I can count pageviews, but I can’t count readers

Mark 2026 down as the year that I stopped thinking my blog stats, the pageviews in particular, mean very much. I still check my stats several times a day as if they do. Habits built on obsession die hard. But for years I treated that number as a kind of badge of honor, of proof of relevance. If Down the Road got more pageviews this year than last year, I took that as evidence that the blog was growing and that more people were reading it. I don’t believe that anymore. I think it’s never been true. My faith in the number had been wavering for some time, but took a deep hit earlier this year when suddenly I got a huge influx of pageviews from Hong Kong. I wrote about it then. That storm of views settled down into a steady shower, and recently into a light drizzle. I still don’t know for sure whether the traffic is bots, or whether a few of my articles showed up in some forums there and lots of people clicked. I’ll never know, I’m sure. My stats for the year, as of Monday of this week…