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Are You Obsessed With Numbers?

33 Comments

Let me tell you a truth. I am one of those people who sometimes is obsessed with numbers. There are some numbers that I notice all the time, and some other numbers I don’t pay much attention to. I’m probably like a lot of other people, but I’m owning up to it.

I do come by this honestly, though. As a kid around eight years old, I started counting the number of letters in sentences that either I would say or sentences that sounded pretty interesting. I’m obsessed with the number three, so after counting how many letters there are in a sentence, and then start dividing that number by three to make sure that everything comes out as being divisible by three. If it’s not, in my mind I start finding interesting little rules for eliminating letters or adding more letters. I always thought I would grow out of it, but obviously more than 40 years later I’m still doing it.

Anyway back to being obsessed with numbers. The two numbers on most obsessed with these days, as it applies to being online, is my Feedburner subscriber count and my Alexa number. Obviously, since I don’t have any page rank on this blog, I’ll pay any attention to it. I don’t pay any attention to it on any of my other websites, except for my anti-smoking website, which I’m trying to make more prominent so that, hopefully, and start making some of that great Adsense cash. Yeah, I know that page rank doesn’t mean the site will make any more money, but I’m always obsessing about that site wondering if I’d done enough to interlink it so that it’s SEO friendly.

Back to the site. On Monday, Feedburner, over there to the right, said that I had 121 subscribers. That was slightly down from the 125 that I’ve been hanging around, I wasn’t overly worried about it. Today it’s showing the number 85; what’s up with that? I mean really went to check out Google Analytics to see if traffic is dropped. It turns out the traffic is holding steady. Now I’m really confused; what could have caused the number job so far? At this point, I figure it is what it is, or it could be a glitch in Feedburner. Either way, there’s not really anything I can do about it. So I’m telling my mind to calm down and move on. I hope that works, because I don’t like lying to myself about things that I know are bothering me. It’s just strange; is anyone else noticing any fluctuating numbers in their FeedBurner accounts?

Now onto Alexa. Now I’ve been taking on Sire as regards his growth in Alexa over the past couple of weeks. Controversy sells, and he did a great job of starting a couple of posts that really got things going for him. He’s been on a roll over their ever since, and is Alexa number has been steadily looking better. One of my goals for this year has been to get my Alexa ranking under 100,000 also. But it’d been sitting around 135,000 at least a few months, and I figured well maybe that’s just where it’s going to be. So imagine my surprise when I looked at it today and see that it is down around 128,000. How interesting is it that my Alexa rank is getting better and my FeedBurner is going down? Aren’t numbers the strangest thing?

Of course, the numbers I should be obsessing about are the income numbers. And I’ve just about income just as much as anyone else does, but I haven’t obsessed as much about it on this blog. I am starting to get to that point where I think it would be a nice thing for me to start monetizing this blog a bit better. Actually, I think the blog is monetized well enough, but I probably need to kick it up a gear to at least generate a sale here and there every once in a while. After all, how my going to achieve my “problogger” status if I don’t? 🙂 I’ll try not to obsess over that penny I’ve made today on this blog through Adsense; I wonder where that came from?

Okay y’all be truthful, is anyone else obsessing over numbers that they know they shouldn’t be obsessing over? Let’s talk about it, kind of a group therapy session. Maybe we’ll all feel cleansed when it’s over. 😉

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33 thoughts on “Are You Obsessed With Numbers?”

  1. I don’t obsess over numbers much unless it’s bill time and things are a little tight.

    I can tell you that after reading this post my feedburner went from 134 to 84 so perhaps they’re having some sort of issue. Alexa is doing well so I’m just wondering how low it will go.
    .-= Sire´s last blog ..The Honest Truth About Blogging For Money =-.

  2. I’m totally obsessed with numbers! are you spying on my thoughts lol

    I too look at alexa a lot, I went from 8,600,000 to 94,000 in 9 weeks and now rank 36,000 in the US.

    I think it’s all fairly useless to be honest but I like watching my ranking go up and up

    2. Oh man, now you and Sire have given me something else to go looking at. This site is at 32,244 in the U.S., with 246 sites linked to me. I think it’s wild that only 59% of my users, per Alexa, come from the United States. Hey, I’m Mr. International! lol

      2. Actually Sire, they changed their algorithm over a year ago. I wrote about it, which you can click in this article if you missed it back then.

      4. You know Sire, it probably has a lot more to do with linking than you think. After all, most of the blogs you visit and leave comments on are coming from Wassup Blog instead of your BS blog. Also, most people probably aren’t linking to your BS blog for reasons we’ve talked about in the past. 🙂

      8. But that’s a good thing. And you haven’t had to comment as much because more people are coming to your blog and commenting. I bet your visits are up as well. You’re still dropping in on most of your usual haunts, and I see you’ve been mixing up your visits a bit lately as well. You’re humming; don’t gripe! Actually, what could have happened is that you’ve been linked to some pretty big hitters lately. You probably got a nice bounce from the dude whose name I’m not going to mention so he doesn’t stop by; you know who. lol

  4. Feedburner is weird – I dropped 700 for a few days last week, but it turned out to be a glitch and they came back.

    Alexa is one I obsess over. One thing I found is that breaking through the 100K barrier is much easier than progressing to 50K, which is this year’s objective.
    .-= Mike CJ´s last blog ..Did Kipling write "If" for bloggers? =-.

    1. Hi Mike,

      You’re right, because I just took a quick look and I’m back at 121. How weird.

      As for “easy”, I haven’t found it all that easy, but it doesn’t mean I’m giving up on it either. 🙂

  5. I can totally understand an obsession with numbers. Although I’m a new blogger and I’ve got no stats to speak of, I am totally obsessed with the digits on my scale right now. 🙂

    But its pretty satisfying too, when the numbers are making you happy that is.
    .-= lazygirl´s last blog ..I do not have intestinal worms, I assure you =-.

    1. You’re right lazygirl, you don’t have any stats yet, but if you keep putting up pictures like the one of the dude sitting at the computer, you’ll have rankings in no time at all! lol

      1. Thanks Mitch 🙂
        .-= lazygirl´s last blog ..I do not have intestinal worms, I assure you =-.

  6. My obsession is getting my subscriber list readship number up to 2000. I started with a subscriber list of 30 early Dec – now I’m nearly up to 800. The challenge then is to hope they enjoy my mailings enough to wanr to stay on the list
    .-= Peter Davies´s last blog ..Video Marketing Product Review =-.

    1. No problem with the typos, Peter; love babies, so they’re an excuse any day.

      Man, I must be doing something wrong; you’re already up to 800, and I’m happy so far because I’m just over 100. Sheesh! lol

  7. sorry about the typos in my last comment – had baby in one hand whilst typing single handed!
    .-= Peter Davies´s last blog ..Video Marketing Product Review =-.

  8. You? “Sometimes” obsessed with numbers? 😉 I watch the numbers on my sites, too. These numbers are supposed to generate income when converted to click-thrus and sales, right?

    BTW, I was solicited this week by B&H Photo as an affiliate for my photo blog. Felt good to be noticed.

    Have a great weekend! Go Orange!
    .-= Scott Thomas´s last blog ..Goals for 2010 =-.

    1. Actually Scott, big numbers don’t always equate to big sales, but you have a niche blog and should do pretty well as your numbers grow. I don’t have a niche blog, at least not this one, so numbers will only feed my ego. And trust me, it needs feeding.

      Glad you’re being noticed and solicited. Is that one you’re going to accept?

      Yup, Go Orange, then Go Cowboys! 😀

  9. The first step to recovering is admitting you have a problem. No obsession with numbers here. I do have other obsessions though.
    .-= Rose´s last blog ..Follow Friday on Twitter =-.

  10. Y’all must be the only ones left not knowing about the infamous feedburner glitch, lol. It’s nothing you did, nor is there anything you can do..it happens from time to time. 🙂

  11. My obsession with Pagerank is almost no more ever since Google dropped me back to PR 1. My latest is Feedburner. With regards to the fluctuations, there’s really nothing you can do about it as it reflects the amount of people who load your feed in their feed readers in 24 hours.

    My stat went from 64 to 20 during the Christmas period and resurrected when the holidays were over.
    .-= Udegbunam Chukwudi´s last blog ..Four Ways Of Getting Banned From StrictlyOnlineBiz =-.

    1. Hey Chuks, join the crowd as far as PR goes. I’m now glad my Feedburner stats have come back, but now I need to increase then even more.

  12. Increasing feedburners subscribers all depends on how many folks out there find your articles worth subscribing to 😉 but one like you who blogs just about anything shouldn’t find that a difficult feat.
    .-= Udegbunam Chukwudi´s last blog ..Google Analytics Asynchronous Tracking Code Rocks! =-.

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