Appealing to the Masses

At the risk of coming across as cocky, pretentious, and like we just received a diploma from Mr. Jefferson's University, we here at the Red Army Digest are both pleased and honored to announce that we have established a loyal fan base that encompasses much of the globe. Yes fellow Comrades, it is true. While Stalin's dream of Communist Red covering the globe (interesting fact: this dream was also shared by paint enthusiast Sherman William's) was never realized, the R.A.D.'s dream of being read by anyone living on the globe is most certainly being achieved. From Bangkok to Brasilia, people, for reasons simply unexplainable, can't get enough of the Red Army.

Where are these facts coming from? Well, Blogger (the company that publishes this blog) recently updated its metric that tracks hits that each blog generates. Blogger added two very interesting new tools that news sources (like us) can use to see just who exactly is scrolling through the content. Those tools are 1) an audience map, which shows exactly how many hits have been generated from specific countries, and 2) traffic sources, which shows what sites link this blog the most frequently and what are the most popular keywords searched that bring people to the blog.

Get it? Good.

So what country reads us the most? Well, not surprisingly, the United States of America. This week, 97% of our readers were reading while on American soil. The other 3% was made up of Canada, Georgia (where the Soviets have obvious ties), South Korea, Germany, and the Netherlands. But this week was not ordinary, and to get a grander scope of things let's zoom out to last month, where the US supplied only 71% of the readers. Brazil, Luxembourg, and Lithuania joined the mix, but none rivaled the interest shown by Germany, who gave us 27% of our viewers. Who does anyone know in Germany that would follow the Red Army? Surely it is a fluke right? The month is an out liar? Well, not really. All time, 32% of our readers have been from Germany. Other countries with significant contributions (over 1%) include Russia, Ukraine, and all of the aforementioned countries sans Georgia (come on Peter, you're living in the only country we'd expect to give us hits and you're giving us >1% effort... this isn't Target).

So why the German love affair? We have absolutely no idea, we only know that both Tony Horton and Scott Hoefer are somehow involved.

Next, we move to the traffic sources. The first half of this is expected. Of the top 10 places people click to read an article on the Red Army hockey team, four are from the Prestige Worldwide blog, three are from Google (US, UK, and RU), one is from Peter and Alene's blog, one is from the blogger website, and one is from Facebook.

But the searches? The things that have been searched enough (sometimes only twice) to make the top 10 keywords people search while trying to find the blog? Well, take a look for yourself:

#10: Brad Lotocki the knot
#9: Brad Lotocki dating
#8: Army fisting
#7: Andy Schram fetish porn
#6: "Andy Schram" dead
#5: Ryan Odell
#4: Red Army blog
#3: Phil Tiller
#2: Brad Lotocki
#1: Red Army Digest

What to make of all of this? Who loves Brad and hates Andy? Who the hell is Phil Tiller? Well, we don't know the answer to any of those questions except the last one: he was Neal and Brian Hendricks' high school cross country coach. Why is he on the list? Your guess is as good as ours. The only thing we can clear up is the "Army fisting" search, which we are guessing (keyword here: guessing) is in reference to the article "Red Army Fists Shockers", in which Ben Breiterman KO'd Loges. That article remains one of the highest read articles in R.A.D. history, and logic would dictate that people simply searched the article's title when being told by friends. Still, given Andy Schram's apparent affinity for fetish porn, I would not eliminate ulterior motives from being sought while searching.

So what do we make of all of this? How can we use this information to increase our popularity even more? Well, we don't really know yet. All we do know is that there is going to be a dramatic increase in Nazi jokes.

Happy Rosh Hashanah everyone!