I guess it is time to tell you everything that you probably did not want to know about this blog once again.
The last post about the Mormon prophecies to establish a theocracy in America has been up for about a week now. In that week there were about 1300 views to the homepage and it would have been the first post article that anyone saw. About 300 in that week viewed that post directly from a search or a link. Of those 1600 views about one dozen people – less than one percent – actually clicked on the link and read any part of the article that I discussed. It really makes me wonder why I even bother to link to supporting articles if people with the attention span of a gnat will never take the time to view them?
I guess one could claim that this post subject was not of interest to many but this one percent rule is true of any article I put up. The only exception seems to be articles that predict the future. Maybe bloggers should give it up and just tweet in 50 words or less. Now you know why Twitter is so popular. What intellectual depth electronic communications has brought to this postmodern post-moronic nation! Is it any wonder why people now talk in sound bites and pastors rip verses out of context?
The views to this Blog are still very gradually increasing. They now average about 700 views a day. About a third of those each day go to the homepage and it contains the last ten posts. Any of the posts read from the homepage will not be counted as views in my sidebar top 100. Since so many posts are read from the homepage it kind of makes it difficult for any new posts to even get into the top 66 unless it becomes a popular Google search. Finding just the right keywords for the title and the content for that to happen on any post is a very elusive task. But, the top 66 are really there for another reason other than to show the number of views. It is there as a directory of some of the best posts on this blog.
The blog will now load faster. To make the blog load faster I cut down the number of posts in the homepage from 15 to 10. (I really should cut it to five but since nobody clicks on links they probably would never go beyond the homepage and they would miss some of the posts, so I guess I will keep it at 10.) I also now compress all the data on my website and have a cache plug-in on the blog. I also eliminated one of the anti-spam plug-in’s that seemed to be slowing things down. I have now done everything I can do to make the blog load faster. If I took any further significant action to make it load faster it would degrade the information on the blog. YSlow software now gives it a “B” so I guess that will have to B good enough.
You might think 700 views a day is pretty good but I do not. My main website excluding the blog gets 4000 views. Just the top twenty articles on my website gets as many hits a day as my entire blog but the blog has five times as many articles. Sure, many of the downloads on the website are really robots but from the emails I get they might have more reading comprehension and reasoning ability than some humans.
I killed my old Demented Delusional or Dumb Blog this weekend. There were a few posts that had comments on them or were still getting a few hits so I imported all those into this Blog.
As of this writing there are about 1300 hundred posts on this Blog and almost 5000 comments. My earlier blog posts were not search engine optimized so I plan to go through all my posts and search optimize all of them. That will take about 5 to 10 minutes for each post so do the math. I guess it will take months to get it all done. As I do this I also plan to eliminate some posts that are no longer relevant.
My long term goal is to keep only about 1000 search engine optimized relevant posts on this blog.
Another goal is to get the daily read count up to 1000 a day by the end of the year. If that cannot be achieved I will really have to evaluate if the time adding to this Blog is worth the time and effort that is involved.
I don’t fit into the 1%. While I do not read this for “entertainment”, I do have other priorities (job searching, skill building, etc.) as most other people do. It’s not an attention span issue, but sometimes long-winded passages are easier when skimmed since there are only 24 hours per day. This is a comment, not a criticism. I am unique in the all the world and am exactly where God wants me to be.
I believe God loves everyone that reads these words.
I skim myself but not even one percent clicked on the link and viewed the article. So how could they have skimmed this article or any article when they never viewed it?
Now you know why many bloggers just copy and paste whole articles and put them on their own website in violation of copyright laws and Internet protocol without even asking permission from the author. It is because they know that people do not follow links.
It’s hard; I wish I had more prayer-life time as well; I’m still going through your Revelation book, but that I have been purposefully going real slow and methodical – I don’t want to miss anything if I can help it;
I pretty much check your main page every day and look for new blog entries or occasionally check back on existing blog entries to read the comments threads;
To me, this is important stuff; However, I did, on your nudging, go back and read the Mormon link; As for my attention span — ack… sorry… it’s hard; I was thinking about this the other day when I was walking my dog (which I have to do a lot, but that’s another forum); When I play music, I tend to make it up (improvise) in “real time” or I get bored;
Hang in there Don; If even one person gets saved, then it was all worth it;
Yeah, the article was a long read but it sure had some good stuff. When you think that millions hang on the words of Glen Beck and would vote for Mitt Romney one might think that a few would be curious about the Mormon dominionist prophecies that could drive these people or at least make Mormons believe that their prophecies are soon to be fulfilled.
I think people are just lazy readers. If this link was to an Audio or a Video I am sure it would get much more play.
Your posts encourage me, Don. I look forward to your posts
I have this blog on my favorites and I give your web address to as many as will listen. I truly am encouraged by your hard work and diligence. I will continue to get the word out and hopefully your daily “hits” will increase. Thank you, Don, from the bottom of my heart. Truly, God bless you.
Hey, Bro.,,I think you are doing a great job, and am probably in the 99%,,sorry:-) But, I do have a tendency to go back and catch up with information, also; just not every time. The links you are describing are invaluable to this process, and you have my thanks for including them. I may visit your posts several times to re-read and absorb the information that you have provided, which includes going to the linked page to get that info, depending on what Holy Spirit has me working/studying on at the time..So, again,,Thanks!!! And keep up the excellent work. May the Lord Bless you and Keep you, and may He Cause His Face to Shine upon you and Grant you Peace, may His Angels Watch over you to Keep you safe from harm, and may He Anoint you to perform whatever He has Placed before you on each day, In Jesus’ Name, Amen!!
I use this blog as much as I can to witness to my brother; He is to the right, but he just won’t commit to Jesus, although I sure try my best to use prophecy; He gets the message, but just won’t “pull the trigger”; My brother is a big Glenn Beck fan, but not entirely; My brother is much more prepared than I for “survival” but he has no “hope” like those who have invited Jesus in to their hearts – and he knows this; Very frustrating, actually;
Hi Don, I read your blog weekly. Generally about 4-5x per week to see what new info you have. If I see a title with content I have never seen/read…then I read all of it. I love new content and news from a christian perspective that puts context into things. I see you do that. Also you add context into prophecy topics that take into consideration the whole world not just the USA. For me I don’t like to read articles anymore that hype the rapture as going to happen tomorrow kinda perspective. All too many times in the past when I see articles like that I tended to take them to heart and then 20 years later we are still waiting for the rapture! Keep posting good news items from a biblical perspective. Its rare these days to get solid doctrine.
“It really makes me wonder why I even bother to link to supporting articles if people with the attention span of a gnat will never take the time to view them?”
I know exactly what you mean. I recently got a new stat tracker that shows me more than I ever wanted to know and was shocked to learn this terrible fact. But we keep on, for the few that do – and because we are obsessed with blogging. 🙂
“Now you know why many bloggers just copy and paste whole articles and put them on their own website in violation of copyright laws and Internet protocol without even asking permission from the author.”
How did you know? I did that this morning. It was an article I couldn’t find the original link to anyways, so I thought; ‘Why not? If I don’t post it, who on earth will ever see it?’ Was I bad?
Hi Carla,
I would rather be on vacation myself but somebody has to do it.
Yeah, stat trackers are an eye opener. I do not know who I am talking to on this Blog sometimes but on my website I know it is mostly robots.
Was you bad for copying an article? The problem is that Google and other search bots read everything and compare everything to everything in their indexes for duplicate content. Google, the ISP, and the author might think you are bad especially if you do not give the author a link.
I know sometimes that is almost impossible to do and even when you do, links often die. Life on the internet is full of hazards. I really do not know how sites that mainly re-posting articles from other sites retain their rankings, but come to think of it I seldom do see their re-posted articles on any Goggle keyword search for long even through their websites might be high ranked.
Hi Don,
I visit pretty regularly too, but there are times, seasons even, when I cannot.
Please keep up the good work and do it as much as He leads!
Abba, please make this clear to Don, showing him where and how You want him to minister!
Don-
Thanks for the link with the story on Mormonism. I am a daily listener to the Glen Beck Program and appreciate much of his program but his “faith” has always troubled me. I have wondered often how he can swallow teachings like Jesus and Satan are brothers, God the father is flesh and bones and Joseph Smith has supplanted Christ as the Mediator between God and Man.
I know the Holy Spirit must illuminate a person’s heart to truly understand scripture but much of what Mormonism believes so clearly contradicts what is written in the Bible I’m surprised by his association with this group.
I mean, how can a seemingly bright, articulate guy who often uses sarcasm and irony to put across his points, buy that stuff?
For now, I will continue listen to his program; I think much of the information is good and used in the right context, helpful.
But I can’t help but wonder about his ultimate motives…especially after reading the link you provided.
Chris Williams
York County,PA
P.S. I will also pray that the Holy Spirit opens his eyes and that he receives Christ as Savior.
I encourage people to listen to Glen Beck and others that are trying to wake up and educate a deceived and apathetic American population. I just would not want to see any Mormon as President of this nation because of the required allegiance to the church in Mormonism and its deceptive Eschatology.
I also do not think Beck or Romney have any personal motives to fulfill the Mormon prophecies but if the nation continues destroying its Constitution and the Far Right elects a Mormon to save the country from self destruction. You can also be sure that the Mormon Church will use the person in power and the Mormon prophecies to their advantage.
There are bright, articulate intelligent people in every religion and movement on earth. What is spiritually discerned does not come through the flesh and that is why there is no intellectual road to salvation. Salvation comes to only those who hear God and then believe what He said and did.
I really hope you keep this great blog going. It is filling a real need in my opinion.
Don,
If you even think of discontinuing this blog, me and some of the great people who contribute to this blog will hunt you down and glue you to your computer terminal.
While I’m on this, I want to thank so many of you who contribute to this blog. It has done so much for me to know that I’m not alone in my thinking as well as our mutual love for our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s enlightening to read your comments and I look forward to meeting every one of you in Heaven.
And Don, you have done a great thing here. Your wisdom, knowledge, and understanding is phenomenal.
Thanks David, anything I get in the way of wisdom,and understanding comes from the Lord so I cannot take credit for any of that. Even knowledge is only possible because I have a God given brain, have access to data and was blessed with a early retirement that allows me the time to do the required work. None of this would be possible if I actually had to make a living. So the good parts of this blog is all of God’s doing. What is off the mark you can blame on my ample fallibility.
This blog now exceeds the goal that I mentioned in the post and I have put too much work into this blog to quit now. However, all things must end someday. Either I will get shut down or I will croak and then if you glue me to my computer terminal you will get nothing out of me but a big stink.