Amazing interest

When you have a blog such as this, whether it be hosted by WordPress, BlogSpot, or any similar provider, there are administrator pages where you can look at all sorts of statistics regarding your blog.  WordPress, the host of this blog for instance, has pages that tell me what kind of traffic it has each day – how many people view the blog, and which particular posts are being looked at.

I usually check that out every couple days or so, just to see which posts are generating interest at any particular time.  But what has constantly amazed me is that day in and day out, there are two posts on this blog that get looked at about a dozen times each day (they’re usually getting the most traffic other than new posts) and they are being seen by folks doing searches for these particular topics.

The two posts I’m talking about are the ones I put up on Horse Hooves and Myths (from Aug. 1, 2007), and The McClellan Saddle (from May 30, 2007).  And I didn’t even write these particular pieces – my buddy (and co-author of the new book by Eric and I) Mike Nugent wrote them.  As I mentioned, these posts are being viewed many times each day because folks are doing web searches for information about the placement of horse hooves on equestrian statues, and the Mac saddle.

This tells me that the legend about hooves and the “hidden meaning” behind them on statues is getting a lot of airplay these days – whether from folks’ visits to such statues, or perhaps what they’re being told by tour guides, I don’t know.  But there’s been a lot of discussion about the topic for some time.  Check out various Civil War and historical chat boards and forums, and you will run across a discussion of hoof placement on statues from time to time.  And there have been lots of interest in the Mac saddle for years… I seem to get at least a half a dozen emails looking for information on it each year, which I pass on to Mike.

Anyway, I find the interest in these two topics quite amazing.  Time and again, whenever I check which posts on this blog are getting the most traffic, besides new posts it’s always these two, and the hits are coming directly from internet search pages such as Google, Dogpile, etc.  Mike did a great job with those particular topics, and they sure do get a lot of looks.