Who’s Watching?

With each subsequent post, I learn something new about blogging: inserting photos, establishing links, using the Dashboard to edit or correct existing posts, etc. Two days ago, I explored the statistics section of the Dashboard on Blogspot.
I had thought few people were viewing my posts, but I was wrong. You can click on “Audience” and see in which countries those who looked at your blog are situated. Most in the United States for mine, quite a few in France where I have a known follower, but then there were all of those from Russia, China, and at the beginning (you can look at stats for the day, week, month, or from start) Malaysia, Latvia, Indonesia. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize what the purpose of those unsuspected readers is. I had debated about using my name in the public profile. Now I am glad I didn’t. I have had a few viewers from UK, Denmark, and Germany, and perhaps they are also “mining” for personal information to exploit; but when your second-most viewership is in Russia, it reminds you that blogging has its risks.
Using the Dashboard, you can also see how people arrived at your blog by using search terms. That has been an encouragement. Though there haven’t been a lot of word/term searches, the most oft-read post is the Pricklies and Smoothies; I think because of the Telikin as there have been many searches about it. The one that surprised me and I find most gratifying was the search for “glass basket with initials DB”. Somebody had their questions about Indiana Glass Company and Tiara baskets answered thru my post. That rewards the “librarian” and researcher in me. I went back and added “labels” to more of my posts in response to the fact that people do reach my blog when looking for information.
Thank you to my friends and family who come to From a Beggar’s Bowl out of love and caring. As to those other readers, I now know you are out there.