Dr. Neil Hair

It struck me earlier this week that another reason for having a personal website other then self branding (see previous posts) is the fascination attributed to examining web traffic. Two weeks ago my site was visited by someone from Tajikistan. I must have spent 20 minutes trying to recall acquaintances from that region. South Korea, Australia, Norway, South Africa, Japan, Brazil and of course occasionally people from England hit my site and stay a while. One of the benefits of being a professor is the varied peoples you come across, as colleagues, students, research associates and so on. Occasionally though, you get a hit from a country like Norway and you immediately recall a good friend from your undergraduate college days. Morten, if you're reading this, get in touch – I've lost your details. It's a kind of personal friends reunited (a British site that has gained ledgendary status in terms of traffic). Of course there are many commercial reasons for tracking visitors to your site: it's useful for seeing who is looking over your digital resume, which search engine and what terms have been used to get to you so you can better place yourself, how long people stay (perhaps an indication of interest in what you have to say) in which sections of your site (if photos are more popular then your resume perhaps more friends are visiting you), and looking at the screen resolution or browser people use to peruse the site (you want to look good afterall and can redesign your site to take these factors into account). Fascinating stuff. And for those of you that don't know, Tajikistan is a small Asian country that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China.