www.noahpinion.blog/p/does-anything-i-write-matter-anymore
1 correction found
This feature existed on Blogger in 2006 — whenever another website linked to you, you’d see how many pageviews it drove to your blog.
This conflates separate Google tools. In 2006 Blogger itself showed backlinks, but Blogger’s built-in traffic stats did not launch until 2010; detailed referral/pageview data came from Google Analytics, a separate product.
Full reasoning
The historical record shows two different features:
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Blogger Backlinks (2005) let authors see who linked to a post. Google's official Blogger announcement says Backlinks added a “Links to this post” section populated by links from other blogs. It does not describe pageview counts or referral traffic numbers.
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Blogger Stats (2010) was the later built-in feature for traffic/pageview analytics. Google's official 2010 announcement says Blogger was only then introducing “Stats for Blogger” as a new integrated real-time stats service. That means built-in pageview tracking was not a Blogger feature in 2006.
Google's separate Google Analytics product did exist in 2006 and could show referral information, but that was not the same as a built-in Blogger feature. Google later announced in 2011 that users could connect a Google Analytics account to Blogger, further underscoring that Analytics and Blogger were distinct products.
So the post's sentence is inaccurate because it presents 2006-era referral/pageview reporting as something that "existed on Blogger" itself, when the evidence shows Blogger then had backlinks, while built-in stats came years later and detailed referral analytics belonged to Google Analytics.
3 sources
- Official Blogger Blog: Introducing Backlinks
"We've just introduced a new feature called Backlinks..." and "we include a 'Links to this post' section on your post pages." The announcement describes showing linking posts, not pageview counts from those links.
- Official Blogger Blog: Introducing Blogger Stats
Google announced in 2010: "we are excited to introduce Stats for Blogger" and called it a new "real-time stats service that's fully integrated with Blogger." That places Blogger's built-in traffic stats in 2010, not 2006.
- Official Blogger Blog: Google Analytics support in Blogger
In 2011 Blogger announced users could "easily connect your Google Analytics account with your blog," showing that Analytics was a separate product rather than a built-in Blogger feature in 2006.