Blogger Stats Serendipity

When I make a posting I generally check my (unimpressive) stats. One of the things I look at is the "Referrers" listing. I have always expected that mostly family and friends read my blog (borne out by the high percentage of repeat visitors), but I always wonder how the uninitiated find me. If there's a search query listed, I can follow that link. Clicking on the search link gives me the same results. When the search results display I can see where my blog shows up, and what triggered its appearance in the results list.

The other day a search query was shown; I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was a fairly non-specific request including "pain" and "kidney". I know there were over 85 pages of Google responses to the query, because I skimmed through that many before I gave up, not having seen my blog's entry. I hope that the questor found something useful in all the search results retrieved ...

I just checked another search query from my referrals, this one for "how common is it to have eye cancer and renal cell". My posting "End Game" showed up, as well as this rather more useful abstract on PubMed.

The rather scary sentence in that abstract, "Newer systemic treatments available for renal tumors, such as interferon alfa, may lead to ocular side effects including retinopathy" gives one pause, doesn't it? These thoughts come to mind immediately:
1. I think I'd like to read the article in full
2. I'm glad Dr G keeps up with his research, because he certainly knows about it
3. I think I'd like to find a good way to keep up with research myself

I guess I was "righter" than I thought when posting earlier. The longer we take these new drugs, the more we learn.

Saint H is sleeping a lot and recovering nicely. What a relief!