Thursday, June 08, 2006

Credit where credit is due

I made a post this afternoon titled Teachers take the rap which was intended as a bit of fluff - the blogging equivalent of a one-liner. OK it was a long one-liner, but I posted it as much for my amusement as your illumination.

I started with a reference to David Cameron so, as a throw-away, I put in links to Tony Blair and Ming Campbell at the end.

When I got home tonight, I had a quick check of my blog's visitor statistics and was surprised to see who had visited:

Ming comes to visit
Can you see entry number three? (Follow the link on the picture for a bigger version if you want a closer look.) Yes, visitor number three on this list came from Ming Campbell's website. Somebody at the Lib Dems is clearly on the ball, noticed I had linked to them and came for a look. I wonder if it was the man himself? :-) Well done the Lib Dems! So far, not a sausage from New Labour or the Conservatives.

I suppose it is possible that Ming follows my blog, looking for tips on his taxation policy... However, on this occasion, he didn't stay long:

Ming doesn't stay long
(Again, follow the link on the photo for a larger, easier to read version.) Whoever it was came, spent 46 seconds looking around and then clicked my cluster map to see who else was visiting me.

So hats off to Ming Campbell's people. I've put in loads of links this time to see if I can tempt them back. Maybe next time they'll stay long enough to leave a comment. :-)


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5 comments:

Duncan__ said...

OK -- four hyperlinks to Ming Campbell in one post. Are you trying for some kind of Google bomb?!

David said...

Duncan also left a comment on the picture in my Flickr pages. I hope he doesn't mind me copying it here so that I can answer it here too! :-)

Duncan says:
Hey, how d'you get recent visits by referrals?
Is this another of Big Brother's cunning tracking devices -- er, I mean, another frightfully useful tool from those nice people at GoogleBlogger.

David said...

Out the box, Blogger doesn't seem to give you any way of tracking visitors. (A major omission in my opinion.) I use a third party page counter service called Site Meter. I just use the basic, free service, but if you are willing to pay, you can get even more useful information from them.

Look for the Visitors counter part way down the page in the sidebar at the right-hand edge of the screen. If you click on the counter, you should be taken to the relevant page of Site Meter. I sometimes use this link when talking about Internet safety. People think they are anonymous on the Web and are not aware of the little digital footprints they leave every time they use the Internet.

I'm sure Big Google is watching me... but in this case it's actually Big Site Meter doing the tracking. :-)

Duncan__ said...

I am unrepentant about immediately blaming Google. :-)
I have been suspicious ever since I saw a programme about how they keep a log of everybody's search queries.

As you say, SiteMeter is a gift for "internet safety" lessons.

David said...

The man from Ming Campbell - he say yes!

Well, to be more accurate, I had another visitor from Ming Campbell's website. Hooray!

And this time, the visitor stayed longer. (This time the visit lasted 1 minute and 51 seconds!) Hooray!

And they looked at three pages before checking out via a Technorati tag. Hooray!

But they didn't leave a comment. Boo!

Still, well done the Lib Dems as New Labour and the Conservatives are still conspicuous by their absence. He may be older than Tony Blair and David Cameron but clearly Ming Campbell knows how to work the Internet... or at least knows how to employ people that know how to work the Internet. :-)

But still no comment. :-(