Damn lies and statistics

I'm contemplating having a lurker amnesty one of these days. Or weeks. Where, for a limited time you can declare yourself as a lurker, make yourself known, before scurrying away again to lurk.

I used to think a lurker was a type of dog. I was probably thinking of a lurcher, and there's not many of those hanging around here. However, statcounter does tell me that there are quite a few lurkers, from various, far-flung destinations.

I don't know if you count as a lurker if you are openly a "follower" on blogger, yet don't comment -- like a heap of people are on my Peru blog -- or if you have to be truly anonymous.

Either way, I heart my traffic widget -- it's like footprints in the snow (or maybe ash, depending how you see this blog), telling me who has passed by, where they came from and where they went to. Even if I won't know who they are. Setting up one on my Peru blog was a real surprise, there were visitors coming from all over -- including Brazil, Croatia and others I'd expect, like the USA, Australia and Indonesia. Traffic here is much quieter, and less cosmopolitan.

I'm a complete nerd and more than a bit obsessive sometimes about my visitor stats, which is why I love statcounter. I adore the "recent visitor" map, I've tried setting up guest maps on blogs in the past, but I never got an accurate picture of who was visiting. The map on statcounter literally just pins people down like butterflies, and helpfully groups multiple visits from the same city. I'm such a geek that I smile as I recognise some IP addresses from previous visits, and occasionally can point to what IP address represents what person.

The most interesting part is the "exit links", it might be fairly self-explanatory how one visitor or another ends up here, but it's where they click to next that really interests me. It's a great way to find new reading, either the blog of your visitor or of someone your visitor likes. Sometimes patterns emerge, and...yeah I have way too much time on my hands.

For now, I am going to hold off on the lurker amnesty. I guess some people have good reason to want to just lurk -- maybe they feel you should speak only if you can improve the silence, or just have nothing to add. Perhaps they like to just be an unobserved watcher. Or it could just be laziness, like it often is with me... Either way, sometimes maybe it's best not to know -- after all, who would want to have a delurker week only to find the lurkers were all in your head?