Shamelessmack in Thailand and around

WordPress provides a little bit of information about how readers came to this site and what tags they click. Scrutinising the data for two weeks in January and again the last two weeks has given me a bit of insight into where readers are from and what they’re interested in.

I thought I’d share this with you.

Up to this point, most postings have been about Thailand, as I intended when I began this blog. There have been a few postings about Manila and Kuala Lumpur. Yet, the tag clicks and search keywords indicate that readers are almost as interested in these two other cities as Thailand. Venues in Manila and Kuala Lumpur get many times more clicks than the bars of Pattaya, for example.

See the pattern for yourself. As of April 10th, 2009, the top eight postings (in terms of the cumulative number of hits) are:

1. Massage venues summary 2008

2. Discovering Kuala Lumpur

3. Wet and wild in Bangkok’s gogo bars

4. Friendly Paradise (a massage parlour in Malaysia)

5. Camperboy finds heaven in Tawan

6. Sweet Sam from the Boys of Bora (a massage parlour in Manila)

7. Express bus from Suvarnabhumi airport to Pattaya

8. “Deeper, deeper,” the straight boy moaned

Of the stories about my Thai experiences, “Tawan bar”, “Hero massage” and “Dream Boy” feature among the most popular search keywords and clicked tags. What’s notable about them? These places are favourites with Asian tourists to Bangkok.

This leads me to believe that this blog is not just serving Western travellers interested in Thailand. Instead, many readers may well be Asians, who are also interested in their own countries, probably from Malaysia and the Philippines, countries – unlike Thailand -  in which English is widely used (and therefore they surf English-language blogs). Singapore is another such place that may be the source of many readers – Singaporeans speak English and they love going to Thailand, while Malaysia is just next door to them. Hong Kong may be also be a possible source of many readers.

Then, there are heterosexual visitors too.

In January, there was a surge of hits upon a post about the affordable Bell Travel bus service from Suvarnabhumi airport to Pattaya – number 7 from the top eight above. I discovered that it was due to a link someone had placed onto an online forum for farang tourists planning to holiday in Thailand. That’s fine and good by me, since it was my very intention to aid visitors with useful information, except that the forum catered to heterosexual males who were interested in girls. What did they think when they landed on my blog? Fortunately, no one left adverse comments expressing any kind of shock. I suppose, if you’re into buying girl sex, you would know better than to imagine yourself a cut above those who love men?

Between this interest and the fact that I may be reaching many Asian tourists I think it may be useful if I began to write a bit more about value-for-money tips. Especially in these straightened economic times.

I can also see that many people click through, after reading a post, to the “Directions” page. Thanks for letting me know that they are useful.

Other than that, there isn’t much else I can discern from the limited data. I should add, by way of reassurance, however, that if anonymity is important to you, it has not been breached and (with WordPress) cannot be, even as data is collected about keywords, etc. I don’t know who you are; I only know a little bit about what you click.

One final word: Thank you for reading!