My husband John wrote a little program in Fortran to count the hits on our respective web pages. It's so much easier to use than one of the web counter companies since I don't have to fire up a browser to do it. I'm happy, because none of the companies I'd used before could differentiate between me and anyone else, not to mention counting reloads as a hit. Now I have a reasonably accurate count. Of course, I've had 360 hits in one month, and he's had 8000 hits on his Jacqueline Bisset Appreciation Page in one month. Not that I care, oh no, not me, nope nope nope.
Truthfully, I'm kind of proud of averaging more than 300 hits a month for a personal journal. I really like reading other people's journals, too, so much so that I get a bit annoyed at people who don't take much time or effort to present their thoughts in a coherent or interesting fashion. In fact, I've bitched and moaned so much about the number of poorly written, badly designed journals around that I've decided to do something about it. Yes, I am actually starting my own web ring.
I'm calling it Archipelago. To qualify, a journal has to be well-written, presented attractively (beyond basic HTML but not maxing out on frames and images), and have weekly or more frequent entries. If you're a serious writer a weekly entry isn't that hard to toss off, and if you're just starting out you need a goal to work towards. You can't improve as a writer unless you write regularly, and no one will sit down long enough to read what you write if it isn't attractively laid out. There's a gamut of design styles represented in the people whom I initially invited to join, from beginners to professionals.
Who am I to decide who lives and who dies? Just someone who cares about good writing, and has taken the time to work on her own pages. I have made a couple of professional writing sales, not that that matters in terms of the web ring. I do a journal that meets the above qualifications. And I have the time to manage a web ring.
If you're interested in joining, I'll have a place where you can request a review once the Archipelago ring page is set up. I am a proud member of Open Pages, and I encourage every journal writer online to join that community. Kat welcomes anyone and everyone who keeps a journal, with very few qualifications (all reasonable, I might add). She and I will be linking our ring pages; this is not a competition, this is simply my desire to do a specific collection of pages.
That's the plan. I don't know what it'll do to anyone's hit rates, but at the very least it ought to be a neat place to look at a small group of the finest online journals. Keep on writing.