Do you check your blog stats?  You know, who found you through what search words, who links to you, which posts are read, what links are followed, whatever.  I try not to do this too often as it can lead to a little craziness.  I mean, it’s just a little blog, not my company’s website or anything.**

Though pretty regularly I pop on over and check my stats.  Twice now (that I’ve seen) this one private, locked blog has sent folks directly to me.  Knowing that there are some bored and crazy (if not downright unstable) mofo’s out there, there’s a part of me that’s dying to know who it might be.  I mean, I don’t really care who they are, I just wonder what they linked to that’s sending people to me directly?  I obviously didn’t leave a comment, you know, since it’s all sorts of private and secret and all that.

But I wonder…do they know me? Am I listed on their blog roll?  Are they linking to a photo or a post that I made?  Did they find it witty or useful?  Are they laughing over my many, many typos?  Will they ever leave a comment in one of my posts?  What could it be???

Does anyone else wonder about this sort of shit?  Is this just par for the course of having a public blog? Or am I they only one seemingly, slightly paranoid (uh, yeah, right) since I’ve seen some crazy shit (and some crazier people) in my past?

Hmmm…I just can’t help but wonder.  Well either way, hello to those secret, private, anonymous readers and visitors to my blog.  Hope this finds you well 😉

UPDATE (8/20/08): After I wrote this post, that particular “secret” blog, that person has yet to return.  And yes, in case you didn’t figure it out, it was actually called “so and so’s secret blog” (hence the reason why I was so interested in the first place).  They must have realized that this post was addressing their specific blog and that it was no longer such a “secret” blog.  Interestingly though, many, many other people have returned to read this particular post – and it’s not like they’re finding it through key word searches.  Seems other people must keep “secret” blogs and think that I’m talking about them…how very odd.  This just assures me that there’s a book in all of this somewhere.

* how great was OMD?  Up until recently, they were actually one of my favorite concerts (then again, it was the 80’s)

** you can’t help but love all the specific data that those analytical site metering programs can tell you – IPs, specific locations and work URLs, keywords on how folks find you, incoming and outgoing links, etc., etc.  Truly fascinating stuff I tell ya.  A great resource and something I always advise my clients to install – especially if you ever need to cross-reference traffic and stats from one site to another.