It is lonely at the top of Technorati

OK, or not. But I did get some posts at the top of Technorati, for the tag 'gafyd' (Google Apps For Your Domain). Look:

Cool, huh? Sad though. My new blog is over a thousand rankings below my old one. Hopefully that will change soon...

OK, I officially love Blogger!

A long time ago, I had a blog with Blogger. It used to be here: http://ajaxtech.blogspot.com/, but I deleted it. It has since been chosen by a blogger.

I was frustrated with the lack of cool and classy template designs, and with the horrible blog editor. In fact, I many times had lost posts through it. I heard Wordpress.com was pretty nice, so I checked it out; thus was born http://ioannusdeverani.wordpress.com. Over a long period of time, I began to get more and more hits every day, so that after a while I was at about 50-60 per day. There were some big days, like April Fools, where I got 384 hits in a day because of my post, Google Drive Beta Invites. Ever since then, my old blog has been averaging about a hundred hits per day. I have had a good experience with Wordpress.com.

I decided to switch to Blogger, so I could have advertisements, and make a small amount of money. I was excited about the Google integration, and the new features, like tagging, draggable layouts, and other cool things.

I took me a really long time to find a template I liked; I tried to use a custom one, but it wasn't really working out for me. I eventually chose the one I have now and added my signature header-image. Since, I have found several reasons why I think Blogger is better than Wordpress.com.

Why is Blogger better than Wordpress.com?

1. Blogger allows javascript and flash widgets in the sidebar. My favourites are:
1. Google Reader Shared Items
2. Twitter status flash badge
2. Blogger allows the complete editing of the template, whereas Wordpress.com only allows editing of CSS (and you have to pay to get that functionality)
3. Blogger has an easier tagging interface
4. Blogger is integrated with your Google Account
5. Blogger allows advertisement!!!!!
6. The Blogger interface is faster
7. Blogger's archive browser on your sidebar is dynamic
8. Blogger allows mapping to a custom domain, for free (it costs money in Wordpress.com)

There is only one thing that I can think of that I like better in Wordpress.com, and that is easy statistics. With Blogger, you have to use a third party service, like Statcounter, or Google Analytics.

So, thank you Blogger! And readers, please tell your friends about my blog; I am trying to build up a good reader base for my new site (I am afraid I have lost a lot of people in the move...).

Google Analytics: The Perfect Statistics Thingummy

Because Blogger doesn't include a really great stat-counter like Wordpress does, I am trying out Google Analytics.

I love it! It lets me see how many page views I get, as opposed to how many visits I get, it shows me how many recurring visits I get, shows me my referrers, and coolest of all, shows me whence, geographically, people are visiting my site. Here is a screenie:

I am getting hits from Portland, OR; Mountain View, CA (Google!!!); LA, CA; Pella, Iowa; Stockholm, Sweden; Brooklyn, NY; Montpellier, MD; Tirana, Albania; and Hyderabad, India. Swell, huh?

Google Analytics will also show me which links on my site are getting clicked on.