Statistics for Your Blog?

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I noticed the map you have marking  where people who read your blog are from. It made me wonder how many people visit your blog. Because it is about hermits or being a hermit I wouldn't think you get a lot of visits, so let me ask you. How many readers do you have, can you tell that? Also, are they really from all over the world?]]

Interesting question. It goes hand in hand with a comment I was asked by a friend a few weeks ago. She mused that she wished what I was writing could be seen by more people. At the time I guessed the average of daily visits I received to be around 50-60 persons, and that was surprising to her. Here are the more detailed average daily stats for this week (Wednesday to Wednesday), however. Remember this is only a snapshot of one week in time: Pages viewed/day: 146; unique visits (all visitors per day): 107; 1st time visitors: 73; returning visitors/day: 34.

Of course, these statistics pale in comparison to sites that get hundreds or thousands of readers per day, but given its relatively specialized nature, an average of 107 visitors per day or thereabouts is not disappointing to me, especially when there are a number of other persons (I think @40-45) who have posts delivered via email who need not visit the site at all for this. More important to me, however, than these kinds of numbers, is the evidence I receive from dioceses (including from Rome and/or from Vatican City) that this blog is helpful to those with responsibility for c 603 vocations. Such visits might only occur once or twice during a period of months -- if that; they aren't measured by the statistics noted above (though it is always a bit of a shock when the flag of the Vatican shows up on the list of readers for some reason). Even so, they are gratifying and are part of the reason I established and continue the blog. Yes, the visitors I get every day are from all over the world.