A while ago, in February to be precise, I wrote a post entitled “Sex, Porn and Britney Spears“, at the end of which I wondered “whether an article titled and tagged as this one is, especially when these terms appear in tempting conjunction with “European Parliament”, gets any bump in traffic?”. Well, since we’ve been in the mood for number crunching I went and checked.

Thanks for the traffic, Britney

And the answer is: since records began (as they say) “Sex, Porn and Britney Spears” is our “most read” page on this blog – homepage excepted – by a street. The page has been viewed over 3000 times, which is roughly six times the number of the next most popular page, the Team, and over seven times the score for the next real post. What’s more, it maintains a constant flow of readers, so, yes, some search terms are, well, timeless.

People are looking for sex and go away the moment they realise they’re not getting it

It amuses me to imagine the disappointment of hopeful teenage internauts* who find themselves confronted with my earnest musings on search engine optimisation. Actually, I don’t have to imagine; I can see the disappointment in the 94.95% “bounce rate” on this page, and the average 1.34 minutes people spend there (so, actually, some-one must be reading it!).

What do we conclude? Well, the obvious I suppose: people are looking for sex and go away the moment they realise they’re not getting it. (You didn’t need me to tell you that, perhaps?) Oh yes, and that if you want your comments section spammed by a world-full of internet sleazeballs, just publish a post entitled “Sex, Porn and Britney Spears”. Now I know why Tibo looked heavenwards when he saw what I’d done. But he found a good spam filter, so all’s well that ends well, right?

Anyway, what about our real top posts? Here are the top five “real posts” on our blog so far in 2009 (in reverse order, of course):

no. 5

“Moderation in all things“. My own best scorer (without cheating), with some thoughts about moderation v. censorship on Parliament’s website.

no. 4

“New technologies: keeping up without being killed in the attempt“. A “guest blogger” piece, this, by Jaume, a.k.a. The Director, about how to deal with unruly WebCom subordinates. A recent publication, so probably has the legs to move up the rankings.

no. 3

“The importance of being normal” by Manja. This one involves Manja meeting her friend and normal person, Ola-dele Kuku, and getting a bit of real-world perspective on what we call Europe.

no. 2

Are people looking for love as well as sex?

“P.S: I love you“. Eirini talks about meeting real people at the 2009 Open Day. (Actually, honesty dictates that I reveal that this one has a highish bounce rate too – are people looking for love as well as sex?)

no. 1

“Europe is nothing but a big bad wolf“. Eirini again, this time priming her readers for the European elections. Well done, Eirini! A few more people reading our blog and we might even have got turnout to go up…

And finally, quality…

Since we are believers in quality, not only quantity, a “special mention” here also for the post with the longest average time spent by readers reading it. This goes to Tibo, for a post (alternatively cri de coeur) called “Living in a world of meetings“. It’s good, so why not go and read it, but be sure to spend at least 4 minutes 42 seconds doing so, so you don’t depress his record-winning online stamina.

So there you have it. Totally scientific and statistically rigorous, of course. By the way, do you think I got enough dodgy search terms into this article to make the top five?

*****

PS The Irish said “Yes” to Lisbon today. Should I have blogged about that? Never mind, the EP reaction is on Parliament’s website (on a Saturday!!!), thanks to our friends in the press service. Besides, blogwise, there’s always our soon-to-be new friend Julien Frisch to do the heavy lifting (looking forward to meeting you, Julien). I keep checking for the inevitable post.

PPS and * English language readers may have enjoyed a great new word: “internaut”. Yes, the French have this great neologism for internet users. I has always amused me. Just thought I’d share that.

Another memorable snippet of internet insight which stuck in my mind a while back from an “Online PR” course I did (yes, training works at least to that extent), was that: “On the internet, there is a God, and he is called Google.” Disconcertingly, however, it would seem that we are dealing with a divinity pandering to the basest impulses of mortals. (Note: I discover that this Google/God notion seems actually to be taken quite seriously in some quarters)

No-one knows what Google’s “algorithm” is. It is a Mystery worthy of medieval theology, beyond human understanding. Ours as mere mortals indeed not to understand, but merely to please the divine whim.

To push the metaphor a bit further, how do we mortals (web-users) demonstrate our devotion? Search engine optimisation, of course. We turn to the internet gurus (you see? religious imagery abounds in this area) to seek enlightenment: how do I please Google so people will come to my site? And before I move on from the religious metaphor, of which the reader is doubtless tiring, I cannot but note one nice little point: the Mystery. As the gurus invariably point out, not without a geekily admiring frisson, no-one knows what Google’s “algorithm” is. It is a Mystery worthy of medieval theology, beyond human understanding. Ours as mere mortals indeed not to understand, but merely to please the divine whim.

Which is, as I say, disconcerting, given that this deity seems to have a predilection for sex, porn and Britney Spears.

“God vs Google’s trademark lawyers” Flickr by zimpenfish

Where do we fit in all this? Simply that my mind has turned to the question of how it is that people end up looking at a site, ours specifically. According to our figures for the new elections website, just over half of the visits to the site are via direct links, just over 30% come from referring sites, with the rest coming from search engines, a.k.a., for practical purposes, Google. This blog, with much lower traffic, sees about 60% direct visits, 37% referrals and just under 4% from search engines. It goes without saying that in both cases we need a dose of search engine optimisation.

Or does it? A new breed of gurus are telling us that it’s not about scattershot supplication on the big bad internet, but about networking, interlinking (which itself helps with Google, of course) and the “quality” traffic of participants in the Great Conversation. Others still – shall we call them Wise Men, will tell you that all that hocus-pocus is all very well, but what really matters is Content. If it’s good, they’ll find you, and when they find you – neglected point this – they may also read you.

Your regular web-editor Everyman, undersigned, can only see as through a glass, darkly. As ever, I suspect that all are right, from tricksters to sages.

Meanwhile, I am just curious to see whether an article titled and tagged as this one is, especially when these terms appear in tempting conjunction with “European Parliament”, gets any bump in traffic.