WordPress has had a few major security updates lately.  Gregg has always handled everything on the site end of this blog, but one of the updates happened while he was traveling home from Afghanistan.  During his most recent (and final) trip home, it took him four days of traveling before he was finally here – and most of those days he had no internet connection.

So, when WordPress updated, it stripped my Stat Counter code.

I’ll explain because until I really got involved in the bloggy world, I had no idea things such as Stat Counter existed.

Stat Counter tracks any hits to my site.   When you come to my site, it makes a record of your IP address and any pages you visited, how long you were on the site, etc.  It kept record of how many individual visitors I had, how many returning visitors, how many new visitors.  I could tell which pages were the most popular, what links you clicked to exit my site, and – if you came from another site – from which site you came.  It’s a pretty comprehensive thing.

I used to watch it intently.  Then I got so much traffic that I really only looked at the total daily and weekly numbers – how many page loads did I have yesterday, for instance.  I would regularly check the “came from” record to see who was linking to my site from where.

Then one morning a few weeks ago, I opened up Stat Counter and it said I’d had two visitors that day.  Over the course of the week, I think it went up to seven.  Obviously, something was broken.

However, as the week went on, and I felt less and less compulsion to check the stats, it occurred to me that they’re meaningless.

This site doesn’t have advertisers, nor are we looking for them.  This blog is not a business.  It is a ministry.  I don’t spend hours a day marketing my blog, increasing my numbers, putting myself out there, finding advertisers, or anything of the sort.  I just want a place to share my God-given talents so that others may benefit, and to spread the glory of God’s love.

Stat counter is extremely helpful to blogs who need to know specific numbers, specific stats.  If I were seeking revenue, I could obtain a report and email it to the company and show them how much benefit that advertising on my blog could bring them.  But what would happen at that point is that I could become worried about my numbers.  Taking a week off during Spring Break broke a momentum I’d been creating and it took me weeks to build it back up.  Having a “Squash Week” recipes bonanza was lots of fun in the height of summer squash harvesting season, but didn’t really bring new readers.

Worrying about numbers breaks my creative flow, makes me second guess ideas and concepts, and keeps me from feeling like I can take miniature breaks if I need to.

So, that broken code was a wonderful blessing in disguise.  Since what this blog is not is a business, then there’s no reason for me to utilize business tools.  Therefore, I’m removing the stat counter code for good and I’ll now be free from worrying about numbers or trying to increase my numbers, and I’ll just keep doing what I feel like God wants me to be doing — when and how I feel like He wants me doing it.

Hallee

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