What I’ve learned after 500,000 page views

Today my HinesSight blog passed the 500,000 page view mark. In celebration of this milestone I’ll reveal what people look for most in my corner of the blogosphere. Can you guess?

Three choices: (1) Cogent political analyses, (2) Profound philosophical insights, (3) Photos of sexy women.

No big surprise here. I should have said: “three choices, and the first two don’t count.”

My “The Tao of Paris Hilton” post accounted for a large share of those half a million page views. After Google Images put several of the photos in that post on the first page of a “Paris Hilton” search I began getting over 10,000 visits a day from Paris fans.

Another popular post, not surprisingly, is my “Most beautiful woman in the world” offering that features Aishwarya Rai. After a link was included on a Pakistani newspaper web site, the post became a forum for passionate debate about which country—such as India or Pakistan—has the most beauteous babes. The comments got so nasty I eventually decided to shut them down.

Other posts with at least a toe in the prurient interest water that attracted quite a bit of attention include “Shocked!—I discover my wife’s late-night Internet lusting,” “Lust and longing at the dog park,” and the innocuously titled “The clouds speak to me” (the Sky Goddess photo spoke to lots of Google Images searchers).

Every blogger wants gobs of visitors. The question becomes: to what extent are you willing to sell your blogging soul in return for page views? Do you write about high-minded important subjects that, by and large, generate a “yawn” from Internet surfers? Or do you give people what they want?

These are important questions that deserve my careful consideration. Which I’ll get to after I post a few photos.

Comments

[Robert Howard]

Dear Brian,
For some starving people, even pictures of food are pursued - even though they cannot alleviate the hunger. I am reminded somehow of some of Howard Bloom's theses in his book, The Lucifer Principle. Neither the world - nor ourselves - are usually "given" as we (most) might wish. Your second cousin (once removed) may be deliriously happy in her life. It's hard to know/judge. Robert Howard

[Randy]

I often question typepad about the count. When it's really high I go back and count the individual entries and sometimes it's off by a factor of 4 or 5. They never give me an answer as to why this is. Today it's 146 total but in actuality no more than 40.

[Brian]

Oh, great. Now you tell me, Randy. I've never counted up the day's list of entries. You might well be right. In which case my 500,000 celebration is premature. Well, who cares? I've already had my half-million party--in my own blogging mind, where it counts.