Three months ago, I launched je parle américain in its current form: an online diary of my life as an American expatriate in France. Since then, I’ve published 47 posts, of which 27 are what I’d call substantial pieces. (The rest were short observations or posts sharing videos or photos.) I’ve written about everything from my immigration woes to how to make good pancakes at home, from how I met the love of my life to the history of “not” in French. To mark the “quarter-birthday” of je parle américain, here are a few interesting observations gleaned from the blog’s stash of stats, as well as links to my top ten posts by traffic and by commentary. Oh, and don’t stop reading before the end, because I’ve included a catalog of the top ten strangest search strings that have brought Internet surfers to my blog.
The Stats
My busiest month was July, with 881 views. (But September is on target to surpass that—the current daily view average for September is 40. If I keep that up, I’ll have 1,200 views this month.)
My busiest single day was June 20, with 120 views. That’s not surprising, I suppose, since it was the day after the launch. Other high-traffic days (those with more than 50 views) were:
- August 9 (the day after my infamous Urine, Chicken Bones, and Loudmouths post), with 89 views
- September 9 (the day je parle américain started trying to make friends on Facebook), with 72 views
- September 10 and September 11 (the day I published The Pain of the Country and the day after), with 70 views each
- September 13 (the day I published You Don’t Say!), with 69 views
- Yesterday (the day I published A Walk in the Woods), with 61 views
The Top Posts
My most popular posts (not counting administrative pages like the home page and “about me”) have been:
- Sugarplum Cake Shop, with 251 views (having a link on their website doesn’t hurt)
- What do you mean, I can’t work for myself?, with 108 views
- Urine, Chicken Bones, and Loudmouths, with 79 views
- A French Pastry Primer, with 68 views
- American in Paris arrested for assaulting a man wearing a pink kilt, led away screaming “Hello Kitty is not a clan!”, with 67 views
- A Bittersweet Exile, with 65 views
- “C’est Washington!”, with 63 views
- “shrimp outbreak?!”, with 54 views
- The Saturation Point … or Drunk Bees, with 51 views
- Feeling insulted, bad burgers, and good ice cream: a Parisian Fourth of July, with 50 views
- The Saturation Point … or Drunk Bees
- In Search of a Pancake
- You are Number 0117 … and Congratulations, you’re married in America!
- Feeling insulted, bad burgers, and good ice cream: a Parisian Fourth of July
- A Bittersweet Exile
- La Valse d’Amélie
- The Patience of a Butterfly
- Happy Bastille Day?
- You are Number 1189
- What do you mean, I can’t work for myself?
The Strangest Search Strings
And now, the (sometimes) crazy things people have put into their search engines that have led them to je parle américain:
- the religious in america (This must have led them to this post, but I guess maybe they were searching for something about Michele Bachmann or Pat Robertson.)
- beautiful uk flag (I have no idea where this led.)
- what is a americain socialism (Possibly this directed someone here; I’m assuming this because of the comments to the post.)
- geraniums on a balcony in paris (Clearly, they were directed here. Pretty picture, huh?)
- nun’s butter icing (As funny as the search sounds, it certainly directed someone to this post.)
- peeing group latrine (This definitely went here, though I’m not sure it’s what they were actually searching for.)
- be a man (Um … here?)
- is there a pink kilt clan (Okay, now that one definitely went here.)
- slow drunk bee (Clearly they went here, but you have to wonder why anyone would be searching for a slow, drunk bee.)
- american in paris gay or escort (Okay, so I’m assuming they were directed here, but I’m definitely not sure if they found what they were looking for! I’d wager that they didn’t.)
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