Happy anniversary to meeeeeeee…

There we go! Two years of Cats ‘n Stuff. And they said we would never make it… At least, that’s what I said in the very first post. Shows you how much I know. The most traffic I get on this site it because of all the posts I did on Invisible Stuff  ‘n Cats. Because I thought it was too easy to keep doing that, and because the lovely peeps over at Cheezburger deal with this much better than me, I will never make a post like that again.

However, it is certainly now below me to follow up my second most-visited post: Life-like stuffed Maine Coon cats. I made that one because the website Stuffed Ark sold some real stinkers, and they continue to do so. Also, until this last sentence, I always thought that the website was called Stuffe Dark. Again, shows you how much I know and how my malfunctioning brain works. I mean, Stuffe Dark, really? I guess it’s an honest mistake, because these ugly stuffed cats really haunt the dark depths of my subconscience. Ok, ready for some ‘Stuffe Dark’ cats?

LOLgraphs, thanks ICHC!

Ok, so a dream has come true. My love of stats is obvious by now, and the lovely people of I Can Has Cheezburger like them too! They launched a site called GraphJam: Pop culture for people in cubicles. Now, I don’t work in a cubicle, but the knowledge that there are people who love kittehs and stats and who have humour makes my day.

Par example:

Original post found here. Check it out!

 Even more nerdy favourites of me:

This should be a daily thing

Ladies and gentleman, the Search Term of the day is lovely in all it’s ridiculousness. If you can handle it, then…

Some more lovely search terms

As I posted before, I like statistics and finding out how people find my blog. Today I found some real gems in the Search Term overview:

– books that you have to stare at to see
Instead of the ones you can see immediately?

– ginger cats more intelligent
Are they? If Arie is any indication I’m sorry to say that I highly doubt it.

– flying penguins live where
On the planet orbiting the star Are You Sirius?!

– lizard love
Hey, whatever floats your boat man.

– real invisible car
It’s ok sweety, just go with the men in the white coats. They’ll take good care of you.

Soon, Welsh kitties. Real soon!

A year in numbers

Yes! I never thought I would do it, but Cats ‘n stuff has now officially been in existence for one year. The posts are still fun to write and the cats keep coming, so another year shouldn’t be a problem.

So, what exactly happened with this blog the past year? Have people actually read it, apart from friends and family that are so kind to check in every now and then? Why, yes, some people actually do! My favourite moment was when someone actually emailed me to say that she recognized her cat on my blog. I would love for that to happen more often, but once a year is already pretty cool.

I would not be me if there weren’t some facts and numbers to review the past year, so if you have the attention span of a three year old: there are some pictures on the bottom of this post. One even moves!

First of all, how many visitors did I get? From January 29, 2007 to now, exactly a year later, WordPress has counted 10.650 visitors in total, an average of 29 visitors a day.

Are they unique? Probably not. Do friends and family account for most of these views. Why sure, but I’m still pretty proud! These numbers weren’t spread out evenly throughout the year though. When I count by month (excluding January 2007), the stat count looks like this:

February 2007: 172
March 2007: 303
April 2007: 247
May 2007: 319
June 2007: 115
July 2007: 927
August 2007: 1667
September 2007: 1341
October 2007: 773
November 2007: 1827
December 2007: 1596
January 2008: 1354

See that spike in July? That is the month the first Invisible stuff ‘n cats post really took off. That post attracted the most surfers and lurkers, 2763 in total. Strangely enough, all the other five posts in the Invisible series have not even gotten that number of visitors combined. So the prize for top post goes to the first Invisible stuff ‘n cats post. So nice to know that probably a third of the views this blog gets comes material I didn’t even make up myself. It challenges ones creativity.

So how many posts did I make in total, and what is the average? Well, the number of posts I made in a year (including this one) is:

January 2007: 2
February 2007: 12
March 2007: 5
April 2007: 5
May 2007: 6
June 2007: 3
July 2007: 9
August 2007: 9
September 2007: 8
October 2007: 5
November 2007: 3
December 2007: 2
January 2008: 4

That’s an average of 6 posts a month, but my oh my, I crashed at the end of 2007. I hope to be a bit more consistent this year. Hey, at least the start of 2008 wasn’t bad.

Well, those are the cold hard facts. I would really like to do a sort of top ten list, but I’m too tired to bother at the moment. I’m just going to post some pictures that I really like and maybe do a top something later on. My favs are:

That’s that for now, I’ll close this official first year with an animated GIF. What sums the glorious nature of the internet better than a poorly constructed “film”. Enjoy! Onto the next year!

Stats rule part 2: they can be puzzling

Ok, as I posted a while back, I love statistics and little quaint facts. Well, I was in for a real treat just now when I was checking how people end up on my puny blog. I looked at the search engine terms people used, and I found the usual “invisible cats”, “cats invisible everything”, “tortoiseshell cats”. Fine and dandy, these people should feel happy to find this site and all the cats pictures and links. One person however must have been sorely disappointed, for he or she was looking for “guys putting stuff in their butts images”. I must say, for someone looking for quite graphic, hardcore images, the word “butt” seems relatively well-mannered…

Stats rule!

I am a huge number and statistics geek. Whenever I see stats I get the great urge to keep looking at them. For instance, when I’m downloading something I keep staring at the time that is left before the download is complete, and the speed in Kb/sec. A bit creepy actually now I think about it.

Because of this little, shall we say, quirk, I also check how people end up on this blog. Believe you me, not a lot of people make it here, but when you look for “show litter as a adjective” on AOL, you end up here. Amazing… I really wonder what this person was looking for and what he or she thought when they came across this blog. I am sure a post about a blind cat in Rome wasn’t on the agenda, but hey, I would be happy with a find like that!