BLESSED ARE THE SEARCH ENGINES (March 22, 2012)

In spite of my occasional annoyance with Google Analytics, I succumb to my curiosity from time to time (“Google Analytics Be Damned,” March 6, 2012). Now that I have not been writing my letters to the editor of The Economist for nearly three months, the basic statistics of my Residua website have changed tremendously. To wit, direct visits have dropped to some thirty percent of the total, referring sites have fallen to about five percent, and the remaining sixty-five percent come from search engines. More than ever before, search engines are squarely on my side (“Search Engines are Working for Me,” February 19, 2011; “Search Engines Be Praised,” November 26, 2011). The best part of this development is that all my writings are thus open to potential readers. Although search engines favor recent postings, just like all other visitors, the date matters ever less. Whatever can be found on the World Wide Web will eventually be discovered by a patient reader equipped with a search engine. As my site boast of more than two-million words, the target is enormous by comparison with other blogs, as well as continually growing. Blessed are the search engines, indeed. And ever more blessed, at that. The mother of all blogs is not a mindless boast (“The Mother of All Blogs,” February 13, 2008). Not at all.