Do you ever wonder what WordPress decides are your top posts? I do. I’ve been posting a lot lately, and that means lots of new people come along and like my most recent blogging mess. I get an email that gives little information but a name, a gravatar (seriously, what is the point of those?) and their three top posts. Usually I’ll click one of them to see what is so special, then go to the home page, scroll down a few posts looking to see if we actually DO have anything in common, then to the about (if there is one) page.
As an experiment, I tried liking my last post myself. No, I’m not a raging narcissist! I was hoping I’d get one of those emails about my own blog. No such luck!
Unless you know another method to figure out how WP decides this stuff, I propose the following: like this post, and I’ll collect the emails by a cropped screen-shot (email not included) and post all of the results in another post. Should be interesting, no?
And if anyone wants to do me the same favour, I’d be grateful – I’m so curious!
heretherebespiders 
Have you checked out your stats page – on mine it tells me which post has had the most views and you can check by week, month or year. Its fun to check out what most people are viewing, as remember it is only those of us that are word-pressers that can like the page – or at least I think it is!!
Would you like to see what the email says?
why not – go for it
PS yours says –
Great posts worth seeing from heretherebespiders:
Because I Can’t Deal With The Pain in the World Today
Scorchio!
Gazania!
Really? All very recent ones. Not the ones I get hits on every day by any means!
Oh is is easier than screen shots: yours are very recent, too:
Garden flowers – June update
Long-eared owls
Garden – June Update
Interesting, so it looks like newish ones – thanks for sharing!
I must say, if I get an unexpected urge to see that stuff, I go to the stats page. I’m not new to your blog, so I don’t get that stuff any more if you Like something on my blog. I’m completely befuddled sometimes by why some people Like and Follow my blog – it certainly doesn’t appear we have anything in common. How did they find me? Why did I come up on any possible search they might have been doing? The ways of WP are mysterious and incomprehensible…
I still get the emails: yours are:
Two steps forward, one step back
Words under pressure #22
I am weak…
Not the most recent, but ones which have had a fairly large share of likes and comments recently…
I think most of the people I choose to interact with are ones I saw commenting on a blog I like, and we saw each other a bunch of times, but one time someone said a thing that sparked interest. I don’t hunt anyone down, or grasp for new readers (I do NOT tag photography as it gets me a dozen who just want to promote themselves, no thanks). I used to have a comment lounge, too, but it dropped away. Not many of ‘my people’ talk to another here, which is kind of a bummer.
We’ve been having some good conversations – let’s lure in some poor unsuspecting souls to join in the weird fun!
WP uses your meta tags to display them in the reader. Many people, myself included, use the reader to find posts with the ‘Gardening’ tag.
I’ll bet that any drive-by reading is done through that.
I always thought it was a simple random selection of posts from your most recent posts.
Sometimes a person’s about page is in the list, and they have many more recent posts, so that never made sense to me.
Yours are:
Wordless Wednesday: First Bloom Opened
Not Really Feeling It… REDUX
When Life Doesn’t Give You Lemons
Those are…. Random. O.o
None of those are particularly highly visited… Or even have a higher number of likes. I have other posts that did far better.
I’m thinking it really is a random selection.
It might be interesting to revisit this in a month or so, to see what has changed!
I used to be magnetically fascinated with my WordPress stats. Of course, they redesigned the stats page so you couldn’t get information off it nearly as easily, and at the same time the non-Wordpress Feedjit widget that used to tell me accurately what people were looking at from where turned to shit, so that it now only records a hit as being from the terminal WordPress server out in CA somewhere. It’s funny how in the digital world. people spend so much time fixing things that aren’t broken.
But if the stats page were still as informative as it used to be, you’d know lots about what people were reading and where they were coming from. I used to quite enjoy seeing hits from locations where I knew I had friends, even if they didn’t leave a comment till later.
My top all time post, of course, was the one about underpants.
I used to not be able to go a day without looking – now I forget for ages.
Mine isn’t a good one at all, shame about that. Underpants are more interesting.
Your list:
Limericks
Bite My Ass, Victoria
The Princess And The Pee
Hmm, I didn’t realize this was a “thing”. I gotta start paying attention to things. Maybe. 🙂
I’m just curious as to what a random program decides is important about my blog!
Yours:
Alone vs. Lonely
Yes, I Really Have That Eating Disorder
Please Shut Up About Your Diet
So, I am guessing most comments in the past few months based on those and/or most recent. Helpful, I know.
Not sure. Kalamain up there said his are really random and not the most popular recently. *shrugs*
What is the formula to decide which post to highlight in those emails – and at the bottom of posts? Sure, some computerized logic, but if you do odd titles/topics, it throws them for a loop (which I have pointed out to WP when they first started stuff like “we think you’d like these blogs.” It would be so easy to sort and group if bloggers weren’t creative or using puns or sarcasm.
Right now my Reader is not working…either WP is making a point about being obnoxious, the WP techies are at it again, or my computer/browerse needs updating ( most likely, but yawn, so lazy here)
I don’t bother with reader, as I think it skews the actual site stats for other bloggers. I’d like them to know someone was looking!
And they better not take away our puns – we’d have nothing left 🙂
Phil du jour:
Not Cows. And not acceptable.
Rats to figs.
Getting tanked.
Okie doke. I clicked the like button, but I have no idea what the screen shots you’re talking about mean. I used to really work at blogging, but not anymore, I notice I’ve settled into a group of folks I really enjoy knowing what’s going on personally in their lives.
I like to know what they’re going through. When they’re ticked off. Or what tickles them. I’ve discovered we’re all more alike than different and that gives me great hope.
I especially enjoy reading about what’s going on in their neck of the woods. (Kind of like virtual travel).
And….that brings up a question. You left a comment on my blog that ICED tea wasn’t a thing in Ireland. So do the Irish put ice in their MiWadi or Red Lemonades? Just curious.
I figured out I can just copy and paste if someone comments! Way easier. Yours are:
Before Morning Breaks Considers Changing Buttletts
What They Don’t Tell You About the Wonderland Trail
A Tube of Tea, please?
I’ll reply to the question over on yours!
Oh wow.. I had thought I was the only one. How I find blogs I like… I am on a blog and some one writes a comment I am impressed by! I am on a blog I have commented a few times and someone adds something to it and I am stunned I have written a post just to get an issue off of my back and an incredibly wonderful person will respond. I have to admit I have a bunch of blogs that I do try to keep up with that seem to be in a orbit around a blog I found I have no idea why, but I love it. And the people who go to it. I think the blogs I try so hard to get to are ones I found there. However I have far overdone myself and now am trying to cut back. Because I got so willing to go to any blog, even ones I had no interest in, I couldn’t give the time to the blogs I liked enough time. I have three categories on my favorites list of blogs, each having 75 blogs each. I can not possibly get to each blog each day, so I find myself skipping days and then having to go back in time to read each post. No I have to slim down. I was very very lucky to find this blog. Again through a blog I go to that I like, now this one is one of my most favorites. As to the WordPress stuff ( I have the premium package ) it is worthless to me for either finding blogs or trying to keep up with ones I like. I hate the reader and prefer to just keep my own favorites list. I have to say if you find a blog that has stuff that interest you, and the people who comment interst you, that is the best way to build your blog lists. right now I have many people who wrote me who had poetry blogs and I added them… but I don’t understand poetry and don’t really appreciate the works. so it is not good for me or them. Now I did just find a really grand short story fiction writer.. like a half post long and it burned my mind how grand he was. My point is you can have too many blogs in your daily list, and you can afford to be yourself and find one that sparks your mind on fire. Hugs
I’ve not idea what you wanted me to like the post for cos it’s too early in the morning and I am easily confused, but I liked the post so I liked it, if you catch my drift 🙂
Oh, it was to see what WP says are your top posts, according to an email I get when you like my post. Yours are:
Making referrals
Codding about….
Sunshine and Scotland
Yeah, that’s my three last ones lol Maybe it only goes back so far