Working with a blog analyzer.

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It is sort of a cold turkey type of thing.  Sure, I've taken some hefty statistics courses.  I've worked with charts, graphs, raw numbers, and such, using algebra through vector calculus, even into differential equations for what that was worth.  :p  Sure.  But the definitions were a bit more simple to access.  Not that they were more clearly defined, that was my homework often.  The information, through reading deeper, the internet, grad students assigned to assist, and the professor, would yield much better understanding.  Then I had to do more homework to put the definitions into functional alignments.  And while google analytics (g.a. henceforth) seems to be a decent program, it is not for the novice.

On the good side, I have figured out that I am being read locally, through several sources.  I had feared all the local hits were my own.  After a bit of digging, and going past just browser and version to a further subcategory of domains, I was finally able to see that only a third of the "Logan" hits are mine.  Or, potentially mine.  That assumes all the local hits from my ISP are mine, which may not be the case.  My ISP is probably the most widely used provider locally.  That is, assuming g.a. is even tracking my hits.  Sometimes it won't.  Right now I just don't know.

My next step is to figure out, exactly, whether g.a. is tracking my visits and how to stop it without stopping the tracking of those people who might also be sharing the same ISP.  Oh, sure, a lot of work.  They simply don't make it easy.  IT tech geek speak seems more a means of keeping novices out than sharing information.  Help sources that don't speak IT Swahili are as rare as hen's teeth, in or out of the system.  I suppose like anything else, eventually some sort of sense is made, after many mistakes.  Well, or the system is crashed, broken from too many errors, and just left to rot or some sort of assistance is sought and found.  Who knows, maybe they have a complete reset to default button?  Bleh.

At least I do know more, I have an idea of how to seek some specific information.  I do realized that I am read.  I still have more questions than answers though.  Including how someone, from anywhere, would visit my site every other day for weeks (since I installed g.a.), but only visit for 0 seconds.  This is part of why I am putting things under the fold.  Beside making the blog load faster for those with slow machines/ISPs, it also renders more information in my budding want to know.

Unlike others, I am not truly interested in growing a community of followers.  It simply doesn't interest me.  And I don't care who stops in, what they say or don't, if a comment once an occasional would be okay too.  Of course, I am still seeing people visit, leave a comment, and not be tracked by g.a. or blogger's standard analysis on blogspot.  How, I ask, is that even possible?  I'll... keep tinkering.  Well, it is something to do!

Update:

Yeah, well, I found instructions, followed them to a 't', in order to eliminate my tracks.  Instead, now locally?  All that shows is MY footprint.  It went from showing 70-80 local visits with four or five ISPs down to 33 visits all from my ISP.  Of course, tracking that further I don't think it is mine.  It only shows about a visit to five visits a day.  The five visits were during the haiku contest.  I was on and off all day and night on that, so it either isn't my accesses or it isn't showing all of my visits.  Gah!  No... Triple Gah!