Monday, December 31, 2012

Pigs, Spies and Statistics

As the end of the year is coming closer, we decided to take a look at the statistics of our blog. Let's start with the pageviews.


On a typical day in december, we got between 200 and 500 pageviews. Before December, we had between 50 and 250 pageviews. As you can see, the traffic to our blog has been rising steadily, with drops when you all go on holiday, and rises in between the holidays. You can also see that December is a bit unusual. In 2012, on average, we had about 3,000 pageviews a month (in 2011 this was about 2,000, so hurray!). But not this December, where we had a whopping 8,000+ pageviews. Although we like to think we are pretty awesome, we suspect that this is mainly due to the increased attention from spammers (which is no fun, especially when you’re a pig..). We now delete quite a lot of spam on a daily basis. So take the rest of this post with a grain of salt. We like overviews but we cannot say for sure how reliable they are. If we suspect messy results because of the spam, we’ll add an *

Most Popular Posts

1. Friday Video: Wink (2,305 views)*
2. Internet memes: LOLpigz (1,989 views)
3. Friday Video: Mouse for Sale (1,043 views)
4. Who should we donate the calendar proceeds (912 views)
5. Friday Video: Talking Guinea Pig Babies (611 views)*
6. The Undercover Guinea Pigs Calendar (491 views)
7. Dealing with Bloat (477 views, from 2010)
8. A Surprise for us all (441 views)
9. Can we eat Chinese Leaf? (277 views, from 2011)
10. Guinygirlz DIY cage (231 views, from 2011)

So, what do we get from this? What we really liked was the response we got when it was time to vote for the calendar. We love it when the guinea pig community gets together to help shelters. Makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside. We can also see that you seem to like the Friday Video’s, so we'll keep that up (although I wouldn’t bet any money on the Wink Friday Video, since that one in particular got a lot of spam comments). What also surprised us, is the number of page views from the relatively old bloat-post. It is making us wonder if we should put up more health and DYI posts so that people can look up stuff.

Spies
As undercover pigs, we do like to know who the pigs are that are visiting our blog. Since us editor-piggies met on the GPDD, we already know we are quite an international bunch.

So how do you guys get here? As far as we can tell, you Google us, or type in the web adress directly in the browser or have our blog bookmarked. We also get a lot of traffic from Twitter and the Guinea Pig forum.

When visitors enter our blog because of their search terms, they typically do this with the following search terms:

1.    undercover guinea pigs (177x)
2.    funny guinea pigs (89x)
3.    funny guinea pigs (81x)
4.    FUNNY GUINEA PIGS (76x)
5.    guinea pig funny (47x)
6.    funny guinea pig pictures (36x)
7.    guinea pig hay rack ides (32x)
8.    sleeping guinea pigs (26x)
9.    guinea pig hay rack (24x)
10.    guinea pig bloat (20x)

Who knew? Google thinks we’re funny.

Boring stuff


Back in 2008 when we started our blog (well actually, restarted), Internet Explorer was by far the most popular browser among our visitors. In 2012, Firefox is on top of the list (36%). Followed by Internet Explorer (29%), Chrome (14%) and Safari (12%). Also, mobile use of the blog has risen (not that much, but compared to nothing just a short while ago, it is a lot more (4% is about 3,700 pageviews). You can also see that when you look at the operating system stats.

Even though Windows is still the most popular operating system. A huge chunk of it’s competition is taken by the iPhones and the Androids. Why is this interesting? Well, this way we know that when we put something on the blog, it would be nice if it works on smartphones too.

Personal favorites
Most of you visit this blog frequently and then read the most recent posts. We are really happy with these type of visits, but it also means that we cannot see which posts you liked most since those visits add to the general stats (don’t feel bad, we don’t mind ;-) ). Also, numbers don’t equal a giggle or an ‘awww’.

We love sleeping.. err blogposts
That is why we wanted to highlight our favorite posts. For us, it were the blogposts that featured sleeping piggies both the Sleep Research and the Olympigs Fifty Yard Nap.

So.. which blogposts were your favorite?

Friday, December 28, 2012

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Friday Video: 12 Days of Christmas

Yes. We know it is not a friday, but it is Christmas, and with those 12 days, there must be a friday in there somewhere.



Merry Pigmas!

p.s. If you haven't checked the blog today, be sure to scroll down and check the lovely pigtures from agent Schilling

Merry Christmas from Agent Schilling!

Agent Schilling is happy to report she had a great Christmas!  She received a comfy cave to snuggle in, and a big stack of hay tubes just perfect for munching! 

Agent Schilling sends lots of love to all of her piggy friends around the world. 

Monday, December 24, 2012

Happy Holidays!

Merry Pigamus from Agents Butterloaf and Cannonball!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Season's Greetings from the Piggyfriends

Slave chose Susie and Sally aka Agents Gemini to pose 
for our holiday pigtures this year as she thought
that they would sit nicely and not run off across the room.
First of all she picked this one from the photoshoot.

Then she changed the scenery and tempted them to stay
 in place with a stocking full of delicious carrots.
 
After a while even Sally and Susie's patience was exhausted
 and they trashed the set. Never mind.
They did get an extra carrot each for pigticipating.


Wishing everypig and every Slave a wonderful Yuletide, Christmas, Holiday, Hannukah or whatever you celebrate.

Glasses of carrot wine all round. Cheers.

From the Piggyfriends with Slave Penny - Nollag Shona. (Slave is Irish and knows all kinds of strange words and, in case you are wondering, this means Merry Christmas).

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Vote for the Christmas Mouse - Puppy love jewelry


Our Guinea friend Puppy is taking part in a Christmas mouse voting again this year,

with all his guinea pig pals dressing up for christmas. You can also follow him (@puppyaguineapig) and his friends: @HoodwintheGpig, @Gideon_Shmeegle, @DobbieJonesGpig, @GabrielleGPig
on twitter




You can vote for him, or any of the other gorgeous piggies here
(or copy paste this link: http://stores.ebay.com/Puppy-Love-Jewelry/Vote-for-The-2012-Christmas-Mouse.html)

Friday, December 21, 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012

All we want for christmas..

is foooood!!!

hugs,
The starving winky team

p.s. J, if you're reading this, yes this is a hint to get off the couch and into the fridge!
p.p.s. a clean cage wouldn't hurt either..

Sunday, December 16, 2012

When Pigs Fly & Calendar orders

We know we have seen this shop somewhere before,
but just wanted to share, they have supercute christmas art now!

When pigs fly on etsy

---

I received the first prints of both desk and wall calendar yesterday and they are both supercute!
I have changed/added the holiday dates you sugested, and added last agent names, I am now ready to order the calendars for you!
I also wanted to let you know you can still order the undercover guinea pigs 2013 Calendar by going to the order calendar tab at the top of this page.
Today I have send out payment requests to everyone who ordered a calendar so far!
Please let me know if you want faster of slower shipping, I indicated the prices of that between brackets. If available slower takes 21 days, faster takes 7 days. Or is something else is not correct.

Wheekz to all piggies out there,
Mieke of the Undercover guinea pigs blog.

p.s. You can still enter the space hopper competition to donate 1 pound to the Potters Guinea Pig Rescue, and a chance for you guinea pig to be a character in Jane Bartholemew's new book!
See the info in the side bar -->

Friday, December 14, 2012

Friday Video: Wink

We do not particularly find this video funny, but hey..  it's a commercial with guinea pigs in it.


Have a nice Wheekend!

p.s. thanx to Vegan Wheekers for tweeting the video

Sunday, December 9, 2012

The Undercover Guinea Pigs Calendar 2013 is ready to be ordered!!



Hi piggy lovers,

I am proud to announce we have finished up the design of the Undercover Guinea pigs Calendar 2013!

A few points of attention:
  • The calendar starts the week on mondays, not on sundays as some people are used to. I mailed the printer, but this cannot be changed. 
  • This year I found out I can change the standard Dutch holiday names, so I will add all the holidays I have on another English calendar, and translate but leave some of the Dutch holidays in. 
  • The Wall calendar sometimes has more than one pigture on the month, because that enabled us to also put lower resolution pigtures in the calendar. The desktop version has one pigture per month. 
Prices
12,50 euro (around 16 USD) for the desk calendar
15 - max 20 euros for the wall calendar (it actually costs almost 20 euros, but the company usually gives discounts)
plus postage and package (from the Netherlands, Europe or the USA for our friends there)

All people who ordered so far have received an email from Mieke, to check of their order is correct, and upcoming week payment requests will be sent using paypal.

Ordering the calendar
Have you not ordered the calendar yet? You still can! There is no set deadline for ordering the calendar, but do keep in mind it will take a few days to weeks for you to receive the calendar.You can choose a wall or desktop version, or buy both, and buy as many as you like.Order the calendar from the order calendar tab above, or visit our order form.

Support a guinea pig shelter
With buying this calendar you will not only get a Desk/wall calendar featuring some of our agents, but you will also support a Guinea pig shelter, which will be chosen through voting on the blog!

Nominate a shelter
You can still nominate a shelter, by commenting on this post, and do tell us why you think they deserve our donation!

Previews
Please notice that we have changed the first pigture to Fugly and his romaine hat!
Desktop version of the Calendar
(click to enlarge)
Wall version of the Calendar (click to enlarge)

Thanks for everyone supplying their gorgeous piggy pics, and everyone ordering a calendar, thus making it possible for us to do the Calendar and donation again this year!

Wheekz,
Mieke

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Calendar Photo

Agent Shyness here with a pigture of me for Fourth of July!

  Agent Shyness out

A Pigture for 2013 Calendar

Agent Shyness (Larry)when reporting with a  Christmas photo of us with Santa!

   Did he know he used to wear a green suit?

  Agent Shyness and Agent Pellets out

Picture for 2013 Guinea Pig Agents Calendar

This is Agent Pellets (Mo) reporting.Here's a picture of me and Agent Shyness (Larry) when we were 6 months old.We're ten months now.

  Do you think we could be in the calendar?

   Agent Pellets and Agent Shyness out

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Calendar 2013: Another Cute contest

Hi guys,

Again we received some pretty pigtures to use for the calendar, and we can't choose which one we like better!! So help is needed, which one do you like best, A or B?

For the month of March we have Diarmuid celebrating Saint Patrick's day (March 17) and Agent wizard celebrating Easter at the end of March

A. Diarmuid
(due to lower resolution Diarmuid, can only be combined with Gandalf on the wall calendar...)

B. Agent Wizard (Gandalf)

p.s. We could still use one or 2 more pigtures for the 2013 Calendar, so all you gorgeous Agents, put your slave to work!