Blogs That Interest Inhabitants Of A Specific Country May Use The Webmaster Tools "Geographical target" Setting

People who publish blogs which are relevant to a specific country may be able to focus search engine attention, for their blog, and better target readers in the country in question.

Google Webmaster Tools provides the "Geographical target" setting, which lets a blog owner select a single country. The setting increases search engine attention, for their blog, in the country selected.

If you are logged in to Google Webmaster Tools, for a given blog, find the "gear" icon in the upper right corner of the dashboard display.

From the drop down menu behind the "gear", select "Site Settings" - and "Geographical target" will be right there, in front of you. Click on "Target users in:", then select the appropriate country, in the pull down menu.

The list of countries, presented to you, appears to be rather complete. The list appears to be alphabetically sorted in the English language, as most of Webmaster Tools appears to be presented.

It's likely that your potential readers will be located using geolocation, so you should allow for some inaccuracies, in targeting specific readers. Readers who are located in regions close to national borders may appear to be located on either side of the border. Only one country can be targeted.

Note that this setting is not related to any Blogger dashboard settings, such as "Language" or "Time Zone", in "Language and formatting".

Also, note that the usefulness of this setting, like other search engine features, will depend upon your efforts in properly publicising the blog. Publicising the blog is still dependent upon your efforts - this setting, when used, simply focuses your efforts towards a single country.

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Market Your Blog, To Those Who Are Interested

We see many questions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, about blog content, and (lack of) appreciation by the readers.

Occasionally, people become concerned about activity of the people reading their blogs - why they get so many new visitors (but nobody returns later, to read more), or why the main page is so well read (but nobody reads the archived posts).

In other cases, they wonder why the blog was deleted - even though it had the required warning protecting it. And sometimes, they may wonder why so many people read the blog, but nobody comments on the posts.

If your blog just uses Stats, to provide you reader activity statistics, you'll probably be only concerned with visitor activity, and pageview count.

If you use an actual visitor activity log, like SiteMeter or StatCounter, you may also look at new / return visitor ratio, or pages read / visitor count. In both cases, you're examining visitor interest.

Visitor interest starts with how you advertise the blog. You get good visitor interest when you advertise the blog where it will be welcomed, and in a style where your advertisements will be welcomed.

People who don't like your blog may read the first page, then go elsewhere. If they read more than the first page, they will probably be doing that so they can report the blog, for TOS Violation or similar. This is why some blogs are unrighteously clasified as abusive.

No matter how objectively you may write a blog discussing alternative lifestyles, if you advertise your blog where Bible Belt USA Conservatives may gather, the best result that you may see is "single pageview" visitors.

Occasionally, we'll see a problem report that starts out with a common complaint.

Why was my blog deleted? I don't spam.

When we're able to retrieve a cached copy of the blog, we'll agree with the owner.

Some blogs, deleted as abusive, will have a little known problem.

Commercially funded adult content.

Other times, the problem will be more subtle.

I set the "Adult Content?" flag to "Yes"! Why am I getting complaints? (Why was the blog deleted?).

The problem here starts with the nature of the "Adult Content" warning.

Not every blog owner realises that the warning is only advisory. Anybody, no matter their age or religious preference, may (by accident, or intentionally) click on "Agree". Having clicked, they may be subject to a faceful of content which is not in their best interest, or which they do not appreciate.

If a link to your blog appears in the wrong forum discussion, or on the wrong website - either a Bible Belt forum or School Children's website - don't be surprised if your blog continues to get content complaints. And in some cases, we'll see you in the forums.

Why was my blog deleted? I don't spam.

Be sensitive to both the stated, and unstated, policies where you post. If your blog contains controversial material, be very conservative about how and where you advertise. Publish properly targeted posts, with unique content, for the best future of your blog.

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Stats Displays Pageviews - Not Unique Visitors

Too many blog owners do not understand the unique capability of Stats - nor do they understand its limitations.

We see the periodic question in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?.

How do I find out how many actual people are viewing my blog?

Stats does not provide unique visitor counts - Stats provides pageview counts.

It's simply not possible to determine, with 100% certainty, how many different people are viewing your blog.

Consider these environments, where multiple locations, or people, are involved.

• A single person can use multiple computers, simultaneously.
• A single person can use a mobile computer, moving from one cellular connection to another.
• Multiple people can view the same computer, simultaneously.
• Multiple people can share the same computer, serially.
• Multiple people can share the same Internet connection, serially.

There are other visitor meters besides Stats - and some other such products will provide "unique" visitor counts. Each product, which claims to provide "unique" visitor counts, will do so based upon specific limitations and techniques.

One of the most obvious ways to determine unique visitors is by comparing IP addresses. Surely, two pageviews from the same IP address will be one person - and two pageviews from two different IP addresses will be two people, right? Wrong.

• One person can use two computers, simultaneously.
• One person can use a mobile computer, moving between two locations (each location will have a different IP address).
• Two people can use the same computer, at a library or Internet cafe.
• Two people can use the same mobile Internet connection.

In each of these cases, one person may look like two people - or two people can look like one person.

Some visitor logs will drop cookies onto a computer. Detecting a cookie already in place, this indicates one person, returning - and successfully dropping a cookie, indicates a different person, right? Wrong, again.

• Again, a shared computer is a possibility.
• Not all computer owners will permit unknown websites to drop cookies, onto their computers.
• And some owners, when they permit cookies on their computers, will periodically clear cookies.

Some very sophisticated visitor logs can compare demographic details, similar to the Stats Audience display. Besides IP address, what can be determined?

• Operating system, brand, model, and version.
• Browser brand, model, and version.
• Maybe, location (possibly determined by IP address, again).

And finally, some visitor logs will compare IP address, over a given time interval. Arbitrarily deciding that all activity from the same IP address, over a period of 30 minutes, represents a statistical "single person", is a known technique. This is not a legally significant technique, however.

The bottom line is, as I state repeatedly, you simply cannot compare numbers from any two visitor logs or meters, with any degree of usefulness. Each product will have its own way of determining unique visitors - when they even suggest a "unique" visitor count. Stats simply avoids the uncertainty, and only provides pageview counts.

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Visitor Logs Cause Undue Concern, When Visitors Click On Cached Icons

We see periodic concern, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, over apparent visitor access to blog maintenance wizards, using the Quick Edit icons.

I found this entry, in my StatCounter log. How did this person get access to my blog?

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7834826019588534175&postID=890014875501476492&from=pencil

Was my blog hacked?

This may not be a justified reason to panic, however. One may first wish to check that Stats (or whatever visitor log is in use, in this case) is properly configured, to not track your own activity. The link that you see may reflect your activity.

Even if the visitor log entry in question does not appear to reflect your own activity - even when allowing for the vagaries of geo location, you may still do well to remain calm.

Thanks to the unpredictable nature of cache, in your browser, on your computer, or even on your network, the Quick Edit icon which provides you with access to the sensitive wizards, which control the content of your blog, may also be visible to the casual visitor to your blog. Any idly curious visitor may even click on such an icon, when visible.

However, visibility of the icon does not guarantee access to sensitive blog controls. Here's what I saw, when I clicked on the link above.

D'Ohh!!!

Maybe, you'd like to verify that your blog is safe?

1. Extract the URL, from a Quick Edit pencil, on your blog.
2. Save the URL, somewhere safe.
3. Clear cache, cookies, and sessions (yes, clear all 3!).
4. Restart your browser.
5. Load the saved URL.
6. What do you see?

Similar to the problem with phantom visitors reading a private blog, this may not be an issue to concern you. Calm down, and get back to work.

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Use Free Online Website Display Services, To Diagnose Browser Related Problems

Look at the Audience display, in Stats. How many different entries do you see, in "Pageviews by Browser" and "Pageviews by Operating System"? Stats lists are limited to 10 entries, each. Do you ever wonder if those lists, like the other Stats lists, should be longer? How do we ever hope to observe our blogs, and see what they look like, for our many different readers?

One of the challenges of publishing a Blogger blog is developing a blog that looks good, on every reader's browser and computer. The number of combinations of operating system times browser brand times browser version - any of which can create a display oddity, when viewing any blog or website - is staggering.

How can we ever hope to produce a blog that's universally readable? We can always (depending upon the capacity of the computer(s) which we may use) use different browsers, to monitor ongoing issues which might affect our blog's legibility. Knowing the real number of combinations that may affect our readers, will using one or two alternate browsers (on one single operating system) really accomplish much?

One way that we can keep some running idea what our blogs look like, in different browsers, is to use an online browser display analysis service. This is an essential part of verifying proper formatting, as we make changes.

Free online services, like AnyBrowser or BrowserShots, will show you what your blog looks like, by simulating it on different browsers. Their displays, on your browser and your computer are obviously subject to peculiarities of your browser and computer, of course - but their services are a good start.

For in depth research, the W3Schools Online Web Tutorials will identify, in detail, which features are supported, in different browsers.

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Fluctuations In Stats Pageview Counts Are More Obvious, To Owners Of Newer Blogs

Some owners of newer Blogger blogs spend time reading their Stats logs, and worry that their "All time" pageview counts don't always go up - they go down, too.

Why do the counts go down? Is there one number, that I can believe?

They don't understand that with Stats, you need to look for trends - not absolute readings. In the beginning, fluctuations are more obvious, and trends are less obvious.

Thanks to the referer spam war, and to normal visitor activity, even the "All time" numbers will go up and down - for newer blogs, which have less genuine and constant visitor traffic. And the constant rise and fall is scary - until you get used to it.

Newer blogs have less established readers, which makes both the periodic referer spam and normal visitor activity generated spikes more visible. With the 4 limited time ranges (Now, Day, Week, and Month), the spikes will "move" in and out of context - and make pageview counts in these time ranges fluctuate. When a spike in numbers "moves in" to a time range, the pageview counts will rise, suddenly. When a spike "moves out" of a time range, the counts will fall, just as suddenly.

With newer blogs, the fluctuations exert a "double whammy".

1. The fluctuations are more visible, because overall genuine visitor activity is lower. Less readers = less visitor activity.
2. Worrying over the fluctuations takes time away from working on the blog. Less time working on the blog leads to less blog content, attracts less new readers, and leads to less visitor activity.

More experienced blog owners know to use Stats to watch for trends - not immediate numbers.

The answer is simple, really. Monitor Stats periodically - not constantly. Watch for trends, and know how to interpret the trends. Spend more time working on your blog, because that's where the value of your blog lies.

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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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