Some of you may know I started selling hats on Etsy last winter during "Snowpocalypse" or "Snowmaggeddon" or whatever the heck you want to call it... it was a hobby and has been quite fun. Mostly I've enjoyed the unintentional side effect of really getting a feel for 'small business' policies and that has given me more work experience to apply to my 'real' job than the Census Bureau really did. Sad, isn't it?
I'm a bit of an Internet stalker... given my stats background, I'm always curious who visits my sites (yes, you Blogger reader... I am tracking you! But don't worry, as long as you're not here to post lame Chinese spam comments, you and I can be friends forever). I have a few programs that lets me know how many visits I get daily, etc. Now, with Etsy, I'm lucky if I get, oh, 8 people a day. Usually it's 1 or 2. On days that I post cute adorable pictures of friends' babies, I can get up to oh, 20 on a REALLY good day.
So yesterday I went on (I usually check like once a week), and when I clicked on my home page, it was telling me that I suddenly had 167 visitors in one day, and 122 the next. I was flummoxed. What? Huh? Was the program glitching? Were there Google server issues? Was Etsy down? Was Etsy's server malfunctioning? (you can tell what my profession is...) The problem is, Google Analytics, as cool as it seems, is not really that user friendly. After many minutes of clicking around, I was finally able to ascertain that the bulk of those visits originated from... Russia.
NOW I was confused. Russia? Eh? Were the Russian spies who were arrested in Arlington a few months ago only the tip of the iceberg and they were really everywhere, infiltrating the entire northern Virginia area and specifically targeting my Etsy site? Were the Chinese spammers who have mercilessly attacked my blog recently teaming up with Russian spammers and determined to bring my Internet activities down? I didn't know Russia had a stake in Internet spamming. When I told Matt, he said "well, it's cold over there... maybe they all want your hats?"
Anyway, today I went back to dig deeper and finally, FINALLY, found the source of all the hubbub: Klub Osinski. Mafia digs? Drug cartel? No... apparently an online forum for... hobby knitters and crocheters. And apparently there are a LOT of hobby knitters and crocheters in Russia. I mean I guess it is true... it IS cold over there.
3 comments:
Just to let you know, my kids LOVE the hats you made for them. They wear them around everyday, even though it's like 110 degrees here.
They are such wimps about cold, though. They would probably freeze to death if I showed them pictures of Russia.
I confess, I have a map on the bottom of my blog so I can see where different people are coming from, and I always secretly hope there'll be some from another country. It usually happens when I post about a trip I took to some exotic place, and that's about it.
i have hidden stat counters too. since i stopped blogging with "user words" i don't get hits. if you want people to come through maybe try tayloring the wording of your blog?
but i totally want to buy a hat. problem? i have a big head.
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