When I look at the viewing statistics for my blog I see that last month was the biggest month ever, in spite of the fact that I didn't post much, and that I was on holiday for half of the month.  Actually, there was quite a big increase compared with the previous month.  This leads me to suppose that blog stats can only ever go up.

When I worked at Microsoft, "the management" collected bloggers' stats each month.  In fact, it was a key metric that our performance was measured on, and one that I never excelled in.  I don't think I'm giving away any secrets there.  Sure, when you read a blog that's from a Microsoft employee you can probably expect that blogging is a part of his/her job that they're measured on, but that doesn't make the blog less valuable.  Although there are a few worthless ones :-)

In general I think bloggers are seen as people donating their knowledge out of a spirit of generosity, and for a great many that is so, but you should always keep in mind that quite a few blogs are created and maintained just because the boss says so.

I'm sure other technology companies encourage blogging among their staff too.  This is not a "Microsoft is evil" post. Blogging has become a very important marketing channel for technology companies.

The good news is that most bloggers who do well at achieving high stats do so because their content is high quality and they keep it coming at a prodigious rate, whether or not their boss is keeping score.  But I must say I have known a couple of blogs that managed to achieve high numbers without seeming (to me) very worthwhile.  There are all kinds of tricks a wise blogger can carry out that will hugely inflate their stats, more quickly than generating a lot of useful content that a lot of people want.  Unfortunately, many employers can't see beyond the raw numbers.  Quantity beats quality every time.

When you're reading blogs, why not see if you can tell whether the blogger is playing a numbers game...?