Open Thread – 9/9/2010

 Posted by at 2:05 am  Monthly Report, Open Thread
Sep 092010
 

Yesterday I fell further behind, because I co-facilitate a therapy group for former prisoners, so I have two of comments needing replies and visits needing to be returned.  I’ll get on that today.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:10.  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football:

Tonight is the first game of the regular season.  Players, check your line-ups.

From Politico: Spending by conservative third-party organizations surged in August, as Republican-aligned groups plunged millions of dollars into key Senate races, potentially neutralizing the strong financial advantage Democrats have enjoyed this campaign season.

Republicans have no shortage of corporate campaign cash.  They’re just end-running it around Michael Steele.

From Right Wing Watch: In February, four Religious Right activists in Michigan – Levon Yuille, Rene Ouellette, James Combs, and Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan – represented by the Thomas More Law Center filed suit against Attorney General Eric Holder over the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, claiming that protection for gays "creates a special class of persons who are ‘more equal than others’ based on nothing more than deviant, sexual behavior."

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington dismissed the suit.

A win for our LGBT friends. 🙂

From Crooks and Liars: Why to vote.

People who do not vote deserve Republican government.

Cartoon: from Cagle.com

9matson

Opening night is a high holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb!

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Monthly Report for August 2010

 Posted by at 2:18 am  Blog News, Monthly Report
Sep 022010
 

Our sixth full month since we moved from Blogger was another good one, with improvements in every category, except new visitors.  Bandwidth is also down a bit, because I changed the way I embed some of the pictures.

Here are our basic stats:

Visits-views

Here is our most recent Clustrmap.  It’s unchanged, because the site has not updated the map since August 1.

clustermap

Our durations are up a bit from 240 seconds last month:

Number of visits: 20066 – Average: 282 s

Number of visits

Percent

0s-30s

15502

77.2 %

30s-2mn

964

4.8 %

2mn-5mn

903

4.5 %

5mn-15mn

960

4.7 %

15mn-30mn

480

2.3 %

30mn-1h

641

3.1 %

1h+

616

3 %

T

That’s a good sign.

Search engine responses are still good.

14 different referring search engines

Pages

Percent

Hits

Percent

Google

1094

54.4 %

1946

62.2 %

Stumbleupon (Social Bookmark)

822

40.8 %

1038

33.2 %

Yahoo!

43

2.1 %

43

1.3 %

Bing

13

0.6 %

13

0.4 %

Digg (Social Bookmark)

11

0.5 %

14

0.4 %

Google (Images)

9

0.4 %

12

0.3 %

AOL

7

0.3 %

7

0.2 %

Windows Live

3

0.1 %

45

1.4 %

Unknown search engines

2

0 %

2

0 %

Ask

2

0 %

2

0 %

MSN Search

1

0 %

1

0 %

Dogpile

1

0 %

1

0 %

Baidu

1

0 %

1

0 %

Yandex

1

0 %

1

0 %

Our top non-blog referrer is BuzzFlash with over 3,000 referrals.

Our top 15 referrers (blogs) are:

http://jbm479.blogspot.com/

http://www.timsscaredstiff.com/

http://www.roseanneworld.com/blog/

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/

http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/

http://carolinaparrothead.blogspot.com/

http://annette-justmylittlepieceoftheworld.blogspot.com/

http://america-weeps.blogspot.com/

http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/

http://www.worldwidehippies.com/

http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/

http://reconstitution.us/rcnew/

http://www.jackjodell.blogspot.com/

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

There’s some linkey-love.  The best ways you can publicize Politics Plus is to use the share button at the bottom of each post to list our articles on the the sites where you belong, and to quote PP articles on your own blogs.  The operative commandment here is “thou shalt steal.”  We’re on the same side here.  Even if you want to repost a whole article, that’s OK.  Just link back, please.

Technorati increased our global Technorati Authority from 494 to 497.  Our topical Technorati Authority (US Politics) is 603. So globally we’re at the top of the B-list, and topically, we’re A-list.  The more recognition we get, the more effect we can have toward ending the right-wing insanity.

We have 47,131 links on other websites, up from 45,301 last month.

We have 1,345 posts and 9,909 comments, as of midnight 9/1.

If you are tired of our wacky avatars and would like your own avatar, go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use.  Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that will be your avatar.

I’m still very happy with our progress, and thank you for it.  This success belongs to all of us.  Several people have told me that a main factor that brings them back is the quality of the replies to the messages.

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Monthly Report for June 2010

 Posted by at 2:56 am  Monthly Report
Jul 022010
 

Our fourth full month since we moved from Blogger was excellent.  Politics Plus skyrocketed in June.

Here are our basic stats:

stats6-10

Note that in June we exceeded our performance in March, April and May combined.  That is not likely to happen again, because one article went viral.  We had over 26,000 visitors and over 56,000 page views that day.

Here is our most recent Clustrmap.

map6-10

Our durations are down a bit:

Number of visits: 47579 – Average: 116 s

Number of visits

Percent

0s-30s

42892

90.1 %

30s-2mn

1346

2.8 %

2mn-5mn

803

1.6 %

5mn-15mn

985

2 %

15mn-30mn

457

0.9 %

30mn-1h

587

1.2 %

1h+

509

1 %

That’s expected, with so many more visits.

Search engine responses continue to rise.

17 different referring search engines

Pages

Percent

Hits

Percent

Stumbleupon (Social Bookmark)

4048

75.7 %

5191

78.7 %

Google

1142

21.3 %

1245

18.8 %

Bing

50

0.9 %

50

0.7 %

Yahoo!

48

0.8 %

48

0.7 %

AOL

24

0.4 %

24

0.3 %

Unknown search engines

16

0.2 %

16

0.2 %

Dogpile

3

0 %

3

0 %

Google (Images)

3

0 %

3

0 %

Ask

3

0 %

3

0 %

Earth Link

2

0 %

2

0 %

InfoSpace

2

0 %

2

0 %

MyWebSearch

2

0 %

2

0 %

Scroogle

1

0 %

1

0 %

Excite

1

0 %

1

0 %

AltaVista

1

0 %

1

0 %

Yandex

1

0 %

1

0 %

Windows Live

 

 

1

0 %
Our top 15 referrers (blogs) are:

http://www.reddit.com/
http://www.timsscaredstiff.com/
http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/
http://theleftinme.blogspot.com/
http://annette-justmylittlepieceoftheworld.blogspot.com/
http://america-weeps.blogspot.com/
http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/
http://carolinaparrothead.blogspot.com/
http://www.worldwidehippies.com/
http://jackjodell.blogspot.com/
http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/
http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/
http://disaffectedanditfeelssogood.blogspot.com/
http://infidel753.blogspot.com/
http://reconstitution.us/rcnew/
http://stimpsonwrites.blogspot.com/

While Reddit is not a blog, I included an extra link for them as they are our overall top referrer.

One of the best ways you can publicize Politics Plus is to use the share button at the bottom of each post to list our articles on the the sites where you belong.

After all this time Technorati finally rated us with a Technorati Authority of 141.  That means we have 141 links in the last six months from blogs that are registered with and recognized by Technorati.  Thus we are officially a High Authority blog and on the B-list.  Since so many blogs have never registered with them, and since it takes up to a year after that to be recognized, we have more blog links than that.  But keep using our material.  The motto here is Thou shalt steal.  Even if you want to embed an occasional whole article, that’s OK.  I just ask that you include a link to the original  here.  It’s not an ego thing.  The more recognition we get, the more effect we can have toward ending the right-wing insanity.

We have 26,564 links on other websites, up from 6,567 last month.

We have 1,126 posts and 7,990 comments, as of midnight 7/1.

If you are tired of our funky avatars and would like your own avatar, go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use.  Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that will be your avatar.

I’m even more stunned than I was last month by the speed of the takeoff, and thankful.

Finally, I’d like to remind you, once again, why I use the term ‘we’ when I am the only author.  It is your participation in the comments that makes this blog more attractive that I could on my own.  It is you referring to this blog in your articles and posting our articles on other sites that bring people that stay.  Politics Plus has never been about just me.  It’s about us all.  And this fantastic month is equally your fault. 🙂

Off topic: there are a couple of excellent articles today down below.  Please stay and check them out.

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Monthly Report for May 2010

 Posted by at 3:34 am  Monthly Report
Jun 022010
 

Our third full month since we moved from Blogger was excellent.  Politics Plus took off in May.

Here are our basic stats:

stats05

Note that in May we exceeded our performance in March and April combined.  I gav up on Facebook and started publicizing the site on Reddit, Stumbleupon, and Twitter.  If you use these sites, please share our articles that you consider worthy there, and elsewhere.  The ‘share’ button at the bottom of each article makes it easy.  The only thing that disappointed me about May is that our biggest response came from the articles about an Arab American winning Miss USA.  Isn’t it sad that a bikini draws more interest than the fate of our nation?

Here is our most recent Clustrmap.

map05

We have people coming here from all over the world.

Our durations are down a bit:

Number of visits: 12619 – Average: 216 s

Number of visits

Percent

0s-30s

10142

80.3 %

30s-2mn

676

5.3 %

2mn-5mn

484

3.8 %

5mn-15mn

521

4.1 %

15mn-30mn

233

1.8 %

30mn-1h

252

1.9 %

1h+

311

2.4 %

That’s expected, with so many more visits.

Search engine responses are taking off.

Links from an Internet Search Engine

 

                                                                               Pages                Hits

– Stumbleupon (Social Bookmark)

2543

3406

– Google

646

653

– Yahoo!

54

60

– Google (Images)

14

14

– Sphere (Blog)

8

8

– Unknown search engines

6

6

– Ask

4

4

– Bing

2

2

– AOL

2

2

– Windows Live

2

2

– Earth Link

1

1

– Dogpile

1

1

– Baidu

1

1

– Yandex

1

1

Our top 15 referrers (blogs) are:

http://scaredstiff-tim.blogspot.com/

http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/

http://america-weeps.blogspot.com/

http://annette-justmylittlepieceoftheworld.blogspot.com/

http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/

http://carolinaparrothead.blogspot.com/

http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

http://jackjodell.blogspot.com/

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

http://theleftinme.blogspot.com/

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/

http://reconstitution.us/rcnew/

http://revmanny.wordpress.com/

http://thebeekeepersapprentice.com/

We had other referrers (like Reddit) from which we had a greater response, but I decided to include blogs only, because this stat is about saying thanks and returning some linkage.

We have 6,567 links on other websites, up from 3,867 last month.

We have 1,011 posts and 7,043 comments.

If you are tired of our funky avatars and would like your own avatar, go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use.  Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that will be your avatar.

Frankly, I’m stunned by the speed of the takeoff, and thankful.

Finally, I’d like to remind you why I use the term ‘we’ when I am the only author.  It is your participation in the comments that makes this blog more attractive that I could on my own.  It is you referring to this blog in your articles that bring people that stay.  Politics Plus has never been about just me.  It’s about us all.  Thank you for your support.

P.S.  See today’s Open Thread to sign up for Lefty Bloggers and Friends fantasy football league. 😀

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Monthly Report – 3/1/2010

 Posted by at 4:38 am  Blog News, Monthly Report
Mar 012010
 

Politics Plus returned to the Internet on September 5, 2009 as a brand new blog.  Our first six months show an excellent  increase in activity after a great start..  As of Midnight we have had 39,836 visitors.  Last month, we had 6,224 visitors, down 2,186 from January, a decrease of 26.0%.  We also have had of 48,139 page views.  Last month we had 7,570 page views, down 2,564 from January, a decrease of  23.3%.  This averages to 222/270 visits/views per day, down 49/57 from January.  I’m a bit disappointed.  In addition to being a shorter month, the decrease in traffic is largely because of me.  My month was so busy that I lacked the time to reply to comments and return visits.  I always did, but not in a timely manner.  I’ll do better.  Here’s a graph of February visits and views.

vvmJ310

Here’s a graph of visits and views since we reopened. at the old site.

vvyJ310

Here’s a graph of how long people are staying while they’re here.  It covers only the last five hundred visitors.

vl310

And here is our most recent ClustrMap, last updated 2/20, showing our readers from all over the world:

clustrmap02202010

Our new Clustrmap starts from scratch.

Our 34,000th through 39,000th visitors, respectively, were Jolly Roger, Ivan, Tom Harper, Bee, Teeluck and Sky Girl.  You’ll find a special section in our sidebar honoring them and linking to their blogs.

Our Technorati authority is zero.  We’re brand new.  After six months they never did update us at blogger.  Maybe they will here.  To verify that we exist Technorati needs a verification code in a blog post, so here it is.

BR7RPBSKA8BS

I expect a huge hit in the stats department in March, because we moved.  We were a solid blog.  Now were just another new blog.  Google hasn’t even crawled us yet, so our articles don’t show up in search engines.  This is all OK.  Just as we built the second reincarnation of Politics Plus, so we shall build the third. 

So please keep linking the articles you like here to your blogs, facebook pages, stumble upon pages, etc.  When you see material you like here, the operative commandment is: “Thou shalt steal!!”  Please do link back though.  Hat-tips are much appreciated.

I use the terms “we” and “our” while referring to Politics Plus. Since this is a one-person blog.  I assure you, I’m not doing so in the royal sense.  The we in Politics Plus includes all of you. Without your presence and comments, this blog would be pointless.  Newcomers repeatedly praise the quality of the comments here.  Whatever success this blog does and will enjoy is because of you, so please congratulate yourself.

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Monthly Report – 2/1/2010

 Posted by at 3:07 am  Blog News, Monthly Report
Feb 012010
 

Politics Plus returned to the Internet on September 5, 2009 as a brand new blog.  Our first five months show an excellent  increase in activity after a great start..  As of Midnight we have had 33, 612 visitors.  Last month, we had 8,410 visitors, up 1,180 from December, an increase of 14.7%.  We also has 10, 134 page views, up 1,476 from December, an increase of  17.0%.  This averages to 271/327 visits/views per day, up 35/48 from December.  I’m most pleased.  After the normal December slowdown we’re forging ahead much faster than I had imagined.  Here’s a graph of February visits and views.

vvm Here’s a graph of visits and views since we reopened.

vvt Here’s a graph of how long people are staying while they’re here.  It covers only the last five hundred visitors.

vl And here is our most recent ClustrMap, last updated 1/17, showing our readers from all over the world:

cmap1-10 Our 26,000th through 33,000th visitors, respectively, were Lisa G, Kay in Maine, Mark, Hillblogger, Stimpson, Jolly Roger, Hill and Mark.  You’ll find a special section in our sidebar honoring them and linking to their blogs.
We still have a Technorati Authority of 1, which means they have not updated us since the day they recognized our existence.  I applied five months ago.  How frustrating!  Although I have emailed them on several occasions, the only response I received is a automatically generated email saying that they will get to us whenever they get to us.  Someday (sigh).  According to Google Webmaster Tools, there are currently 5,065  external links to Politics Plus.  There are 169 external links to just our top five articles in January.   I think we are well within the B list range for popularity, but since that term is unique to Technorati, so to have that recognition, we’ll just have to wait for them to get off their imperial arses.  So please keep linking the articles you like here to your blogs, facebook pages, stumble upon pages, etc.  When you see material you like here, the operative commandment is: “Thou shalt steal!!”  Please do link back though.  Hat-tips are much appreciated.
I use the terms “we” and “our” while referring to Politics Plus. Since this is a one-person blog.  I assure you, I’m not doing so in the royal sense.  The we in Politics Plus includes all of you. Without your presence and comments, this blog would be pointless.  Newcomers repeatedly praise the quality of the comments here.  Whatever success this blog does and will enjoy is because of you, so please congratulate yourself.  Thank you all for another fantastic month.

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Monthly Report – 12/1/2009

 Posted by at 12:15 pm  Blog News, Monthly Report
Dec 012009
 

Politics Plus returned to the Internet on September 5 as a brand new blog.  Our first three months show a steady increase in activity after a great start..  As of Midnight we have had 17,872 visitors.  Last month, we had 7,212 visitors, up 651 from October, an increase of 10%.  We also has 8,632 page views, up 617 from October, an increase of  8%.  This averages to 240/288 visits/views per day, up 28/19 from October.  I’m quite pleased.  After an amazing start in September and a surge ahead in October, we made steady progress.  Here’s a graph of visits and views.

vv 

Here’s a graph of how long people are staying while they’re here.  It covers only the last five hundred visitors.

 length11-09

And here is our most recent ClustrMap, showing our readers from all over the world:

 ClustrMap11-09

Our 11,000th through 17,000th visitors, respectively, were RJ, Josie, Ivan, Sue, Mark, Reality Zone and Punky Penny.  You’ll find a special section in our sidebar honoring them and linking to their blogs.

Technorati is not being kind to us.  We still have a Technorati Authority of 1, which means they do not see the hundreds of links we have.  Although I ping their server with every post, they have not updated us since the day they recognized we exist.  I guess fixing that will have to be my next project.  We need Authority of 100 to be on the B list again.  So please keep linking the articles you like here to your facebook pages, stumble upon pages, etc.  When you see material you like here, the operative commandment is: “Thou shalt steal!!”  Please do link back though.  Hat-tips are much appreciated.

I use the terms “we” and “our” while referring to Politics Plus, since this is a one-person blog.  I assure you, I’m not doing so in the royal sense.  My Kingship ends with my kitty box.  The we in Politics Plus includes you.  Without your readership and comments, this blog would be pointless.  Whatever success this blog does and will enjoy is because of you, so please congratulate yourself.  Thank you all for another fantastic month.

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Monthly Report – October 2009

 Posted by at 2:30 am  Blog News, Monthly Report
Nov 012009
 

Politics Plus returned to the Internet on September 5 as a brand new blog.  I felt quite happy about our initial month, and October was even better.  As of Midnight we have had 10,660 visitors.  Last month, we had 6,561 visitors, up 2,519 from September, an increase of 62%.  We also has 8,015 page views, up 2,898 from September, an increase of  57%.  This averages to 212/259 visits/views per day, up 77/88 from September.  I’m thrilled.  After an amazing start in September, we surged ahead last month.  Here’s a graph of visits and views.

vv1009

Unfortunately, far too many of our visits were “pit stops”, but I hope that will change.  Here’s a graph breaking down the last 500 visitors only.

length1009 

And here is our most recent ClustrMap, showing our readers from all over the world:

politicsplus1009

Our 5,000th through 10,000th visitors, respectively, were Nunly, Gwen, Buckdog, Jack Jodell, Jack Jodell, and Mad Mike.  You’ll find a special section in our sidebar honoring them and linking to their blogs.

This morning we received a wonderful gift from Technorati.  They finally recognized that we exist.  We have a Technorati Authority of 1.  So we could not have a lower ranking, but that will change.  We need 100 to be on the B list again.  So please keep linking the articles you like here to your facebook pages, stumble upon pages, etc.  When you see material you like here, the operative commandment is: “Thou shalt steal!!”  Please do link back though.  Hat-tips are much appreciated.

I use the terms “we” and “our” while referring to Politics Plus, since this is a one-person blog.  I assure you, I’m not doing so in the regal sense.  The we in Politics Plus includes you.  Without your readership and comments, this blog would be pointless.  Whatever success this blog does and will enjoy is because of you, so please congratulate yourself.  Thank you all for a great month.

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