twice more than last month, but still about a third of the total content.  No new noteworthy results spotted in the Google top-50.

3. Ohhh! Visitor comments!

One neat thing:  Expat Jeff writes to say:

July 2010 re Solaris.  Lem and Soderbergh tell us in book and script respectively, that the existence of man is a mathematical probability.  Ergo, so is the existence of God and heaven a mathematical probability – sans all the trappings of ritual and magi.

I wish I could be smarter and have something to add to this.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

Is Solaris still confusing people eight years later?  Apparently so.  It’s a good thing I haven’t put up an aexplanation of Inception.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords: [my comments in square brackets]

• “six levels” inception [Uh-oh...]
• apocalypto slash fanfiction [Just say no!]
• can someone explain solaris [Many people can. They're not all right.]
• film french woman cancan buys cafe absurd dance in street [I like the image]
• is there any way i can get free movie tickets? [Indeed]
• vision has changed and can see my eyelashes all the time [That happened to me]
• what does christian married adults do for date night? [What other couples do?]
• what genre is lovely bones [It's a genre hybrid in the service of a non-genre story.]

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Good news all around; even the increased Bounce Rate and lower Pages/Visits is indicative of more visitors via the search engine.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

Harrumph.  I was about to joke that the decrease in activity must be because of fewer spammers, but as a matter of fact June has been a quiet month on the spam front.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

Solaris-explained appears unkillable at the top of the ranking, although the more interesting entry here is the review of “Nest of Spies”, given the media attention given to the authors following this month’s back-to-back interest in foreign spying in Canada and G20 security.

Since I know you care, here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Stability and good news at the same time.

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

Anyone doubting that the increase in this month’s numbers came mostly from Google indexing the new XML sitemap should take a look at the table above.

Google now gives 12,800 results for “Christian Sauvé”, up sharply from last time I checked. Somehow, christian-sauve.com went back on top of the results after a few humiliating weeks spent in #2 after a Facebook page. I’m thinking that the raft of updates to the site over the last week of June had something to do with this.

3. Ohhh! Visitor comments!

Not much spam, but the ones I got were from “ethical SEOs” (ah-ah-ah) trying to send me to the top of the search rankings.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

My amazing powers of deduction tell me that Solaris was shown at least once on a popular TV channel somewhere in the anglosphere in June. Maybe it would be more interesting to show you the 11-20 spots from now on.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• i dont get solaris movie
• la vie exemplaire et héroïque de l’employé de bureau
• search babylon web vache

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Generally lower results.  Oh, well.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

Ha!  You liiie, Google.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

Pretty much the same old stuff, although this is the last time you will see a good-old .htm file here, as I wiped out the remainder of the old static site while cleaning up the site during the month.  (I also made other changes, including an automated site-map, that should prove significant over the next months.)

Since I know you care, here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Chrome in fourth place, IE7 on its way out… everything is going according to plan.

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

Google has started indexing more pages from the site, no doubt prompted by my new automated site-map.  This should drive search referrals up in the next few months.

The one significant Google-egosurfing event of the month is that for the first time in a decade, christian-sauve.com is not the first result for “Christian Sauvé”, having been replaced by (ack, ptui!) a Facebook page.  In identity-theft terms, though, I consider this to be excellent news.  Heh-heh-heh…

3. Ohhh! Visitor comments!

Not as much spam as I used to get, (I made a few changes that should keep me mostly-spamless for a few weeks/months) although reader “Mike” took pity on me and sent me Monty Python’s Spam song to offset that gaping void in my life.  You’re evil, Mike.  Don’t change.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

More Solaris… sigh.  On the other hand, “adam roberts gradisil sauve” makes me giggle, because I really, really, really didn’t like that novel, and it looks as if someone noticed.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• “she’s turning into a tree”
• christian sauvé pavé
• the adrenaline rush while writing a novel
• what is the movie called where the guy eats mcdonalds for thirty days straight

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Mixed results all around.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

Significantly down. Ah, well.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

Again: Interesting mixture of specific articles and top-level pages here, even though I wish the index would be ranked higher than the Solaris Explained article.

If you care about such things, (and even if you don’t Microsoft does), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Not only has Chrome gone back to fifth place (with IE6 a distant sixth place), but Safari beats out IE7 this month!

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

Google results for “Christian Sauvé” were up slightly this month, with no new noticeable links.

3. Ohhh! Visitor comments!

As usual, Spaaaaam.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

A bit dull, really.  Using my divination powers, I see that Solaris has been broadcast at least once on network TV this month.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords: (Warning: Pretty dull month)

• caucasian view on quebec referendum
• is anthony bourdain christian
• is michael pollan a christian

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Mixed results all around.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

More mixed results.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

Again: Interesting mixture of specific articles and top-level pages here, even though I wish the index would be ranked higher than the Solaris Explained article.

If you care about such things, (and let’s face it, few people do), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Oh no!  IE 6.0 beat Chrome by three lousy points to take the fifth spot!  Die, IE6, die!

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

Google results for “Christian Sauvé” were up slightly this month, with no new noticeable links.

3. Ohh! Visitor comments!

Like usual, Spaaaaam.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

Well, ignoring the result at #7 (which is me testing a few things), at least it’s not all-Solaris-all-the-time this month. #6 is apparently explained by a YouTube comment telling people to search exactly for that string to understand Solaris.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• i need to read the epilogue of the fifth horseman
• was there a quote in the demon in the freezer in section 4
• what factors led to canadian confederation and why didn’t all north american british colonies join at first?
• what happened at the end of solaris movie
• what happens at the end of solaris film
• what is the american holocaust in the dale brown books
• what is the ending of solaris
• what is the main idea of freakonomics by stephen j. levitt and stephen j. dubner using steps
• what is the name of the movie that has a man who cheats on his wife and then is forced with things to do to get his kidnapped daughter back
• what is written on the side of the cheese monkey good is dead
• what were surgeries like before laser surgery was invented

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Yikes, even the relative numbers are worse.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

No doubt about it; numbers are lower.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

Interesting mixture of specific articles and top-level pages here, even though I wish the index would be ranked higher than the Solaris Explained article.

If you care about such things, (and let’s face it, few people do), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

This faint cheering you’re hearing is me, celebrating the fact that for the first time in almost a decade, IE6 is not in the top-5 any more. Hurrah!

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

Google results for “Christian Sauvé” were up slightly this month, with no new noticeable links.

3. Ohh! Visitor comments!

Spaaaaam.

And that, again, is pretty much the total for the month.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

The usual Solaris stuff, plus an amusing surprise at #8 (amusing, because it’s a direct link to an exasperated review of a book I wanted to like.)

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• “killing lizards” utah
• all there is to know about being canadian
• are levitt and dubner really qualified?
• christians operating on deadly grounds
• essay on why i love being canadian
• jude law/robert downey slash fiction
• mark wahlberg science fiction book astronauts return to homosexual population
• sauve & debonair clothing inc
• what happened at the end of solaris movie ending explain
• what happens at the end of solaris movie
• what happens at the end of the movie solaris
• what is the movie solaris ending about

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Generally stable, then.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

Strange, isn’t it?  Could this possibly be something explained by spam?  Well, yes: A tiny number of visitors hammering comment spam will do that to web statistics.  Moving on…

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

This may not be obvious at first glance, but these results are solidly better than last month in that they show the consolidation (via clever redirects in early January) of old template content with new, with the notable exception of the Solaris Explained article..

If you care about such things, (and even if you don’t, I do!), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Chrome is is close sixth place, seven visitors away from overtaking IE6.

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

The hits coming from carnavalboreal2010.com are the consequence of a one-time virtual event.

Google results for “Christian Sauvé” were up slightly this month, with no new noticeable links.

3. Ohh! Visitor comments!

Spaaaaam.

And that’s pretty much the total for the month.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

Not many surprises here.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• i hope that doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone with a limited quantity of knowledge and a “necessary” attitude. although separation of a whole into different kinds of parts (i.e. different people) can lead to that attitude of a helpful reminder; some of the questions levitt and dubner study felt brilliant and then okay to me(but there are also some things talked about in the book that are really good).
• jet li slash fanfic
• christian hugo winners
• i dont understand the film solaris 2002
• saving private ryan slash fanfiction

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

The number look better, but there’s something wrong with them.  Keep reading to find out what.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

Definitely something wrong; my site just isn’t that popular.  Keep reading for the answer.

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

Not too bad, although I wish the Solaris article didn’t outrank my index page. (Google tells me there was a hug spike on December 20th, probably due to another network TV showing of the film.)

But the answer to the grossly overinflated page view numbers are to be found in the unfiltered Urchin stats, which tell me that my Mimic review has been requested 2,519 times, that my Post Grad review has been seen 279 times and other bizarre results: Simply put, I got hammered by spammers.  Which I could tell from the spam itself.

If you care about such things, (and even if you don’t, I do!), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

What you’re not seeing is that Chrome is within 25 points of taking over IE6 in 5th place.

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

The hits coming from alecospapadatos.blogspot.com are consequence of a mention of my review of Logicomix.

Google now lists about 13,700 links for “Christian Sauvé”, down from last month by almost a third, although at those numbers it doesn’t mean a lot.

According to Google Alerts, there weren’t any new major links this month.  A lot of blog-spam, but no new links worth investigating.

3. Ohh! Visitor comments!

Guess what?  A lot of spam.

Much of the spam comes in as blog post comments, by the truckload.  Much of it can be scapped without a moment’s thought, being identical and making no pretence at being anything but spam.  But from time to time, spammer get craftier.  Consider this:

I want to quote your post in my blog. It can? And you et an account on Twitter?

Intriguing… except that the attached link to a Twitter-spam blog, and that a quick search on “And you et an account” nets hundreds of identical results.  Deleted, mister spammer –you idiot.

There there are the people leaving asinine content-free comments in the hope of getting a link back to their site.  Not gonna happen!

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

So, yeah.  Solaris.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• “black actresses” and danger in action movies action movies for
• drop the gun! and you, santa, drop the elephant” 2003 comedy
• what is in gordons room? solaris
• why are christian movies so bad?

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

7,147

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

Aaah, panic!  All numbers are down! Doom is upon us! What?  It’s just a web site? Well, okay then.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

What?  Urchin also agrees that my site is going down?  We’re dooooomed!

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

It’s more and more interesting to see recent individual reviews of topical books rank highly in the top-10.  If I was smart, I’d write even more of them.

If you care about such things, (and even if you don’t, I do!), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

IE8 takes over from IE7 (something I’ve noticed elsewhere as well) and IE6 keeps dropping on.  This is all very sweet.

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

Google now lists about 17,900 links for “Christian Sauvé”, up from last month. I’m not sure where they all go.

According to Google Alerts, there weren’t any new major links this month.

3. Ohh! Visitor comments!

Not a whole lot fit to be shared with you, constant reader, in the mailbox this month.  A lot of spam, mostly.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

The “sex hunter” stuff worried me until I realized that all those queries were going to my review of Hunter S. Thompson’s political essay Better than Sex.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• “why be original when you can be good”
• christian sauve facebook
• meow mix tracie thoms
• what is the readership of malicious intent
• what christian has to say about dan brown’s ‘lost symbols’

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

7,147

1. Mmm. Numbers…

According to Google Analytics, the crucial metrics for the month are…

For the second straight month, numbers are generally down from all across the board.  Oh, woe.

At the same time, my old-school Urchin stats are still around, and here’s what they are telling me, for comparison’s sake:

Doesn’t look so catastrophic from that angle, so let’s put Urchin and Google in a ring and shout fight! fight! fight!

According to Google, here are our ten most popular pages:

Very nice showing here by Dan Brown. If I learned anything from this, it would be to post more reviews of topical content.  Hmmm…

If you care about such things, (and even if you don’t, I do!), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors), as provided by the clever gerbils at Google Analytics:

Not much movement there. IE8 is now within spitting distance of IE7 and IE6 can’t stop dropping, so there’s hope out there for all of my web designer peeps.

2. Where do these people come from?

According to Google Analytics, here are our main sources of visitors:

(Lingo key: “Organic” is Google’s way of saying that no one has paid for links leading back to christian-sauve.com on those search engines. “Referral” is supposed to be a direct link to this site.)

Google now lists about 17,750 links for “Christian Sauvé”, up from last month. Most of that number seems illusory: this site itself only accounts for 6,100 results, and there are less than 1,000 results shown in the paged list.

The big new link of the month is a re-tweet of my review of Logicomix, which was another one of those “I get a Google News Alert of the author’s mention of the review 24 hours after posting the review” deal.

Otherwise, not much.

3. Ohh! Visitor comments!

This month featured a particularly empty mailbox, except for the spam. Harumph.

4. Search Queries Oddities

According to Google Analytics, here are the month’s most popular search keywords:

It would worry me witless to think that my site is a source of information about the canadian political/governance system, but I have concluded a while ago that Google is just making things up when it comes to search keywords.  (Well, except for the “christian sauve” searches.  Those are legit, you hear me? Totally legit.)

Assorted popular topics of search keywords this month included Hunter S. Thompson, Dan Brown and his Lost Symbol and the “Nikola Tesla Rockstar Scientist” poster I mentioned in my review of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Other odd, special, amusing or unexplainable search keywords:

• “bon cop bad cop” slash fanfiction
• “i’m not here to tell you how it ends”
• “love being tortured”
• the 100 most amusingly bad movies ever made
• vancouver terminal yellow mound
• what the hell happened at the end of solaris? movie
• when will mutineer hunter thompson letters be published

Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.

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