September 18, 2007
Place your bets, folks!
Remember last month when the fidel castro is dead rumors thing happened? If you'll recall, the climax of the rumors occured on a Friday. What you may not know is that the "rumors" began before then. From the previous weekend I was already receiving a few cryptic emails as well as a few phones calls from folks that dont ordinarily call me asking if Id heard anything. "Rumors," is all that I could answer as that is all I belived them to be at the time.
Another indicator that there was a buzz coming was the blog's refferer log. The Google and other search engine hits to the site stared trickling in around that Monday. For every 20 or so visits, there would be 3 or 4 that were coming in after searchging for "fidel castro dead" or "fidel castro death" or a similar parameter. On that Tuesday, it was 7 or 8 per every 20. Wednesday had it split 50-50 and by Friday, almost every inbound site hit from a search engine was from a person seeking information on the death of fidel castro.
Starting yesterday and continuing today, there's been a very slight increase in incoming hits to this site searching for the castro is dead thing. It's up to maybe 1 or 2 per every 20 hits, but, if the previous rumor thing is any indication, it will probably increase as the week progresses.
And, since transparency is the name of the game in the blogworld, I want you all to be able to gauge it, should what Ive just written be correct. On the sidebar, way at the bottom is my Sitemeter. If you click that little box it will take you to this - the summary page. On the summary page sidebar, where it says "recent visitors" there's a "by referrer" link. Click that and it takes you here, to page one of the most recent entries to the blog and how they got here. At the bottom of that list you can check the next four pages - or up to the total of the last 100 people that entered the blog.
Obviously, if the blog is averaging about 200 people per hour, then those lists change frequently. And in the time that it's taken me to write this post, ala Murphy's Law, I havent seen any new fidel castro is dead search entries. Still, I have a feeling the number will increase. Let's keep an eye on it.
Posted by Val Prieto at September 18, 2007 11:18 AM
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Comments
A lot of searches for caja chinas...pork the other white meat.
Posted by: Gusano ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 18, 2007 12:44 PM
Gusano,
yes. I can always tell when some TV Food show has aired an episode featuring La Caja China. I get barraged with searches.
Posted by: Val Prieto at September 18, 2007 12:45 PM
Val, very interesting indeed. But then, I know he is already dead and have been celebrating his death every Friday. It just makes me feel good when I raise my glass and say "Ding, Dong, the wicked dictator is dead and his brother is soon to follow." I have a nice bottle of Sterling chilling for Friday.
Posted by: ORGULLOSADESERCUBANA at September 18, 2007 12:57 PM
Indeed, he's already dead. I was able to catch a wiff of his rotting corpse hidden beneath the Consejo de Estado, from all the way down at the Malecon. Que peste!
Posted by: CubaWatch at September 18, 2007 01:19 PM
Val,
I run the same site meter as you do and have noticed many castro dead searches in the past with a spike tripling traffic on Friday August 24.
I just checked my last 100 visitors and only 1 for castro dead search so nothing yet from my end.
Also, FYI, for like $89 per year, you can upgrade the site meter and you will get another link like referrers but it will break out the search words.
You also get other links with more detailed stats.
Posted by: havanajournal at September 18, 2007 01:55 PM
Rob,
My webhost has an excellent control panel with the ability to view every site stat imaginable. I use the Sitemeter for more basic stats. Do me a favor, check you stats for "cimeq" and let me know what you find.
Posted by: Val Prieto at September 18, 2007 02:03 PM
I don't see any searches for that. We don't show up in search results for that anyway and no internal searches for it.
If anything, I'd have to say we are uncharacteristically light on Castro and political related searches at this time today.
Posted by: havanajournal at September 18, 2007 02:21 PM
Thanks for this Val. It will be an interesting this to note in the next couple of days.
Posted by: Angel Rodriguez at September 18, 2007 08:20 PM
castro may be dead? I haven't heard anything about this. Is he sick or something?
Posted by: Claudia at September 18, 2007 09:28 PM
Claudia, castro is indeed sick. And he's not feeling well, either.
:-)
Posted by: castrodeathwatch at September 18, 2007 09:35 PM
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