Over the past week the average number of daily ‘hits’ registered on my blog has seemingly tripled … and I understand that this phenomenon has been observed by other bloggers.
So, why has this happened?
Looking at the stats, …
… it would appear that over the last seven days my blog has attracted lots of new readers from some nations that previously never appeared on the list of ‘audience’ countries.(e.g. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Brazil.) I have therefore concluded that my blog - along with many others - has suddenly become of interest to people or organisations that operate web bots that crawl through the Internet looking for something to latch onto. It’s either that or there a whole new load of wargamers out there who’ve just discovered the delights of my blog!
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This was interesting. I've experienced the same lately.
ReplyDeleteRoger,
DeleteIf the following comments are anything to go by, it seems to be quite a common occurrence at present.
All the best,
Bob
Bob -
ReplyDeleteAll very mysterious. What I can't figure is why anyone would go to this kind of trouble. Data mining has been suggested to me, but I can't think what useful data could be gleaned from my blogspot. In any case the very changes are likely to distort such information that might be available.
One thing I notice comparing your stats with mine, the increase in volumes seem proportional to the relative sizes before this started happening. Not sure what that means...
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteI must admit that I can see no reason why anyone would task their bots to ‘mine’ wargaming blogs … but someone must have one!
I agree that the number of ‘hits’ is about three times what I would normally expect to see. Interestingly, as I write this comment, the number of ‘hits’ generated by this blog post are back to normal!
All the best,
Bob
There have been a number of other bloggers ( including myself) who are experiencing this.
ReplyDeleteOld Nick,
DeleteIt seems to be something that is affecting quite a few blogs … but I cannot understand why.
All the best,
Bob
Yup, same thing happened to me.
ReplyDeleteBrian,
DeleteDo you have any idea why this has happened?
All the best,
Bob
This has been happening with increased frequency and it can often be traced back to training AI systems such as ChatGPT and its competitors.
ReplyDeleteJohn Y,
DeleteThat makes sense … and as a user of ChatGPT I will not be complaining if this is the reason.
All the best,
Bob
I was on John Ray's blog and he shut his down, saying it was mainly from the U.S. and reference bots or something like that, someone also said collection information for AI, could be ? It has hit my humble blog as well and most people out in the blogosphere seem to be affected by it, maybe it will start to tail off soon enough!
ReplyDeleteDonnie McGibbon,
DeleteI must admit that shutting down one’s blog does seem a rather drastic course of action to take … but I can understand why someone might choose to do that.
The growth in the use of AI might well explain why there has been this upsurge in ‘hits’ and why certain countries seem to be the source in the growth of visits to so many blogs.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob
ReplyDeleteI have never paid much attention to the stats on either of my wargaming blogs. I checked them once a few years ago, and simply did not believe that many people could be reading them each week.
Having read your post I checked Napoleonic Wargaming today and it shows 5293 visited today and 44960 last month.
.
I only publish once a week on each blog, and I assume that no one would read the post more than once. Do I believe that 5293 people read Napolonic Wargaming today? Most certainly not. I would be quite happy to think that a few hundred read it once a week!
I think a far more accurrate indication is how many people follow a blog.
Its a shame that it is just not possible to take these stats seriously. It would be really interesting to know how many really do read a post.
regards
Paul
Jan Leniston (Paul),
DeleteI look at my stats to gain some sort of feedback as to the type or style of blog post has the most impact … but this sudden increase in ‘hits’ rather negates that.
It would be great if the upsurge in the number of visitors who have viewed your blog reflected an increase in the number of people who have become interested in Napoleonic wargaming. Hopefully, some of them will become followers; the quality of your blog certain deserves greater recognition.
All the best,
Bob
Jim at Der Alte Fritz blog has just been addressing the same issue - I have seen it on several blogs in the last week and have noticed the same thing with my blog views too!
ReplyDeleteI have only ever "counted" comments, so it doesn't worry me too much, unless it is a precursor to some kind of attack or demise of the Blogger platform altogether - lets hope not!
Rross,
DeleteI do hope that it’s not the precursor to some sort of ‘attack’ on wargaming blogs. I prefer to think that it’s more the result of AI web bots crawling through wargaming blogs as part of an AI ‘learning’ exercise.
All the best,
Bob
This is no "attack" but a fundamental shift in the way in which internet searches are now conducted. I noted a change a big change in pageviews in June with another increase in July. August tapered off a bit, but September is off to the races once again. Perhaps, I should follow-up with a blog post examining this phenomenon from my viewpoint? These are not random "bots" scraping and crawling the internet to feed LLM.
ReplyDeleteJonathan Freitag,
DeleteYour comment about the cause of this phenomenon makes a lot of sense.
All the best,
Bob
I don't even know how to check stats on my little blog, which I don't post often on (usually only when I finish painting some fantasy or sci-fi minis), and what I do post is of very little consequence. I'm happy if it attracts little notice. :P
ReplyDeleteFitz-Badger,
DeleteBlogger counts the number of ‘hits’, the country of origin of blog visitors, the browser used etc., and this can be accessed quite easily. I added the ‘hit’ counter to my blog front page when I redesigned my front page some years ago.
All the best,
Bob