Statistics for the third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

As I wrote in Happy Nowruz and happy birthday to the blog, "I'll have the past year's statistics tomorrow.  Stay tuned."  It's tomorrow, so it's time to start the cycle all over again, just as I did last year and two years ago.

During the third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, from March 21, 2013 to March 20, 2014, I posted 785 entries, the readers and I posted 304 comments, and the blog received 127,945 page views.*  In comparison, during the second year of this blog I posted 493 entries, readers posted 129 comments, and the blog received 97,535 page views while during the first full year I made 483 posts, readers and I posted 204 comments, and the blog received 47,808 page views.  The total page views increased by 30,410 (31.18% more) from last year but required 292 more entries (59.2% more) to get that increase.  The higher effort required to increase readership is reflected in the numbers of page views per entry (162.99) for this year, which is less than the same ratio last year (197.84).  I'm starting to reach the point of diminishing returns.  However, I am able to point to the average page views per month with pride.  The first year saw 3984 views/month, the second 8127.92 views/month, and this year 10,662.08 page views per month.  When I told Chris Savage of Eclectablog last year that my blog was starting to get 10,000 page views/month, he appeared impressed.  I'm glad I've been able to maintain that level.  Here's to building on it.

The one statistic I found disappointing last year has dramatically improved this year--comments.  This is what I wrote about the lack of reader participation in last year's report.

Like last year, the only stat I find disappointing is the number of comments.  More people are reading, but fewer of them are commenting.  Readers left 75 fewer comments this year than last year.   That's 0.26 comments/post, 10.75 comments/month, and 0.0013 comments per page view.  Those are all striking declines from last year's 0.42 comments per post, 17 comments per month, and 0.0043 comments per page view.  I enjoy the increased readership, but wouldn't mind more reader participation, even if it means arguing with denialists.  That would be a step up from spammers.

I can say that reader participation, even if a lot of them are still spammers, is way up.  This year, the blog received 304 comments, nearly double the 333 from the first two years combined.  Running comparable numbers to last year, that translates to 0.39 comments/entry, 25.33 comments per month, and 0.0285 comments per page view.  That last was such a huge jump that I double-checked the previous year's calculations; they were correct.  Keep those comments coming.  I have and will respond to the best ones in entries of their own.

One final statistical note that I haven't mentioned before--it looks like the Chinese have discovered the blog.  During the entire three years, readers from China have contributed 3107 page views, 1423 of them during the 30 days before March 20th alone.  That's 46.0% of the total for China.  That surge catapulted China ahead of Australia and Ukraine into seventh place among countries in my audience.  Maybe I should write more entries about China.

That's it for general statistics.  The next installment will begin the reverse countdown of most viewed posts from the past year.  Given the topic of this blog, it should come as no surprise that one of those most viewed entries is about this structure.


*I am recording these stats from Midnight EDT to Midnight EDT on March 21 of successive years.  It would be easier to record using Midnight GMT, as that is the default time zone of the stats recorder, but I want to count full days here, not London.

Previous entries in this series.

Happy Nowruz and happy birthday to the blog