Xatal » Site Related http://xatal.com Bringing you safely through high school and into college Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:20:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Returning: Upcoming changes http://xatal.com/site/upcoming-changes/ http://xatal.com/site/upcoming-changes/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:20:36 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2282 So I realize it’s been a while since this blog was active. However, I’m not dead and I don’t want this blog to be either. In the upcoming couple of weeks (or months?), I’ll be working on revamping this blog before returning to writing.

Some things to look forward to:

  1. A new domain name: One that is much easier to pronounce and actually suggests what this blog is about.
  2. A new layout: While this layout has been fine, I’m currently trying to design a new layout that will be a bit more modern and elegant.
  3. Updated content: Some of the old posts need to be revised with more current information (or even just improved based on my own experiences).

And, once all this is done, I’ll resume writing new content.

I can’t give much of a timeframe for all of this, but look for it to be done around the end of summer/early fall.

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/upcoming-changes/feed/ 0 Taking a break. http://xatal.com/site/taking-a-break/ http://xatal.com/site/taking-a-break/#comments Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:59:23 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2278 Due to a multitude of events in my life, I’m going to be taking a break from writing new posts for a while.

I’ll still be replying to comments, and if anyone asks me a question I may write a post to answer them,  but aside from that, I’m going to take a break from Xatal for a bit. It could be a week or a few months.

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/taking-a-break/feed/ 38 Statistics for February 2010 http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-february-2010/ http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-february-2010/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:04:19 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2271

  • Once again, funny Google searches leads the way with about 25% of visits and about 21% of search traffic. This is pretty cool, and I just realized that that post is the top search result for those words. Awesome!
  • A good 8% of traffic has gone to college dorm necessities. I’m a bit surprised that people are looking for dorm supplies in February — maybe students are transferring?
  • Search engines gave me 83% of my traffic. StumbleUpon provided about one thousand hits, but really this isn’t that much and referring sites haven’t been a big part of Xatal for a while.
  • Xatal had its second guest post this month. Guest posts are awesome, and if you would like to write one, go ahead and contact me!

All in all February was another pretty average month here.

Now for a poll!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-february-2010/feed/ 19 Statistics for January 2010 http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-january-2010/ http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-january-2010/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:39:16 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2244

  • Search engines provided a whopping 82% of traffic this month.
  • A solid 20% of these searches were for funny Google searches. For how many people search for it, I’m surprised that post hasn’t been Stumbled or something. The other big keywords were the usual, “college dorm checklist” and “fantastic contraption solutions”. I can see that we’re getting close to prom season because more people are searching for how to ask a girl to prom.
  • Google Searches were similarly the most popular post, bringing in about 25% of traffic.
  • With about 21,000 visits in all, January brought the most traffic I’ve seen since October, which is pretty good considering I haven’t written much.
  • There’s still that interesting pattern of traffic dropping every Saturday. I guess there is a lot of truth to the idea: “sell something on eBay Sunday night.”

And, how about a new poll?

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-january-2010/feed/ 2 Statistics for 2009 http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-2009/ http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-2009/#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:47:01 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2208 Seeing as it’s not just the end of a month, it’s the end of a year (and a decade, for that matter), I’m going to take a post to show how things went in 2009:

  • Search engines provided 126,886 hits this year — 51% of total traffic. Referring sites provided about 41%.
  • StumbleUpon was by far the biggest referrer, with 84,000 hits giving about 84% of referring site traffic.
  • The most searched-for keyword was “funny google searches”, with 11,000 visits. The post that those terms refer to has only been around for half the year, so you can get an idea how much more on top it could be. 3 of the top 5 involve college dorm necessities, and the last is about Fantastic Contraption solutions.
  • The five top posts of this year, based on hits: The Top 35 Web Design Galleries (47,600 hits, 14.96% of traffic), 108 College Dorm Necessities (34,600 hits, 10.9%), Freeing up Hard Drive Space in Vista (24,400 hits, 7.7%), Funny Google Searches (20,600 hits, 6.5%), and 50 Fantastic Contraption Solutions (15,900 hits, 5%)
  • 90% of visitors are new, and about 86% leave after loading one page (which is common with blogs).
  • In the beginning part of the year, referral traffic built the most of my views, but as the year goes on, you can see search traffic bring more stable traffic.
  • February was my best month, but the traffic wasn’t consistent. Things picked up in the summer, and have been a bit more consistent since then.

And how about December?

December overall wasn’t a great month, but then again I barely posted so my hopes weren’t too high. Nothing too amazing happened, though I did notice an interesting pattern where traffic dropped sharply every Saturday.

New poll!

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-2009/feed/ 6 Statistics for November 2009 http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-november-2009/ http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-november-2009/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:11:25 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2158 Xatal-traffic-for-November-2009Highlights of November 2009:
  • November was a pretty steady month overall — there were no especially large bursts or slumps, just a pretty typical level of fluctuation.
  • November did about as well as October. I received about 100 less hits in November, which isn’t a significant amount at all — plus November has one less day than October!
  • By far the most popular post of the month was about funny Google searches, raking in 21% of my total traffic, as well as 22% of my traffic from search engines alone. The next biggest post was about reasons why long distance relationships fail, which brought in about 2,000 hits.
  • A whopping 72% of my traffic came from search engines this month. While I do enjoy the periodic StumbleUpon bursts, I’m grateful that I have a reliable and constant source of traffic from search engines.

Since 2009′s almost over, how about we see how the year went for everyone with a new poll?

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-november-2009/feed/ 10 I’m bringing back WP-SpamFree http://xatal.com/site/im-bringing-back-wp-spamfree/ http://xatal.com/site/im-bringing-back-wp-spamfree/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:10:26 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2131 I’ve been getting progressively more spam comments lately, and I think it’s time I reactive WP-SpamFree, a WordPress plugin that helps cut back on spam. I used it earlier, but I heard that a couple of comments from legitimate readers were labeled as spam by it.

However I’m going to try again and see if things work out a bit better this time. If you find that your comments are being labeled as spam or blocked, kindly use the Contact page to inform me so that I can disable the plugin if necessary.

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/im-bringing-back-wp-spamfree/feed/ 7 Statistics for October 2009 http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-october-2009/ http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-october-2009/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:56:56 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2074 october-traffic

Highlights of October 2009:

  • October’s traffic was slightly lower than last month’s, but with over 20,000 hits, that’s still not that bad — definitely one of my better months.
  • For the first time in a while, college dorm necessities weren’t the top post this month — in fact, they weren’t even on the top five! This month’s winner is about funny Google Suggest results, with about 4,000 hits.
  • A good 60% of my traffic was from search engines this month. Without any huge StumbleUpon bursts (aside from those two bumps you see early in October), search engines becomes my main source of traffic.
  • I’ve been pretty bad about posting lately, though I’m working on getting back into a regular schedule.
  • I also took out the post rating — while it’s cool, it hasn’t really provided much interesting feedback.

And, now that we’re nearing that wonderful time of the year, how about you tell me what your favorite holiday is?

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-october-2009/feed/ 4 Statistics for September 2009 http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-september-2009/ http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-september-2009/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:00:22 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=2045 Whoops! I completely missed October 1st as the day to make my stats post.

september-2009-traffic

Highlights of September 2009:

  • September didn’t bring in quite as much traffic as last month, but as my fourth best month ever with about 26,000 hits, I’m not complaining.
  • The most popular post was about dorm necessities once again (though not by as much of a landslide as last month), bringing in about 16% of all hits across a variety of sources, with the two biggest being Google and StumbleUpon.
  • 50 College Tips and funny Google searches were also rather popular, bringing in a good amount of traffic as well through StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon has been a constant source of traffic, far more than any other social media site.
  • Most of my traffic comes from search engines — about 53% of it. For the first time in a while, my most-searched post isn’t about dorm supplies, but about Google searches.
  • I’m now 20

Although I’ve had a harder time committing to a stable posting schedule in the last week or two due to being back at college, I’m still here, and I’m still going to post.

And how about a new poll?

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]]> http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-september-2009/feed/ 10 Statistics for August 2009 http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-august-2009/ http://xatal.com/site/statistics-for-august-2009/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:58:15 +0000 Paul http://xatal.com/?p=1993 August-2009-traffic

Highlights of August 2009:

  • By far, the post of the month was 108 College Dorm Necessities. This post single-handedly brought in 14,000 views this month — about half of my overall traffic.
  • Those little bumps you see in traffic are days where StumbleUpon contributed a lot. The college dorm necessities were stumbled a bit, but my post about 50 college tips also got some buzz as well.
  • This was my second best month overall yet, which is great motivation. I received about 3 times as much traffic as I did in June, where a long decline in traffic ended. Most of this traffic was also from search engines, so it’s not like StumbleUpon held my hand for all of it.
  • This is the first month I’ve made any significant money from Google Adsense. I’ve been using Adsense for about six months now, and while I’ve made some money, it hasn’t been much. August brought in $55 in earnings, which is both unexpected and cool. Buying textbooks won’t be as painful this quarter :)
  • Even though this has been a great month for Xatal, I do know that the next few months will probably not continue these trends, since school’s already started.

Aaaand it’s time for a new poll!

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