I completely missed it: a rather momentous occasion in the life of this blog.
The ScienceBlogs.com version of Terra Sigillata just passed the traffic volume of the old site on Wednesday, 20 Sept at 9:14 pm EDT with a visitor from Arlington, MA, USA.
Visitor 13,986 must be a regular reader because they came directly here, not even through the ScienceBlogs frontpage from which I derive almost 20% of my traffic.
So, while it took just over nine months to reach almost 14,000 visitors at the old blog (although I haven't had a new post there since June), we got to 14,000 here in the new digs in just over three months. Thank you to all who continue to read regularly, even with the drift of my topics from my main mission to discuss herbal medicines and dietary supplements in the context of conventional pharmacology.
Still, for some reason, old Terra Sig still has a higher Technorati ranking than the current home, probably still due to the frenzy back in February when 'Terra Sigillata' was a clue for The Daily Telegraph Saturday crossword puzzle, the serendipitous highlight of my first year of blogging.
In fact, a general Google search for Terra Sigillata comes back with the old blog at #1 (which is pretty cool), but the current blog at only #9. Any advice from you young techies is greatly appreciated. However, we were fortunate to be ranked #31 by Nature in their most recent list of the top 50 science blogs written by scientists.
Blogs are funny things. They become journals and educational forums that start with one purpose but, as one grows as a person and writer, you find yourself writing about lots of other stuff. Having a few setbacks this summer with a few unexpected deaths of folks close to me combined with some mid-career angst has taken Terra Sig in some directions I hadn't planned originally.
With my exercising more and trying to lose weight, I've been drinking less wine and the regularity of The Friday Fermentable has suffered. I've also been revisiting my love for music, both listening to and making it, so the science of music has been moving up a bit in our discussions.
But, as always, there is enough blogfodder on natural medicines and prescription drugs to go around. So, I appreciate all of you who have stayed on this journey with me, and especially those of you who have offered advice and words of encouragement and criticism on-line and off.
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Congratulations!
I think Technorati is having some problems updating the rankings of our new blogs, though. I bet your new one is much higher than what your Technorati page shows.
I have carefully avoided knowing how many visitors my blog gets because (1) I don't want to know that it's only 37, of whom 29 are close personal friends of mine, and (2) if there are actually more than 39 visitors, then I might start looking over my shoulder when I'm writing. Or thinking they are looking over my shoulder when I'm writing. Which is very disconcerting, because I already have a cat looking over my shoulder when I'm writing.
This is very awesome, and I am VERY happy for you. And by the way, I think the esteemed Katherine Sharpe's plan is to eventually interview every blessed one of the Sb'ers on Page 3.14. So don't think you'll escape. 'Cause you won't. I'm looking forward to your interview someday!
In order to get this site at the top of google searches, you have to improve the webranking for the words "terra sigillata," by getting bloggers to use anchor text like this: Terra Sigillata. Google reads the anchor text used in the link, in this case "Terra Sigillata" and it improves your overall webranking for the word.