Friday, March 4, 2016

"Have I become the Jerry Lewis... of railroaders?"

I enjoy a good joke as much as anyone, and if it's at my expense, so much the better... usually! I do not take myself, or anyone else, too seriously. But I don't care for unsolved mysteries very much, and there's one that's got me befuddled. Perhaps a fellow blogger or computer savvy reader can help.

Various statistics are available to bloggers regarding their viewership, including country of origin. For the first ten months of this blog's existence, American visitors dominated, accounting for about 75% of all views. Canadians comprised about 15%, Brits 5% and the rest of the world the remaining 5%. No surprises there. But in the past month, French viewership has rivaled that of American... and there is no rhyme or reason to it. It's defies any rationale.

Goofy American comic Jerry Lewis enjoys an unrivaled popularity in France to the point that he was named to the country's Legion of Honor. His work on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association is legendary. He has even earned a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. But to many Americans, first and foremost, he'll always be the Nutty Professor!

I do not mean to denigrate Mr. Lewis or the French people, but I can not determine what about my blog should be so appealing to a Francophile. I have on occasion used French phrases and even once mentioned the Tour de France in my Sam Posey post, but that simply can't be it. Have hundreds of avid readers collectively relocated to the Cote d'Azur? That would be neat, but doubtful.

Last night at 10 pm EST here in north central New Jersey, there was a greater French audience than American and it was 4 am on the Champs Elysee! Is my blog the sure-fire cure for, how do you say, snooty insomniacs? "Mon dieu!"

Google support has assured me that this cannot be a glitch. Of course not. But then why am I identified as "a visitor from Sugarland, Texas" whenever I click on other blogs? That's a suburb of Houston, more than 1,600 miles from my basement laptop. Anyone? What am I missing?

UPDATE: March 7, 2016
Once again, at 9:45 pm EST, only five views are currently logged in from the United States and 25 views are supposedly logged in from France, where it is 3:45 in the morning! In the past month, more views have allegedly come from France than the US, while in the first ten months of this blog, US views outnumbered those from France by a rate of 6:1. Someone has some real 'splaining to do. This is ridiculous, but enough about this. More model railroading up in our next post.

-30-
 
   BONUS:  JUST  ONE  MORE  THING  BEFORE  WE  GO...  
 
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now... and not defer nor neglect it." - Jerry Lewis

14 comments:

  1. Your Internet Service Provider was given a pool of IP addresses that it probably told a Regional Internet Registry they would be used for customers in the Houston, TX area. Apparently some of those address were then shifted to your side of the country without an update to that geographic registry. At least that is one possible answer. There are other possible reasons, but just pretend your data packets have a Texas twang to them for now.

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    1. Howdy pardner... well I reckon I can do that... but I'm unclear if your explanation pertains only to my registry... or are you suggesting that a similar situation may have occurred regarding another area of the US and France?... thanks - JF

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    2. My explanation has nothing to do with the unusual French traffic, just the true origin of your own IP address and why you might be showing up as a Texan.

      A while back I had a huge spike in traffic from Eastern Europe, certainly suspicious in nature as I found no referring source. I'll take it though :)

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  2. Hi Jim, I have noted the same trend on my blog also...George Dutka

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    1. Hey George... so then, you think American model railroading is taking France by storm?... they obviously haven't seen the way we eat and dress! - JF

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  3. My blog got a thousand hits the other day - and it couldn't have been due to the brilliance of my post since I hadn't posted. I'm figuring it was some sort of bot. But it ticks me off cuz now all my stars are off. (And I'm not nearly as popular as I thought) :(

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    1. Hey, Chris... you'll always be popular in my book! - JF

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  4. Maybe you should leave a few croissants out during the your next open house, Jim. Just in case.

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  5. I average (according to the Google stats) about 9-10,000 views a month on my blog. On February 1st - one day - Google showed 8,350 views in one day. Like Chris, I suspect it was either some sort of bot or a perhaps a "beginning of the month" reset error. But it completely throws off the stats. Feb 2 - and the rest of Feb, showed a much more typical view count.

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    1. Hi Marty... definitely sounds like there have been some irregularities over the past month, but can't see a common thread... but I would gladly take an extra 8,350 views and ask no questions! - JF

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  6. It is possible your site was referenced in a French railroad forum. The members all read the thread and clicked through to your site. I see this a lot in the analytics for my site. Most recently, a link to one of my pages was posted in a Portuguese model train forum. For the next few days the hits from Portugal skyrocketed.

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    1. That's a possibility, Alan... but the numbers should then trickle back down... plus, I'm not seeing any new source in the traffic analysis that corresponds to the change in audience composition... so did the Portuguese like your new logo? - JF

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    2. ha! I don't know, no Portuguese comments.

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