Behind the Scenes at 30 Dates

Search Engine Terms

One of the features of WordPress, is that it can tell you how people stumble upon your blog.

Some of the search terms are pretty obvious – unsurprisingly the most popular search that has led to my blog is ‘30 Dates Before 30‘, and it was pretty cool when I realised that the blog came out as the top result when you search for ’30 Dates’ on Google.

However, it appears not all of the 63,000+ hits the blog has received to date may have been intentional!

Here are some of the more random (verbatim) searches which have led to the 30 Dates Blog (I’m not altogether sure whether I should be more worried about these hits reaching the blog, or about the people entering some of them into Google in the first place?!)

– screaming dancing prince ok cupid

– Zachary Levi virgin

– miss tea blogspot woman date

– how to redeem yourself after a first impression conversation goes wrong online dating

– friends with benefits with upgrade

– i always have sex in birmingham nightclub toilets

– embrace girl with guy in swimming pool picture xxx

– tinder cheating

– ralph lauren midway vest

– fwb texted me out the blue

– if the world were a village of 100 people “up date”

– cocky treasure hunt ideas for men

– how.can.make.multitime.sex?

– why does a woman dip her finger into someones drink

– unisex toilets shoreditch

Favourite Posts

The stats also show which posts are peoples’ favourites.  Unsurprisingly ‘The Henley Boy‘ has received more attention from blog readers than any of the 30 Dates … probably because he also received way too much attention from me over the three month Challenge!

But close behind him was The Fake Pimpernel …. possibly because he immediately began using the write-up for his own Dating PR the minute it was posted!

Just a few hits behind F-Pimp are overall Challenge Winner ‘The Enigma‘, and housewives’ favourite ‘The One with The Sign‘ – obvious choices.

Perhaps more interesting is the fact that one of my most bland dates is up at the top of the list – Date Six with The School Crush … a date who didn’t even realise I was blogging about him, until last week, when he spotted someone in a flapper dress walking through Reading Town Centre.

It turns out The School Crush knew about my birthday through our mutual friend Ms Tweedy, and when he spotted the girl in 1920s gear, and she mentioned she had been at a birthday party, he asked if it was my party.  Conversation about me moved to my Dating Challenge, at which point he admitted to being one of the thirty dates … only for the mystery 1920s girl (I genuinely have no idea which of my friends this was!) to ask him what his blog name was!

Cue an awkward cluelless conversation and The School Crush rushing home to Google my blog and read his post!  Thank God I wasn’t rude about him!  And now you see why I say my home town is far too small a place to date!

The stats also show that The Oxford Blue, The Surprise Package, The Booby Prize. The Stallion and The Upgrade have all received far less attention than they deserve – so if you’re yet to read about those dates, they’re definitely ones to catch up on!

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

One of the most random features of WordPress, is that the site can tell me which of my photographs have been clicked on most frequently!  Which is especially interesting when you remember I’ve posted photos of a number of my dates recently …

So which of my dates have you been the nosiest about??

Over two hundred of you have watched The Hollywood Actor’s show reel, but the winner of the photo competition (by masses) was The One with The Sign.  Followed by The Skype Date in second (with a photo he apparently hates! Ooops … I feel slightly less guilty about that, after he referred to the 30 Dates Challenge as me ‘slutting it about’!).  A number of you also wanted a closer look at The Fake Pimpernel …. and a large number of people clicked on the almost invisible photo of me and The Enigma on top of the O2 (before I posted a sneaky pic of him in the 30 Dates Challenge in Photos blog post).

On Instagram, more people checked out a picture of my train carriage make-up application on the way to Date Number Four than they did of one of Adam Buxton, and The Best Man with his colourful Notting Hill Snap was the clear winner (and someone made his day by commenting on the blog post about what a hottie he is! Sorry ladies … he’s now moved to Canada!)

Whatever next?

As the Challenge continues and expands, I can only imagine the Google connections getting weirder and weirder (especially given some of the 30 Dating Experiments topics!) and some of the photos accompanying the experiments to get odder!  But until all that kicks off, if you haven’t yet read all the original 30 Dates, I’ve changed the layout of the blog slightly, so there are now quick-links to all thirty of my amazing, crazy, weird and wonderful dates, as well as links to Henley Boy and his now infamous return, in case you missed out on any of it!

Thanks again for reading, please keep spreading the word on Twitter @30Dates and Facebook, and let’s begin experimenting!

Miss Twenty-Nine xxx