The Increasing Irrelevance of Hit Counts

The snowman of Everything Hurts is getting a little despondent about the fact that most people seem to be coming to his blog from search engines. That’s no bad thing in of itself – I’ve gained some readers from that source.

However, I think he’s missed the point which many of the commentators on that posts were quick to make: hit counts are increasingly meaningless.

My visits per day swing from single figures to 60+ in a faily unpredicatble fashion. However, I know that many people are reading this blog using aggregators (like NetNewsWire and FeedDemon), using my RSS feed. Other people are reading it in their Livejournal Friends page, by friending this account.

We’re busy inventing new ways to distribute content, and to read it. Old ways of measuring readership are becoming obselete at a fair old rate and that includes measure like hit counters. Reading the One Man & his Blog webpage is just one way of getting my content. I suspect other ways will prliferate in the coming months and year. Bruce Baugh has the right idea. He doesn’t measure hits to his blog, nor does he solict comments on the page. He just writes what he wants, when he wants.

Blog because you enjoy the process. Count ever visitor who swings by as a bonus, not a rationale.