#block anonymous

First, go to the website statcounter.com

Next, sign up for a new account. You should see this button next to the "Home" button at the top.

Follow the directions and sign up for an account.

It will then prompt you to create a project. Put in your tumblr url. You can also name the project anything you'd like. But if you don't want to name it, it will automatically put in your tumblr url as the project name.

Make sure that "Make Statistics Public" is unchecked, and that invisible tracking is checked. (Unless you want your statcounter to show on your blog to ward off any future haters!) See the picture for reference.

Click "Add new project" at the bottom

This will bring you up to a page with a list of many different types of websites. Click on Tumblr.

This will bring up a code and how to install it. Ignore how to install the code. I will tell you a different way that is better. The way they have you install the code only lets you see who comes to your main blog page. The way I will show you will let you see people that come to your main blog page and your ask, as well as any other pages you have. This is useful because people might go directly to your ask without going to your main blog page first!

Using the standard code, copy it and then paste it into your description on Tumblr. It doesn't matter where in your description, and it won't show up on your blog! Make sure to save after you do this. See picture for reference.

After that is done, click "Check installation" at the bottom of the statcounter page. This will check and make sure that it works.

Congrats, you can now track the IP addresses of the anons that come onto your page! Now here's how to navigate the statcounter page.

You will see something that looks like this. Click on the title of your project (whatever you titled your project in the beginning, most likely your tumblr blog name).

On the left side, you will see a bunch of different links. Click "popular pages". See picture for reference.

This should bring up a list of all of your pages, including your main page, ask, etc. Click where it says "____ hits" next to either your main blog page, your ask, or whatever page you want to see who was on it. Don't click your blog url, because that will take you to your blog. See picture for reference.

And there you go! You can now see the IP addresses of anonymous people who come to your page and into your ask box, as well as their general location.

It shows the time which they were on the page, however the time is in military time, so you might need to convert it.

The way you can find out which IP address matches up with which anonymous message on tumblr is either by 1). knowing the roundabout time the message was sent and comparing it to the stat counter (Example: You checked your blog at 5:00 pm and you didn't have any messages, and then you checked it at 7:00pm and you had two messages. You check the statcounter and there was two people on your ask page, one at 5:30pm and one at 6:15pm. The first message in your inbox is then the person at 5:30pm on the statcounter, and the second message is the person at 6:15pm!) or 2). Installing an extension onto tumblr like xkit, which allows you to see the times messages were received on tumblr (you can find a link to download this here), and then compare this time to the time on the statcounter

Side notes:

With statcounter, you can also see how people find your blog, how long they stay on your blog, etc. But that's not necessary for this tutorial, so you can explore that on your own!

Sometimes it takes a while for statcounter to catch up. If you get a message and you don't see anything on the statcounter, give it a little while!

Sometimes statcounter messes up and misses some people that were on your blog, but for the most part it works 90% of the time!

Now, let's talk about how to block the IP address of a person that you don't want accessing your blog!

Obtain the person's IP address, whether it be from the way described above or another way.

Go to this website: freehostedscripts.net/blockip/

Copy the IP address you want to block into the white box. If you have multiple IP addresses, separate them using commas. (See pictures for reference). Note: I made up the IP addresses lol

Next, enter the website you want the person to be redirected to when they try to go on your blog. The default is google, but if you want to change the website, go for it. :) See picture for reference.

Next, click "generate the html code" button. This will bring up a code for you to paste into your code on tumblr. Copy this code.

Go to your blog and go to "edit theme" in the top right corner, then under "custom theme" click "edit html" at the very top.

Now you need to find the "head" tag to post this IP blocking code under. To do this, click command F on your keyboard, and type in the word head. You are looking for the word <head> (It should be right at the top, but just in case it isn't, do the command F thing).

Copy and paste the IP blocking code directly below the word <head>. See picture for reference.

Click save! If you want to check to make sure it worked, try adding your IP address to the block list. (Find your IP by typing in "what is my IP" into google.) Then try going to your blog, and it should redirect you to whatever website you put in!

To then "unblock" yourself, go to tumblr.com, which brings you to your dashboard, and click customize on the right side, and then go to "edit html" like before and delete your IP address from the code!

If you ever need to add another IP to this block list, all you have to do is go into the code and add the IP address right below the last one in the list in the exact same format! See picture for reference of where in code to put a new IP you want to block.