From LinkedIn profile peeping to blog surfing, nothing you do on the Web is a secret. (Nor “semi-private,” as the Mayor of Arlington, TN will tell you.) It’s not that Big Brother is spying on you, it’s that everywhere you go, your Internet browser leaves behind a trail.

A recent example: a White House staffer reads Suburban Turmoil and Lindsay Ferrier has the screen shots to prove it.

Is it cool and fabulous that a person inside the most powerful office in the world reads Lindsay’s blog? Um, totally! Did he for one minute think the author of the blog would ever know, much less write about said visit? Nope.

Know this: nearly all Web authors–including this one–check their Google Analytics and/or StatPress-type visitor logs. We’re curious about the number of folks who find our writing interesting, how often you come back, etc. It’s actually sort of an obsession akin to watching a Chia Pet grow.

We can’t see your name or street address, but we know your city and state. We can’t see the name of your company, but we usually can see the server upon which you surf (state/federal employees!). We can even see what search term you used to find us, what Website referred you, how long you hung around and what links you clicked on.

If knowing content managers are spying on your stats makes you feel a tad icky, I’m sorry I’ve made you feel uncomfortable. That said, you know how I feel about your Web wanderings: a healthy dose of caution is always a good thing.

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If you have a blog of your own, then you know how fun it is to obsess over scan your Google Analytics account for the search terms by which folks are finding you, what state they live in, how long they stayed on your site, etc. Most of the time, the search terms that lead folks to you make sense; in my case: Margie Newman, Margie Maddux, Nashville PR, Twitter is useless, Internet privacy, Google yourself, Internal communications, etc.

But sometimes, folks find you by typing in weird stuff like:

And:

Or they come to you in their quest for answers like:

And:

And:

But it’s always the most fun when – every now and then – folks stumble upon Flackrabbit in search of things I’m really honored to be associated with like:

Please know that whatever term, quest or curiosity brings you here — I appreciate your readership! Thanks for stopping by!

I’ve had a few folks ask me what program I use to tell who is finding FlackRabbit through searching for stuff on Google. It’s called Google Analytics and it’s free, but you are gonna have to have a web dude hook it up for you or be a web dude yourself. Thanks, Dave!

Anyway, Analytics tells me how many visitors I get to my site, what they click on when they get there, where they found my link (Facebook, Twitter, some blog, etc.), what state and city they live in, how long they stayed on the site,  what page they exited from, etc.  My favorite thing though is the list of terms called Google Keywords. I can scroll through the list and find the terms folks Googled that then led them to my site.

Like this one:

What? I know. I have no clue why my website pops up when someone Googles this. Or this. Which is why it’s so funny.

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Oh, Google Analytics! Because of you, Feedburner and (the new love of my life) StatZen, I am able to obsess over site traffic, referrers, clicks, attention, subcribers and (rejoice!) how folks actually find FlackRabbit!

There are the obvious ways people get here. Like yesterday, when KamiChat re-tweeted my Twitter about her post. Within an hour or two, lots of new and fabulous eyeballs and RSS subscribers landed here (Thanks, sister! Welcome new folks!)

And then there is the way of the Google Keyword.

Here’s my favorite one:

Sure, some folks find FlackRabbit by Googling flack, public relations, Twitter is Useless and the like. But this guy took the road less traveled by. And you know what  they say about that. Welcome, kind Google searcher!

Second keyword runner up is:

"Margie Newman blog pictures Nashville"

No, this one isn’t funny at all, but it is interesting. No worries, Googler. You may find the great and powerful Picalicious here. But hurry! Only 29 days left to soak in the picture-a-day goodness.

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It seems like all the cool kids use Feedburner to track their blog subscribers and site traffic, so I thought I’d give it a shot. At first, I was in love! Four days later I’m livid.

The hubby had previously set me up with Google Analytics, which I adore but it doesn’t track feeds. Since Google just purchased Feedburner, I figured it would be intuitive and user friendly. Oh, honey. It was neither for me.

Last week I set up my free account, followed all the instructions and tried to complete it on my own, but had to have the hubby set up my FlackRabbit blog with the Feedburner widget thing.

It was working for a couple of days. It was so fun to track hits in real time and see how many subscribers were clicking on links in my feed. The “site visits” tracker never worked, but I was okay with that as long as my feeds were tracking.

And then today Feedburner wiped all my info from the chart. Gone.

I was already a little miffed at the time (2 to 4 hours) Feedburner takes to send my blog posts to Google Reader. Now they’ve erased my subcribers all together! Quality.

Of course, the fastest way to make me love you is to kill me with great customer service so maybe I’ll just … oh wait. That’s right. They don’t service anyone. No phone numbers, no email, no online form – just forums. Forums that NO ONE from Feedburner responds to. Classy.

So, FlackRabbit subscribers (Last time I checked there were about a dozen of you) could one of you you shoot me a note or comment if you have received this in a feed reader of any type? I can’t tell if my “zero” from Feedburner means you all left or if Feedburner just likes to make me cry.

Thanks! In the meantime, I’ll keep my feed running through Feedburner just to see if it will fix itself – and I’ll re-pledge my allegiance to Google Analytics.