I received the following comment on my blog a couple weeks ago:

“Yeah blogging is really a great way to help people. Great job. I salute you for doing such a great job. ”

The comment felt like it was spam. The post that was commented on was almost a year old and the comment seemed like it was just a way for the commenter to get their link on a blog post on blogging and academic advising.

As most of you know, I am an avid web statistics aficionado. The same day that the spammy comment was submitted (I moderate all new comments) I noticed two inbound referral links from a couple of Google Docs spreadsheets. My concerns that the comment was from a spammer were confirmed. In fact, I had stumbled upon two link spam documents that had been left open for anyone to see. A SEO company known as “Virtual Assistant” (link is to the Better Business Bureau listing…I love the irony!) was waging a concerted link spam campaign and my site had been “selected” for one of their spam comments.

I quickly saved copies of the link spam documents.

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I didn’t monitor my web stats in 2004 (shocker!), but here’s a snapshot of how my little blogging experiment has grown from 2005 to 2008:

It is public knowledge that I am a web stats addict. Web stats are a variable reward system that keep me coming back to check on my referrals, keyword searches, and recent visitor activity. I think Wendy is going to host a web stats intervention soon… Is anyone else hooked on their web stats?

More web stats goodness after the jump.
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iStudentAffairs.com: A social networking site for Student Affairs administrators. 661 people have already signed up. The site runs off of Ning. I’m not sure if I have the life space for another website, but the discussions on iStudentAffairs.com have been interesting.

Technology panel: I’ll be on a panel for Academic Advising + Web 2.0 at the regional NACADA conference in Vancouver in March. I guess I’ll be chiming in on anything to do with accessibility, blogging, wikis, web statistics, podcasting, rss, etc. I’m walking out if someone calls Facebook an “emerging technology.”

Academic Advising Wiki: I have convinced my colleagues that an internal knowledge base a.k.a. a wiki, would be highly beneficial for our office. I demoed an installation of MediaWiki (similar to the Oregon State University wiki) and hope to get it up and running next month. For more information on higher education and wikis, check out these videos on “21 days of Wiki Adoption“:

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My post regarding Wells Fargo Financial’s “stone tablet and chisel” online bill pay technology was picked up by the Consumerist. Several commenters mentioned that they had encountered the same issues as I had when trying to log into their Wells Fargo Financial account. Many commenters suggested using various techniques to spoof the Wells Fargo “netscape-is-required” browser sniffer.

Ironically, my web site statistics showed several inbound visits from Wells Fargo IP addresses using web browsers that may or may not have been compatible with the Wells Fargo Financial online account access.

Well, here is where the power of blogging and user comments is revealed! The online account system is now compatible with Firefox and Safari!!! Hooray!

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My addiction to web site statistics continues unabated…although is has been quite a while since I posted about my site’s web analytics.

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The web site statistics for my presence in bloglandia have increased quite a bit since January 2007. Prior to September 2006 I was primarily blogging at my Oregon State University web account. I transitioned the OSU account over to ericstoller.com in September. Web statistics for September 2006 to January 2007 were fairly consistent: 2,000+ Unique Visits and about 4,000 Page Views.

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A week ago I blogged about Glacéau’s racist voicemail message. Upon publishing the post, which included an audio recording of the voicemail, I received an interesting comment from Lauren.

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How many times have I checked today? It’s like a sickness. Statcounter.com is my home page for FireFox! I check my site statistics to see how many visits I’m getting on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. I have obsessive web statistics disorder. My dashboard in WordPress now has a menu item called “Reports.” The plugin, called WordPress Reports, utilizes my Google Analytics account and pulls information into the admin interface.

I love looking at referrals, recent keyword activity, and page views. I love “optimizing” for search engines. I have OWSD!

Go ahead, admit that you love it too.

Update: I forgot that I also have the “Live” plugin installed which lets me view my website activity in REAL TIME!!!

Update 2: Brownfemipower, Radem, Sage and VeganKid are also stats junkies