The WordPress stats for your blog will tell you the referrers to your blog, as in what sites have had sent people to your blog. Some of them will be pretty mundane, like the WordPress, search engines, or bloggers you know. But there can be some weird ones, too. Here are some of mine.

The Universal Human Relevance System at https://prod.uhrs.playmsn.com/uhrs/

This is a Microsoft platform that gets real human beings to label data for AI learning purposes. Perhaps they use subpar human beings and that’s why no one is interested in Bing? Except that’s not true about no one being interested in Bing, because the traffic I get from Bing is 1/3 the traffic I get from Google (I would have expected

Swisscows at https://swisscows.com/

This Swiss search engine appears to be like DuckDuckGo but with a G-rating, as in no sexy-business. They say “Family is the most important cell of our society! If morality and decency disappear, then neighborliness and love also disappear.” I wonder how the evaluate “unleashing the alabaster yak“…

Swisscows isn’t the only obscure privacy-oriented search engine out there. I was surprised by how many others sent people to my site.

Jumpstick at https://jumpstick.app/

If anyone remembers StumbleUpon, which has since moved to Mix, Jumpstick seems like the same kind of deal, where it picks a random website to stick in front of your face.

The name makes me think of pogo sticks, which apparently are still around. I associate them with the ’80s, along with the the Pogo Bal (which apparently only has one l).

Asbury Theological Seminary at https://asburyseminary.simplesyllabus.com/ and The Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle at https://dashboard-mn.cenet.catholic.edu.au/

Hmm… When I came across the Catholic Diocese, that was weird enough, but then when I stumbled across the theological seminary, it really made me wonder who, what, when, and how, but mostly why—just why?

Snapchat

Okay, for one, I don’t understand the point of Snapchat. But why would anyone be getting to me from Snapchat? How does that even happen? I also don’t understand TikTok, mostly because I’m far too old, but no one thus far has ventured my way from that corner of the internet.

The Straight Dope Message Board at https://boards.straightdope.com/

They have been “Fighting ignorance since 1973. (It’s taking longer than we thought.)” They also claim to be “Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.” Maybe it’s me being judgy, but message boards seem like the kind of thing that would be magnets for dipsticks, and if it’s only just a few, then it’s not a message board.

People have also made their way to me from Reddit. Snapchat and TikTok I don’t understand because I’m too old, but Reddit I don’t understand in a different way. It claims to be the front page of the internet, but it strikes me as more like the place where people flick their dead skin, toenail clippings, and the hair they shed. How do people not have better things to do with their lives? But that’s me being judgy again…

There are a few different university course sites that link to me, including South University, which is a rather lame name. The fact that it’s located in the American South shouldn’t be an excuse not to come up with an actual name.

Do you have any weird or interesting referral sources for your blog?

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