Using the standard six block lists my query blocking appeared to be about what others got - about 15% of queries blocked.
Then I blacklisted one additional site - arcus-uswest.amazon.com (probably associated with my Fire Stick). The Fire Stick appeared to work normally after that, and would play the Hulu and Netflix apps on the Fire Stick, so I thought things were fine.
Now, however, a arcus-uswest.amazon.com query is blocked about every three seconds. As of just now, it's been blocked 5767 times in the last day or so since I added it to the blacklist. Okay, that's a success, but it's also hugely more than the next most-blocked, at 41 blocked queries. At the very least, it skews the console's "Percent Blocked" from my previous 15% to a current 75%.
Should I be doing something other than that which I have done?
Edit: Oddly, now it's been 16 minutes since a query from that source.
When you block a domain that a client wants to access, the frequent client behavior is to repeatedly query that domain until it gets a reply from the domain.
This isn't skewing anything - the dashboard is accurately reporting the queries blocked and the math results in 75% of the queries blocked.
Then I take it I haven't missed doing something. The other queries stopped at 41 or fewer, so this does look different.
I suppose I should have phrased it, "The high percentage skews my perception of the results." A 15% blocking might mean I have a lot more work to do to reduce unwanted traffic, while 75% blocking means I don't, at least on the surface.
Why did I block it? Why not, if it's creating traffic that isn't delivering me content I want and is making my system work harder? Perhaps I don't fully understand the purpose of Pi-Hole. if you could straighten me out it might save me a lot of effort.
You can block whatever you wish with Pi-hole (this can be both a good and bad thing). However, when you block things, then clients sometimes behave strangely and the dashboard statistics reflect this new traffic behavior.
I wouldn't worry too much about the block percentage. This is highly depending on your block lists, your clients and your browsing behavior. At this instant, I have 4 Pi-holes running serving four subsets of clients at my house. The block percentages are currently 46%, 17%, 5% and 50%. Tomorrow these numbers will all change, most likely.
Since Pi-hole is an adblocker, if you aren't seeing ads then it is doing its job. You can expand blocking to tracking, telemetry, metrics and the like, but the success of those blocks is not immediately apparent since you don't see any obvious behavior changes unless you block something you should not have blocked (i.e. an app or website stops working).
That's a good explanation, thanks. "Consider your goals and don't necessarily block randomly;" that will save me significant effort.
In my case, the Pi-Hole is on my Internet of Things LAN only, and I don't see ads on it anyway - my goal is to block tracking mostly. I'll start with Wally's checked tracking lists.