Friday, July 14, 2006

She loves me, she loves me not...

Well isn't technology just wonderful. Just a few more strokes of the keyboard, sign up for another google service, post more of you cyber-experiences and yes, you're back to the top of the Google listings when you type in your own name. It makes it all worthwhile doesn't it? So it seems like Google is a bit like one of those Tamagochi electronic pets. If you keep feeding your blog, and tidying up any mess that it might leave behind, Google will love you back too.

Now I've got web based activity tracking!

Two days ago I took a look at Google's site and saw that they had a web based activity tracker. Also it was for free. So I took a look. You have to apply to use it, so I did, and low and behold today I got an email asking me to create a Google account and providing the instructions to create a Google Analytics account. So I did all that stuff, and much like the Amazon scheme for creating ads of various varieties was given a small block of javascript to copy and paste into the bottom of the home page of the web site; or to the template of the blog. It also lets you track multiple web sites, so I pasted the code into each of my various blogs. Now it is up to all you avid readers out there to keep reading my postings so that I can get some pretty analytics chart showing me how often my blog has been visited from the different parts of the globe. Perhaps right now I should offer a special prize for the one millionth hit on any of my blogs?

The Elusive Google Listing

Soon after my return to blogging, I thought that I would try to find my blog using Google. So in went my name "Tony Debling", click search, and wow, I could not believe it Tony's Blog made the top of the hit list. In some ways I was surprised, in other ways, I thought it is not so surprising; I haven't encountered anyone else with my name, so Google won't have many references. Well, yesterday, this initial delight had turned to disappointment. Having explained this easy method for finding my blog to some friends - somewhat less of a mouthful than my blog address is www.tonydebling.blogspot.com - I was horrified to find that when I demonstrated this on the members' PC at the tennis club the cupboard was bear! No reference to my blog! Had I done something to upset them? I was consoled by a friend, Matt Clark, who suggested that it was probably because I hadn't updated the site for a while. So that's what has prompted me to make this post, a vain hope that fame can be restored, if just for one day!