Fluctuations In Reader Activity Level Are Normal

One sign of panic, seen regularly in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, comes from people who spend a lot of time viewing their Stats logs.

My pageview counts are always going up and down. Why is Stats so flaky?

It's good to monitor your reader activity - sometimes this will warn you of a major problem in the Internet, or with Blogger. But keep it in perspective.

No matter what time range you view, in Stats - "Now", "Day", "Week", "Month", or "All time" - you can expect to see fluctuations - peaks and valleys - in pageview counts.

• If you spend time working on your blog this week, and your work is successful, your readers may enjoy the blog more next week. Conversely, if your work is unsuccessful, they may enjoy it less.
• As Google deals with the constant waves of referer spam, you'll see a drop in counts across all time ranges. And as new referer spam campaigns come online, you'll see the counts rise.
• Unless your blog is completely homogenous across all world wide cultures, you'll have one or two predominant audiences. Your audiences will eat, sleep, and go to work - and all real life activity will affect their viewing of your blog.

It's good to watch the counts, understand your audience, and be prepared to take action if you see a significant rise or fall - but don't obsess over the details.

Remember that your readers will appreciate content, so keep publishing to the blog. And, learn to understand the trends.

And, to best avoid confusion, use more than one visitor log / meter.

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