Gotogle Grift?

I've dealt with this issue before. As readers of this blog can see, I don't see it as a money making effort ...  i.e., no ads. However, I'm not sure that all of  Blogspot's (owned by Google) algorithms realize this.

Why do I say this? Well because about ever week or so this blog gets a bonus of  a batch of obviously bot-produced hits ... usually adding 100 to 500 more hits to my normal count of 100 to 150 hits per day ... note the spikes in the above Blogspot tracking chart of this week's Fletcher's Castoria blog activity. (One would wonder why this bot doesn't spread these ersatz hits out over a number of hours instead of all at once ... not very A.I.!)

The other question is ... shy does Google give this blog all these gratis hits? Well, I can guess. I suspect that Google bot doesn't note that I have no ads on this blog. Yes, if I had ads here I would be earning more money ... but so would Google. I can understand why hundreds of other blogsters don't complain about such a royalty windfall. But I also think that advertisers on Google may not be aware that they are paying for phantom eyeball hits to t any blog that holds their paid-for messages.

My Mirror

A blog I used to link to, but which went dormant for a while, has reawakened recently ... and its latest posting contains an oblique criticism of, I suspect, this blog ... which makes some good points. Holding a mirror up to oneself isn't always flattering, but is required to keep from losing track of one's reality. Anyway, here is what this blogger (a friend), I think, thinks of Fletcher's Castoria:

These days most of the blogs out there are just lists of new recipes, old religious declarations, timely political and philosophical screeds, tedious pompous punditry, shocking scurrilous salation, asymmetrical acrimonious alliteration, and bellicose bilious blow-hardery.  

No one reads blogs anymore.  The novelty is gone, except for wonks and choir members who need a daily fix of the same worn-out preaching.  Real people don't have time for words anymore.  Just post a picture, dude.  Give me a headline.  Boil it down to a quote.

I try my best ... See: The Other Side of the Hill for the rest of the story.

What’s in a Name?

When I started this blog I grabbed the name Fletcher’s Castoria for no reason other than I used to enjoy this elixir as a child. Although it was a laxative, it tasted so good (root beer flavor … see: Fletcher's Laxative) that I sometimes feigned constipation just to get a spoon full. When I chose this name, I actually thought that this product no longer existed since I hadn’t seen it in drug stores for quite a few years. I was wrong. It is still available through the Mentholatum Company (acquired by Rohto Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd in Japan). You can search on-line for it.

Apparently others also enjoyed this medication as a child. There is one New Yorker who seems so obsessed with it that he/she has gone around New York City scouting out old Fletcher’s signs on the side of buildings (see: Forgotten New York). Although this may seem over-the-top, I fully expect that, many years hence, someone equally fanatical will dig into Google’s archives to retrieve my entries from this blog site … well after I am taking a dirt nap (kind of like how Emily Dickinson knew her poetry would be read after she passed.) Then again, maybe not …

Number of Hits

Thank you, blogger audience!  In the month of January Fletche's Castoria received 1668 hits.  I think this is called "going parabolic."  That is over three times the number of hits that this blog received in December (see chart above ... click to enlarge.)  The average was over 55 hits per day and there was even a five day period where this blog received over 100 hits each day.  And these hits were from around the world: the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Sweden, France, Poland, China, Latvia, Slovenia, India and many, many others  And Google just started publishing these stats in July of this year.  Before that, who knows? Although Fletcher's Castoria is not nearly yet as popular as Powerline or Daily Kos or The Huffington Post or Michelle Maklin, it's a good start.  Thanks again!

George W. Potts
Massachusetts, USA

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