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Damn Lies And Statistics
March has been a good month for EURSOC - one of our best, with daily readership up 30 percent on the previous months.
So, it's worth having a quick look at what's sending all you new folk here. EURSOC's site stats usually give an interesting snapshot of what people want from the news, given that quite a lot of our non-regular readership comes via Google.
There are a few surprises.
One would expect the French elections, less than a month away, to feature strongly. In recent years, centre-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has been our number one search term, with English speaking readers wanting to find out something of this ambitious politician.
Only briefly last year did his left-wing rival, Ségolène Royal overtake Sarko in EURSOC's search strings - this coincided with polls which suggested she would walk the presidency - polls which persuaded Socialist Party members to vote for her as their party's candidate.
In March 2007, Royal is way down the polls in 30th place.
Sarkozy shouldn't snigger: He comes 18th - barely much higher - while François Bayrou, the centrist "Third Man" who has spooked both Sarkozy and Royal comes 17th.
Most surprising of all, however, is the appearance of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen at 7th: The only politician to make it into the top ten.
Unsurprisingly, Iran features heavily in the searches. What with its nuclear programme, its reported interference in Iraq and this weekend its holding hostage 15 British sailors and Royal Marines, this state is rarely far from the headlines. But the search statistics also show another side of Iran: A sex tape rumoured to feature Iranian actress Zahra Amir Ebrahimi is narrowly edged out of the top searches.
The decision by France's space agency to open its files on UFOs comes second in the list - though variations of "French UFOs" and "UFO France" fill many of the top searches.
However, the top search for March (to date) is a surprising one, at least for us: A full 4 percent of people coming to EURSOC from Google have come in search of information on Prince William's girlfriend, Kate Middleton. Or perhaps his ex-girlfriend. It's not clear, as he was last spotted groping a Brazilian on the front cover of The Sun today.
Who said interest in the Royals was dead? In response, we're changing EURSOC once again to ROYAL EURSOC, a Hello! style celebrity magazine focussing on the lives of the young Royals.
Or maybe we should have saved that headline for April 1st?
